I felt so strongly about sharing with those who have become followers of my blog (my fan base… yay!) a very deep and poignant turning point of my life in my last entry. It was something I also wanted to try to relive myself to put to words, because I think that all of us have our own Gethsemane’s to walk through in this life… and I find that whereas I am more than willing to share my inner soul, many around me are not so anxious or willing to. But I feel there are things we all can learn and grow from by pulling together not only the sorrows we are bound to feel in this world, but by being willing and open enough to share the Joys as well!
I pulled a Tao card the other morning called “The Joyous.” This is the energy I have surrounding me so often lately, and it is the thought patterns that helped me to create the preceding entry. I would like to share the paragraph that most touched me from the readings about this card…
Don’t be intimidated by joyousness. It is not something to be embarrassed about, so allow it to suffuse every fiber of your being. It is transforming by being uplifting and can soften even the hardest heart. The more joy is circulated, the stronger its fragrance becomes.
Joyousness is not naïveté; it is the outward expression of a free spirit, of innocence and purity, of the inner smile. Because joyousness bubbles up from within, it is not dependent on external circumstances, nor does it need recognition or gratification. …. Life is inviting you to stimulate and inspire, to spread the goodness. Under these auspicious circumstances, you can’t help but do so. (From the Tao Oracle by Ma Deva Padma).
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE!
It is December 4, 2010.
I am in a deeply satisfying mode in thought and spirit. I want to share it with my family. I want to share it with my friends. I want to share it with the world.
I reflect on my favorite movie of this time of year today. I am in touch with Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Like him, I have so many dreams within me, an exact knowledge of what it is I came to do with my life, but my outer circumstances have kept me in a small town, in a small place, doing something that I’ve never enjoyed doing or thinking about (he continues to operate the small savings and loan building his dad started… trying to give the ones he loves around him a chance to be something in their lives... I am stuck working with money and numbers when I want to build gigantic structures of thought and beauty, wanting to help others find the greatness within their lives...)
Through the greed of the Big Man, George’s close friend has lost (had stolen) nearly all that they had. His world is falling apart, and he can only respond with anger and frustration. He never lived in the world he wanted, and now everything in the world he has been given is falling apart.
He goes into a bar, and in one of the most touching parts of the movie, he says a prayer…
George Bailey: Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me
[begins crying]
George Bailey: show me the way... show me the way.
He is promptly rewarded with a punch in the mouth.
In a story that me, my family, and all of my friends… our country, our planet are involved in… the last few years have been just that. We all got a gigantic punch in the teeth for circumstances that we wonder what we had anything to do with.
This time of year I replay this movie and retell myself that my life makes a difference… that every life around me makes a difference, and what would be missing in my life if my friends had not been there for me! What would be missing in this earth walk if I had not been here either?
In the end, George Bailey finds out he is the richest man in the town, because he has friends who love and care for him! In the time when he is at the bottom, the miracle occurs in his life that opens his eyes to the love that he had been generating all his life, and it came back to him in ways he could not have expected!
My life is like that. My angel Clarence has been walking with me all of my life, and helping me to see what really is going on “behind the scenes” of my outer experience.
It is December 4, 2010.
I feel deeply loved, and I know somehow, that the troubles that surround my life are only temporary things, and that if I live one day at a time in a willing way, life's Love will help me to deal with them, and grow from them!
For myself, I have learned that I have always been in the right place, at the right time for me, even if my brain didn’t think so! So in the turmoil of the storms that surround me, I feel Joyous this moment, and so often in my life.
Sorrow is contagious. Anger is contagious. Frustration is contagious.
Joy is more contagious. Love is more contagious. Hope is more contagious.
It is the later that I would share with all that I love, but my angels have taught me, it first must start inside of me!
My favorite movie saying at this time of year comes from Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens “A Christmas Story.”
“May God bless us, each and every one!”
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
AN AWAKENING: AN ANNIVERSARY
Once you have discovered your hearts desires, and moved to meet them, the Universe works quickly to make them come to be. (A concept gleaned from the Holy Scriptures, The Secret, and Think and Grow Rich.)
It is December 1st, 1978.
I have been out of the military for about 5 months. I am a wreck. I am a drug addict, an alcoholic, and basically living a life that my natural mother’s husband calls “contemplating your belly button.” I am so focused on the hell in my life that I can’t focus on anything else. I left the family I grew up with down in Salt Lake City because they didn’t get me. I came to Boise to live with my natural mother knowing she would get what I was about. She didn’t, her then husband didn’t, and I certainly didn’t.
My half brother was in Jr. High at the time. He was about my only friend at that point in my life, and he was my drug connection. I spent every day I could getting high because life was hell, and I wanted to die and leave the crap I was living. I had probably been “praying for death” for over a year at this point… not in words, but certainly in deed. A month or so back the girl I had wanted to marry said she had other plans for herself, and I was devastated. I was now working at a job I seriously hated with all my heart and soul, and I was caught up in a world so full of contradiction and hallucinations that I had no idea what anything was about anymore.
Just before this day, I remember one night being in a cold fog out in the world, and hearing what in my mind were starships that had come to take every soul off of this planet and I was left alone to rot in my own hell. I screamed at the stars in anger, and wondered what the hell I had ever done to deserve the life that had come all around me, and was collapsing into a deep bondage.
Every day got only worse, and my mind was torn, shattered, and in a hell I would not wish on a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein.
I had scored a lid of Hawaiian Marijuana the night before. This morning, 32 years ago, I got up and got high with my half brother, then took him to pick up his little friends to take them to Jr. High. I was sharing my pot with all of them… my concepts of doing unto others that joy might flow back to you. After dropping them off I began on my usual pattern. I loved to help folks, even then. I picked up a hitchhiker on the freeway and we talked and smoked some, and I took him where he needed to go. Then I got back on the freeway.
I found another hitchhiker that wanted to go to California and score some cocaine. I had never tried cocaine, but I was willing to make the journey. My higher self/soul had other plans. By this time I was at a pretty high altitude with the pot in my head, and I found myself turning off exits back into the city. I had not intended such. I would try to head out to the freeway again, only to find myself turning back into the city. I had no idea where I was. My passenger was already doing something, and the paranoia came on strong. He started to tell me he had a knife. He started to use criminal language and persuasions I had never been exposed to.
It came to a point where when I looked at him I was “riding with Satan” and I was never going to leave the car alive, and he had come to take my soul away to hell. Trapped… mind swimming in a world so not of this world… so real, and painful, and the darkest place I had ever been in my remembrance. I had come to the end of time, and eternity waited for me, and it was going to be an everlasting walk in fire of spirit and mind and soul.
He stepped out of the car and I didn’t know why he hadn’t taken my soul with him. I saw my life end like a picture show at the end of a reel, when the frames just start to flap around with no meaning. I remember screaming… and I remembered no more.
THE END/THE BEGINNING
A deep peace surrounded me. A quiet and serenity I had never ever felt, but remembered from somewhere. All I felt was a LOVE that one cannot put into words, but one who has felt that will certainly know what it is I try to express. Visions and motions began coming again into my conscious mind. I remember my mouth hurt, but then it didn’t matter. I felt bodies around me. I opened my eyes and saw the tears in a young man’s eyes, and felt like I was being hauled away to be put into a casket. The Peace again. Then awakening again, and I found myself in an ambulance with a woman, and then the darkness again.
It is December 1st, 1978, and I have awoken in a hospital room. The doctor and nurse see that I am okay, and begin the process of letting me get ready to go home. It is early evening. My mother and her husband have been contacted, and Jim has come to get me. He is not happy with me. I don’t think he had ever been happy with me. He tells me that my car is in a lot completely ruined, that the people that had pulled me out of my car had wondered how I had even survived. (I had only bit my lip.) He tells me that the woman that had been in the ambulance with me had been loading a van with her brother when my car crashed into her, and had circumstances just been a few inches different, she would have been killed. He told me that witnesses said I had come out of a side street into a major highway, and that I had been hit by two different cars, but the worst that anyone had gotten was a kid that hit me that said he had had worse pains on a football field.
He said that I was damn lucky, and that if I didn’t get sued I would be even luckier still. He said I never should have survived the wreck.
No one ever found any marijuana in the car, nor did they test me for drugs or alcohol. Apparently when “Satan” left, he took the pot with him, and in so doing, may have really been the Angel in my life at that time, working to answer the prayers I had been saying to come take my damn miserable life.
“Are you sure this is what you really want!”
Life changed around me quickly. My mother and her husband had no idea how to deal with me. My dad and my stepmom made arrangements to get me back home to Salt Lake City for the Holiday that year. My short life in Boise was over. I was later to realize that many things “came to an end” that day in December of 1978.
Early in 1979 my dad took me up to the VA Hospital to begin outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation that was supposed to be my life for the next 6 months. He did the most significant thing of my life that morning. He told me that he loved me. He was not a man who expressed much emotion in words at all. I don’t know if he ever really knew how. That made the moment so important and special to me. It was something I had never doubted in my life by his actions. It was something I had never heard him put into words.
Once you have discovered your hearts desires, and moved to meet them, the Universe works quickly to make them come to be.
I made up my mind to make a new life for me that day. I worked on every concept I was being taught up at that clinic. Within 3, not 6, but within 3 months my therapists felt I was ready to go back into life again, with new tools and skills to help me on my journey. I enrolled at Snow College for the spring semester of 1979 in March. I went down there, living with my cousin 1 month my junior as we attended our classes down in Ephraim. I lived in Mt. Pleasant, a block or two from where my dad had grown up with my Grandpa and Grandma and all his brothers and sister. I was at home… in my families roots.
In April of that year I was introduced to a girl that would soon become a good friend. By the end of Spring quarter we had seen a lot of each other, and we came back to our parents homes in Murray, and began dating.
It is December 1st, 2010.
I have been married to my best friend Laurel for nearly 31 years now. Last night we celebrated my oldest boy's 30th birthday with his friends and my other son and his wife, and with my daughter. They are all grown now. And I am proud of them, and love them and my good friend Laurel more than I can put to words.
A new life started for me on that December day in 1978. When I put into my heart what I really wanted, the Universe worked very quickly to make it happen.
When the student is ready, the Master appears.
It is December 1st, 1978.
I have been out of the military for about 5 months. I am a wreck. I am a drug addict, an alcoholic, and basically living a life that my natural mother’s husband calls “contemplating your belly button.” I am so focused on the hell in my life that I can’t focus on anything else. I left the family I grew up with down in Salt Lake City because they didn’t get me. I came to Boise to live with my natural mother knowing she would get what I was about. She didn’t, her then husband didn’t, and I certainly didn’t.
My half brother was in Jr. High at the time. He was about my only friend at that point in my life, and he was my drug connection. I spent every day I could getting high because life was hell, and I wanted to die and leave the crap I was living. I had probably been “praying for death” for over a year at this point… not in words, but certainly in deed. A month or so back the girl I had wanted to marry said she had other plans for herself, and I was devastated. I was now working at a job I seriously hated with all my heart and soul, and I was caught up in a world so full of contradiction and hallucinations that I had no idea what anything was about anymore.
Just before this day, I remember one night being in a cold fog out in the world, and hearing what in my mind were starships that had come to take every soul off of this planet and I was left alone to rot in my own hell. I screamed at the stars in anger, and wondered what the hell I had ever done to deserve the life that had come all around me, and was collapsing into a deep bondage.
Every day got only worse, and my mind was torn, shattered, and in a hell I would not wish on a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein.
I had scored a lid of Hawaiian Marijuana the night before. This morning, 32 years ago, I got up and got high with my half brother, then took him to pick up his little friends to take them to Jr. High. I was sharing my pot with all of them… my concepts of doing unto others that joy might flow back to you. After dropping them off I began on my usual pattern. I loved to help folks, even then. I picked up a hitchhiker on the freeway and we talked and smoked some, and I took him where he needed to go. Then I got back on the freeway.
I found another hitchhiker that wanted to go to California and score some cocaine. I had never tried cocaine, but I was willing to make the journey. My higher self/soul had other plans. By this time I was at a pretty high altitude with the pot in my head, and I found myself turning off exits back into the city. I had not intended such. I would try to head out to the freeway again, only to find myself turning back into the city. I had no idea where I was. My passenger was already doing something, and the paranoia came on strong. He started to tell me he had a knife. He started to use criminal language and persuasions I had never been exposed to.
It came to a point where when I looked at him I was “riding with Satan” and I was never going to leave the car alive, and he had come to take my soul away to hell. Trapped… mind swimming in a world so not of this world… so real, and painful, and the darkest place I had ever been in my remembrance. I had come to the end of time, and eternity waited for me, and it was going to be an everlasting walk in fire of spirit and mind and soul.
He stepped out of the car and I didn’t know why he hadn’t taken my soul with him. I saw my life end like a picture show at the end of a reel, when the frames just start to flap around with no meaning. I remember screaming… and I remembered no more.
THE END/THE BEGINNING
A deep peace surrounded me. A quiet and serenity I had never ever felt, but remembered from somewhere. All I felt was a LOVE that one cannot put into words, but one who has felt that will certainly know what it is I try to express. Visions and motions began coming again into my conscious mind. I remember my mouth hurt, but then it didn’t matter. I felt bodies around me. I opened my eyes and saw the tears in a young man’s eyes, and felt like I was being hauled away to be put into a casket. The Peace again. Then awakening again, and I found myself in an ambulance with a woman, and then the darkness again.
It is December 1st, 1978, and I have awoken in a hospital room. The doctor and nurse see that I am okay, and begin the process of letting me get ready to go home. It is early evening. My mother and her husband have been contacted, and Jim has come to get me. He is not happy with me. I don’t think he had ever been happy with me. He tells me that my car is in a lot completely ruined, that the people that had pulled me out of my car had wondered how I had even survived. (I had only bit my lip.) He tells me that the woman that had been in the ambulance with me had been loading a van with her brother when my car crashed into her, and had circumstances just been a few inches different, she would have been killed. He told me that witnesses said I had come out of a side street into a major highway, and that I had been hit by two different cars, but the worst that anyone had gotten was a kid that hit me that said he had had worse pains on a football field.
He said that I was damn lucky, and that if I didn’t get sued I would be even luckier still. He said I never should have survived the wreck.
No one ever found any marijuana in the car, nor did they test me for drugs or alcohol. Apparently when “Satan” left, he took the pot with him, and in so doing, may have really been the Angel in my life at that time, working to answer the prayers I had been saying to come take my damn miserable life.
“Are you sure this is what you really want!”
Life changed around me quickly. My mother and her husband had no idea how to deal with me. My dad and my stepmom made arrangements to get me back home to Salt Lake City for the Holiday that year. My short life in Boise was over. I was later to realize that many things “came to an end” that day in December of 1978.
Early in 1979 my dad took me up to the VA Hospital to begin outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation that was supposed to be my life for the next 6 months. He did the most significant thing of my life that morning. He told me that he loved me. He was not a man who expressed much emotion in words at all. I don’t know if he ever really knew how. That made the moment so important and special to me. It was something I had never doubted in my life by his actions. It was something I had never heard him put into words.
Once you have discovered your hearts desires, and moved to meet them, the Universe works quickly to make them come to be.
I made up my mind to make a new life for me that day. I worked on every concept I was being taught up at that clinic. Within 3, not 6, but within 3 months my therapists felt I was ready to go back into life again, with new tools and skills to help me on my journey. I enrolled at Snow College for the spring semester of 1979 in March. I went down there, living with my cousin 1 month my junior as we attended our classes down in Ephraim. I lived in Mt. Pleasant, a block or two from where my dad had grown up with my Grandpa and Grandma and all his brothers and sister. I was at home… in my families roots.
In April of that year I was introduced to a girl that would soon become a good friend. By the end of Spring quarter we had seen a lot of each other, and we came back to our parents homes in Murray, and began dating.
It is December 1st, 2010.
I have been married to my best friend Laurel for nearly 31 years now. Last night we celebrated my oldest boy's 30th birthday with his friends and my other son and his wife, and with my daughter. They are all grown now. And I am proud of them, and love them and my good friend Laurel more than I can put to words.
A new life started for me on that December day in 1978. When I put into my heart what I really wanted, the Universe worked very quickly to make it happen.
When the student is ready, the Master appears.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Finding the Diamonds around us
I had an interesting experience yesterday, that I've probably actually had most of my life, and it has caused me to think and ponder about something that I feel has been a big stumbling block for me for a long time...
Since I can remember I've always wanted to be a well known writer. I've felt in my heart so many things that I want to bring to someone else’s eyes and share with them. I have spent literally hundreds of hours with paper and pencil and music, and now a keyboard and a word processing program, mastering my craft, and honing my skills as a poet/philosopher/lyricist. I remember in junior high sitting in a class as we analyzed "The Sounds of Silence" by Paul Simon and thinking to myself someday I want to have my work studied in schools and people touched by my writings as much as I was touched by the writings I came across.
Yesterday on Facebook, a very good friend of mine sent me a list of the 15 most influential writers in her life, and I am to turn around and do the same. It is a fun game, and helps me learn a lot about the folks that I love, and share with them a little more about me, and I'm glad to do such things, but I wasn't on her list, and though I kidded her about it, in a way, I was also hurt inside. My friend in no way intended anything by the list than to share with me what she loves, and she certainly didn’t intend a hit to my ego! The ego is all mine, and my responsibility to deal with, and work through!
But it is a common feeling I go through. One I have come to recognize for the ego that it is and perhaps that is a good thing to help me keep my feet on the ground.
As a fun thing for me, she had actually listed one author twice that we both love, so she said that I could step into the 10th spot where the second listing was, and that she did feel that I belonged there, and it made my heart sing!
And I feel like this is a selfish thing on my part... sometimes.
I do realize that most authors will never meet the folks whose lives they influence or touch, so they write for other reasons as well.
Yet I have often kept my dream in the back closet, hidden, because sometimes I think that others around me don't appreciate enough the hard work, the deep thoughts, the time taken to record so much, and most of it sits in my computer while I work on things with less meaning in my life so I can appear normal, or be what I think others think I am. But mostly, it is on hold because I need to make a living!
As I look around me, I find so many of us in the same situation. We have so many gifts inside of us that our daily living puts on hold so we can get by surviving life.
I also know I do very much the same thing… it wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had been her that I had even taken it the way I took it! And I know I have said things to others that were meant one way, but probably heard another way!
I think sometimes that I have spent too much time trying to fit into other people’s molds of me rather than truly letting the gifts I have shine out. And I wonder about how others have felt about the masks they may feel I am superimposing on them.
I remembered this morning something I read in the Bible once. Christ told his disciples that a prophet is not recognized in his own country.
Now I won't even pretend to be comparing myself to His level... but my point is that I think we overlook the abundance of the gifts in others that are around us sometimes because we are too close to the people in our lives and we tend to see the faults and things that ought to be corrected in them and we often overlook the things that they are truly gifted at… on any level.
I think mostly about my children, whom I’ve had to play the parent card on so many times that I often overlook the gifts they may also be hiding from me because I’m demanding more “perfection” from them in their daily lives.
It seems natural to me that we to look to folks we don't know as our inspiration, our guidance, our influences, our hero's, and I think the reason is we aren't around them enough to see their flaws and their human sides.
I can be so much this way. I can name the musicians that have influenced my life, the athletes, the authors, the politicians... but in reality, the people that have influenced my life the most are the common folks that are all around me in my everyday life. Most, if not all of us, will not make any grand statement on the big stage, but everyone of us are making an impression on everyone that comes into our lives.
And so I am trying to look much closer for the Diamonds that are in the rough, but are beginning to shine all around me! If your eyes come here, you certainly are one of them! The blogs I read, and the time I spend with you in business, or in play, or in emails or chats, or in living with... those are the things that have the most lasting impression on me! I am grateful for the many wonderful folks in my life!
As I think about my own dreams, and what I know is inside of me, I think of the many times that a word or expression from someone close to me has closed me down just as I was beginning to bring my dreams out into the forefront. In reality, the only one that can choose for me to feel the way I feel is me, so I bought into the naysayer’s, or the critics, or the apathy towards what I am trying to share, and I am solely responsible for keeping my heart on the back burner.
What I am also thinking about this morning is what I may have said or done to others to shy them away from the dreams in their hearts! Each of us has a gift that no one else has. Each of us has a piece of the puzzle that will make us great if we share. It is my prayer this morning that I remember to honor the diamonds around me, no matter how rough they may seem to appear to me right now…You really are the hero's of my journey.
(And I hope this friend can forgive me for using her as an example in this blog, but she has been one of the greatest gifts in my life for a very long time, and whether she knows it or not, one of my most favorite inspirations!)
Since I can remember I've always wanted to be a well known writer. I've felt in my heart so many things that I want to bring to someone else’s eyes and share with them. I have spent literally hundreds of hours with paper and pencil and music, and now a keyboard and a word processing program, mastering my craft, and honing my skills as a poet/philosopher/lyricist. I remember in junior high sitting in a class as we analyzed "The Sounds of Silence" by Paul Simon and thinking to myself someday I want to have my work studied in schools and people touched by my writings as much as I was touched by the writings I came across.
Yesterday on Facebook, a very good friend of mine sent me a list of the 15 most influential writers in her life, and I am to turn around and do the same. It is a fun game, and helps me learn a lot about the folks that I love, and share with them a little more about me, and I'm glad to do such things, but I wasn't on her list, and though I kidded her about it, in a way, I was also hurt inside. My friend in no way intended anything by the list than to share with me what she loves, and she certainly didn’t intend a hit to my ego! The ego is all mine, and my responsibility to deal with, and work through!
But it is a common feeling I go through. One I have come to recognize for the ego that it is and perhaps that is a good thing to help me keep my feet on the ground.
As a fun thing for me, she had actually listed one author twice that we both love, so she said that I could step into the 10th spot where the second listing was, and that she did feel that I belonged there, and it made my heart sing!
And I feel like this is a selfish thing on my part... sometimes.
I do realize that most authors will never meet the folks whose lives they influence or touch, so they write for other reasons as well.
Yet I have often kept my dream in the back closet, hidden, because sometimes I think that others around me don't appreciate enough the hard work, the deep thoughts, the time taken to record so much, and most of it sits in my computer while I work on things with less meaning in my life so I can appear normal, or be what I think others think I am. But mostly, it is on hold because I need to make a living!
As I look around me, I find so many of us in the same situation. We have so many gifts inside of us that our daily living puts on hold so we can get by surviving life.
I also know I do very much the same thing… it wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had been her that I had even taken it the way I took it! And I know I have said things to others that were meant one way, but probably heard another way!
I think sometimes that I have spent too much time trying to fit into other people’s molds of me rather than truly letting the gifts I have shine out. And I wonder about how others have felt about the masks they may feel I am superimposing on them.
I remembered this morning something I read in the Bible once. Christ told his disciples that a prophet is not recognized in his own country.
Now I won't even pretend to be comparing myself to His level... but my point is that I think we overlook the abundance of the gifts in others that are around us sometimes because we are too close to the people in our lives and we tend to see the faults and things that ought to be corrected in them and we often overlook the things that they are truly gifted at… on any level.
I think mostly about my children, whom I’ve had to play the parent card on so many times that I often overlook the gifts they may also be hiding from me because I’m demanding more “perfection” from them in their daily lives.
It seems natural to me that we to look to folks we don't know as our inspiration, our guidance, our influences, our hero's, and I think the reason is we aren't around them enough to see their flaws and their human sides.
I can be so much this way. I can name the musicians that have influenced my life, the athletes, the authors, the politicians... but in reality, the people that have influenced my life the most are the common folks that are all around me in my everyday life. Most, if not all of us, will not make any grand statement on the big stage, but everyone of us are making an impression on everyone that comes into our lives.
And so I am trying to look much closer for the Diamonds that are in the rough, but are beginning to shine all around me! If your eyes come here, you certainly are one of them! The blogs I read, and the time I spend with you in business, or in play, or in emails or chats, or in living with... those are the things that have the most lasting impression on me! I am grateful for the many wonderful folks in my life!
As I think about my own dreams, and what I know is inside of me, I think of the many times that a word or expression from someone close to me has closed me down just as I was beginning to bring my dreams out into the forefront. In reality, the only one that can choose for me to feel the way I feel is me, so I bought into the naysayer’s, or the critics, or the apathy towards what I am trying to share, and I am solely responsible for keeping my heart on the back burner.
What I am also thinking about this morning is what I may have said or done to others to shy them away from the dreams in their hearts! Each of us has a gift that no one else has. Each of us has a piece of the puzzle that will make us great if we share. It is my prayer this morning that I remember to honor the diamonds around me, no matter how rough they may seem to appear to me right now…You really are the hero's of my journey.
(And I hope this friend can forgive me for using her as an example in this blog, but she has been one of the greatest gifts in my life for a very long time, and whether she knows it or not, one of my most favorite inspirations!)
Friday, October 1, 2010
And a Final Dream to consider...
And thoughts about dream weaving...
The Ultimate Dream-weaver
Now is the time
to live
in the perfection
that you dream.
In the mind
we hear
the chatter of the day,
the noise of life,
the past, present, and future
of the limited journeys
we have chained ourselves to.
We chain ourselves
to our stories.
In silence,
(empty of all of
our own
emotions, joys, fears, visions,
expectations,
triumphs, and disappointments…)
In silence
we hear
the dreams and realities
of God.
Now is the time
to live
in the perfection
that you dream.
In God’s dreams,
you are already perfect.
BKBushman 10/17/2006
Now is the time
to live
in the perfection
that you dream.
In the mind
we hear
the chatter of the day,
the noise of life,
the past, present, and future
of the limited journeys
we have chained ourselves to.
We chain ourselves
to our stories.
In silence,
(empty of all of
our own
emotions, joys, fears, visions,
expectations,
triumphs, and disappointments…)
In silence
we hear
the dreams and realities
of God.
Now is the time
to live
in the perfection
that you dream.
In God’s dreams,
you are already perfect.
BKBushman 10/17/2006
Another Dream... Not so Morbid!
For other dreamer's who may understand:
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…
I place my jammies on my bod,
and kneel for evening prayer,
then quickly jump into my bed
to meet the sandman there.
I snuggle quickly in the sheets
the pillow gets a fluff,
and soon I drift in silent mode
to deal with vision stuff.
T’is there I meet with dog and cat
who chase me down the street,
but nowhere do I go with speed,
for something drags my feet.
Now quickly doth the vision change
at church, at speaking, I
now find myself delivering speech
in jockey shorts and tie.
Yet no one finds this strange or weird
and quickly am I now
in wonderment at how I came
to be in love with cow.
Then at alert, with open eyes
I thought that I had fell,
from off a cliff, or off the bed
My heart beats fast as well.
Yet snoring comes so quick again
and flying off I go
to rescue dear fair maiden sweet
whose face is white as snow…
Her ruby lips I softly kiss
and whisper sweet her name,
then wide awake I come with hurt,
My wife’s not named the same…
With aches and groans I fall asleep,
to horrors yet to be,
I light my self a cigarette
not one, nor two, but three
Now visions speed and visions twist
where nothing quite remains…
the imps who write my nightly scores
are playing with my brains.
Hark, now some lovely beauty comes
to dance a tease… I sigh…
yet when her dance is finished,
she is just another guy.
Then monster comes into my view
with drooling in it’s jaw,
Yet fear is nil, I see that he
is just my mom in law.
I only hope to wake real soon
I pinch myself with pain,
and glory be, I find that I
am late for work again.
(I can’t wait until tomorrow night…)
BKBushman 3-9-2006
I place my jammies on my bod,
and kneel for evening prayer,
then quickly jump into my bed
to meet the sandman there.
I snuggle quickly in the sheets
the pillow gets a fluff,
and soon I drift in silent mode
to deal with vision stuff.
T’is there I meet with dog and cat
who chase me down the street,
but nowhere do I go with speed,
for something drags my feet.
Now quickly doth the vision change
at church, at speaking, I
now find myself delivering speech
in jockey shorts and tie.
Yet no one finds this strange or weird
and quickly am I now
in wonderment at how I came
to be in love with cow.
Then at alert, with open eyes
I thought that I had fell,
from off a cliff, or off the bed
My heart beats fast as well.
Yet snoring comes so quick again
and flying off I go
to rescue dear fair maiden sweet
whose face is white as snow…
Her ruby lips I softly kiss
and whisper sweet her name,
then wide awake I come with hurt,
My wife’s not named the same…
With aches and groans I fall asleep,
to horrors yet to be,
I light my self a cigarette
not one, nor two, but three
Now visions speed and visions twist
where nothing quite remains…
the imps who write my nightly scores
are playing with my brains.
Hark, now some lovely beauty comes
to dance a tease… I sigh…
yet when her dance is finished,
she is just another guy.
Then monster comes into my view
with drooling in it’s jaw,
Yet fear is nil, I see that he
is just my mom in law.
I only hope to wake real soon
I pinch myself with pain,
and glory be, I find that I
am late for work again.
(I can’t wait until tomorrow night…)
BKBushman 3-9-2006
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
For a Dreamer who Understands...
Oft times the dreamer has to wonder:
WAR WITHIN
June 15, 1997
8:08 AM
In a land
below a land
below a land
below a land
where fear commands
and fear demands
are many hands
that reach to grasp
but never clasp
the ones that work above.
They work from fear, not love.
They prey upon the meek.
They feed upon the weak.
And love, they never seek
never understanding...
always hate demanding them...
commanding them to kill...
yet never they die.
Strangle, maim,
their faces never the same but always returning,
always learning nothing.
Hope unknown,
never shown,
they walk in fear of each other and lash out,
smash out,
hash out over and over their never ending cycles of killing,
yet living through.
Trying to do it again,
and again,
and again,
in this land
below a land
below a land
below a land
where hate and fear command and demand of them
a cycle of never coming to know
a way to find relief.
Constantly in grief...
Among them I found me.
Among them was my brother.
Prey to the fear and the hate.
Not understanding, not relating
to anything I saw or felt or dreamed...
I screamed,
and the land never left me.
Another cycle shown.
Another battle thrown at me,
my brother,
(my mother of my later years,
her son),
his many fears and tears,
and over and over the cycles played,
new hatreds made,
new fears portrayed,
or old fear cycling on as if never to come to know,
never coming to grow,
never working into the land above
where we worked in a little more love.
Or the land above that, where fear remained,
but was at a more tolerable level.
What brought this dream on?
Why was I gone so long in this world,
never escaping the outer hatred,
the inner fear?
Why was death near, but never coming?
In fear I screamed,
in screaming I awakened
in the world I know now.
Wondering if somehow
I’d lived that world before.
I can’t ignore the feelings as I wake...
my body shivers,
shaking,
wondering at the hardness of my escape
into what I now call reality.
What I saw within my inner eye...
the skies of lives gone by,
or still to come?
None of this was home.
This land below the land
below the land
below the land
where fear commanded me,
demanded me to be
in fear of me and all around.
Always calling, yet never being heard.
Always feeling something wrong, and sure
a better way was there...
Somewhere.
Have I walked these times?
Have I talked these lines
of hatred over and over
in memories now long past?
The images have lasted long into my waking now.
This dream, yet not a dream
that seems to have brought compassion to my soul.
I was killed,
over, and over, and over,
yet never gone from amongst them,
I learned to lash out,
fight back,
attack before I was attacked,
yet I always lost,
dying, yet not gone,
again the cycle played,
a new face, yet the same
became my foe
and off we’d go again, in private battle
with a knife or gun,
or just our fists and hands trying to strangle one another.
In my brother’s eyes I saw
this thirst to have my death.
This drive to take the breath of life I had.
This tragedy I’ve dreamed before.
What message does it bring,
this cycling dream of battle with him?
What has he to forgive me for?
What have I ignored in the healing between us?
What trust was lost in these lives in eons gone?
What wrong have I done him,
(perhaps in dreams gone past)
that makes this dream last so long
within me?
So finally waking in a land
above a land
above a land
above this land of hate...
and in command of greater learning,
greater yearnings to be free from the bonds
I must have fettered him with,
I send my love back down.
Consciously, hopefully wiser,
I send my love in softness, and in prayer...
hoping it will reach there
into this land of fear and hate
where constantly my brother and I war.
And, God willing,
I hope this time the love comes through,
I hope this time the healing comes,
and we’ll have to fight no more.
WAR WITHIN
June 15, 1997
8:08 AM
In a land
below a land
below a land
below a land
where fear commands
and fear demands
are many hands
that reach to grasp
but never clasp
the ones that work above.
They work from fear, not love.
They prey upon the meek.
They feed upon the weak.
And love, they never seek
never understanding...
always hate demanding them...
commanding them to kill...
yet never they die.
Strangle, maim,
their faces never the same but always returning,
always learning nothing.
Hope unknown,
never shown,
they walk in fear of each other and lash out,
smash out,
hash out over and over their never ending cycles of killing,
yet living through.
Trying to do it again,
and again,
and again,
in this land
below a land
below a land
below a land
where hate and fear command and demand of them
a cycle of never coming to know
a way to find relief.
Constantly in grief...
Among them I found me.
Among them was my brother.
Prey to the fear and the hate.
Not understanding, not relating
to anything I saw or felt or dreamed...
I screamed,
and the land never left me.
Another cycle shown.
Another battle thrown at me,
my brother,
(my mother of my later years,
her son),
his many fears and tears,
and over and over the cycles played,
new hatreds made,
new fears portrayed,
or old fear cycling on as if never to come to know,
never coming to grow,
never working into the land above
where we worked in a little more love.
Or the land above that, where fear remained,
but was at a more tolerable level.
What brought this dream on?
Why was I gone so long in this world,
never escaping the outer hatred,
the inner fear?
Why was death near, but never coming?
In fear I screamed,
in screaming I awakened
in the world I know now.
Wondering if somehow
I’d lived that world before.
I can’t ignore the feelings as I wake...
my body shivers,
shaking,
wondering at the hardness of my escape
into what I now call reality.
What I saw within my inner eye...
the skies of lives gone by,
or still to come?
None of this was home.
This land below the land
below the land
below the land
where fear commanded me,
demanded me to be
in fear of me and all around.
Always calling, yet never being heard.
Always feeling something wrong, and sure
a better way was there...
Somewhere.
Have I walked these times?
Have I talked these lines
of hatred over and over
in memories now long past?
The images have lasted long into my waking now.
This dream, yet not a dream
that seems to have brought compassion to my soul.
I was killed,
over, and over, and over,
yet never gone from amongst them,
I learned to lash out,
fight back,
attack before I was attacked,
yet I always lost,
dying, yet not gone,
again the cycle played,
a new face, yet the same
became my foe
and off we’d go again, in private battle
with a knife or gun,
or just our fists and hands trying to strangle one another.
In my brother’s eyes I saw
this thirst to have my death.
This drive to take the breath of life I had.
This tragedy I’ve dreamed before.
What message does it bring,
this cycling dream of battle with him?
What has he to forgive me for?
What have I ignored in the healing between us?
What trust was lost in these lives in eons gone?
What wrong have I done him,
(perhaps in dreams gone past)
that makes this dream last so long
within me?
So finally waking in a land
above a land
above a land
above this land of hate...
and in command of greater learning,
greater yearnings to be free from the bonds
I must have fettered him with,
I send my love back down.
Consciously, hopefully wiser,
I send my love in softness, and in prayer...
hoping it will reach there
into this land of fear and hate
where constantly my brother and I war.
And, God willing,
I hope this time the love comes through,
I hope this time the healing comes,
and we’ll have to fight no more.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
One of My Earliest Writings
I want to share this with a nephew of mine who qouted Woody Guthrie this morning on FB. I was feeling this way when I was 17...
THE SINGER
1975
I heard tale sayin there’s a young man playin at the bar tonight.
A quiet, lonely singer who has never been a winner... his guitar’s all right.
(But he wouldn’t sell his soul, and the crowd will never know...
and it’s sad that they don’t try to understand...)
I heard tale sayin there’s a young man playin: where’s the band?
Silent eyes beneath long strands of tattered hair.
And you and I don’t realize what’s hidden there...
how much they care, and how they long to be like you and me.
Fifteen years lonely and to think life’s only in a song?
Does the rhyme he’s playin seem to think he’s sayin he belongs?
Well I hear tell sayin there’s a young man playin at the bar tonight.
And you know, it’s kinda funny he ain’t playin for the money...
his guitar’s all right.
(If you don’t sell your soul, then the people want to know...
and it's sad because they’ll never understand...)
Well I hear tale sayin there’s a young man playin... where’s the band?
THE SINGER
1975
I heard tale sayin there’s a young man playin at the bar tonight.
A quiet, lonely singer who has never been a winner... his guitar’s all right.
(But he wouldn’t sell his soul, and the crowd will never know...
and it’s sad that they don’t try to understand...)
I heard tale sayin there’s a young man playin: where’s the band?
Silent eyes beneath long strands of tattered hair.
And you and I don’t realize what’s hidden there...
how much they care, and how they long to be like you and me.
Fifteen years lonely and to think life’s only in a song?
Does the rhyme he’s playin seem to think he’s sayin he belongs?
Well I hear tell sayin there’s a young man playin at the bar tonight.
And you know, it’s kinda funny he ain’t playin for the money...
his guitar’s all right.
(If you don’t sell your soul, then the people want to know...
and it's sad because they’ll never understand...)
Well I hear tale sayin there’s a young man playin... where’s the band?
Saturday, September 11, 2010
9/11/2001 -- My thoughts
Today is a day of remembrance.
A flag was put up in my yard this morning in honor of a day that flags weren't put up on until about 9 years ago, which isn't a fifth of my life yet. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I know where I was and how I felt 9 years ago. I was dumbstruck. I was at the bank and the teller told me she had just heard things were going on in New York, and I rushed home, and kicked the kids off the television and sat and watched with the rest of the world as events unfolded... I got to the tv just moments before the first tower started falling, and then I watched all the destruction, and felt deeply for all the people, and I watched in horror as so much went to waste. Being an accountant, I was especially struck by how meaningless the work that we do can suddenly become. Maybe I noticed the papers flying around more because of what I do... but I didn't miss the significance of the loss of so much.
The next day, I had to drive out to Wyoming to work with a client, and I remember how exremely eerie it was to have nothing in the air. Nothing. I talked to my cousin who was flying for Life Flight a while after that, and he said that he was in the air on a flight, and it was the weirdest feeling to have nothing on the radio waves that was "normal."
I remember thinking though, that maybe our administration wasn't as guiltless in all of this as it suddenly was made out to be. I've thought much since then about what the target of these people were... these radicals that dared to die for what they believed in. They attacked the symbols of our financial world. They attacked the government that they believed was misleading the "Godless" people of the west, who worshipped the material over the spiritual.
Did I sanction their attack? Not in the least. Did I understand their attack? Unfortunately for me it seems sometimes... yes I did.
I was brought up in the public school systems learning all sorts of rallying cries... Remember the Alamo... Give me Liberty, or give me Death; and every day I stood up in the morning and we pledged allegiance to our flag, our God and our Nation.
I served my country right after high school for three years. And then I served it again as a reservist for another 2 or three years. It was a peace time army, in a time when the nation was trying to understand the outcome of Vietnam, and folks were passionate on both sides of the coin.
I was born with a musician's heart, and a writer's soul. I was drawn to the music and lyrics and movies that cried for peace. I understood the hippie movement, but was not one. I understood the patriotic movement, and served my country, but began to see the falacies of how government was running things in my little part of the world, and I didn't really care for the waste.
As an Army musician I played the Star Spangled Banner more times than most Americans will ever hear it. I still feel a tear in my eye when I am at a military funeral, and I see the flag draped over the coffin of a soldier who has passed on. These things still stir the blood and honor in me.
I love America, but America is not the pure and innocent country that was suddenly thrust upon me the day 9/11 hit.
In the aftermath, as I prayed for peace in my heart and with many that felt like me, the nation's administration and the general mood of Americans around me were bent on war. Did I sanction those feelings? No. Did I understand them? Yes.
I sometimes think it would be so much easier to see the world in black and white... to not think, and buy into the rhetoric of the times. It seems that the administration and many of the religions of the world really played the trump card and whipped up anger and hatred against each other. Ah, that same old same old way that the problems of the world are always dealt with... war.
I found myself on the wrong side of the general clamor all of a sudden. The president let it be known that if you weren't for his war, suddenly you weren't patriotic. And I felt that around me as well.
Did I honor the victims of 9/11 any less than the flag waving folks at the time? No. Did I understand their "righteous" anger?
No.
Support America. God Bless America. Support our troops.
Yes, I still honor those sayings, but only in part. The God I began to know on the day that so much came down in America... wasn't an American God. God was the creator of all things, of which this planet is such a small part.
So in my heart I began praying, God bless this earth, and all her people, and all her creatures, and all her beauty, where ever it is.
And then one day I saw a bumper sticker that said "God bless the World."
To be honest, I cringe even now when I see the slogan "God Bless America." To me, it is only the beginning. We can not be One if we are only going to recognize one point of view.
To me, the lesson of 9/11 wasn't so much a cry to become more patriotic, but a reminder that it was time to become a more spiritual people. Not a religious people... a spiritual people. A people that can finally begin to see how much more we have in common with the rest of the world than not.
God Bless our Universe, and all that makes such be.
A flag was put up in my yard this morning in honor of a day that flags weren't put up on until about 9 years ago, which isn't a fifth of my life yet. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I know where I was and how I felt 9 years ago. I was dumbstruck. I was at the bank and the teller told me she had just heard things were going on in New York, and I rushed home, and kicked the kids off the television and sat and watched with the rest of the world as events unfolded... I got to the tv just moments before the first tower started falling, and then I watched all the destruction, and felt deeply for all the people, and I watched in horror as so much went to waste. Being an accountant, I was especially struck by how meaningless the work that we do can suddenly become. Maybe I noticed the papers flying around more because of what I do... but I didn't miss the significance of the loss of so much.
The next day, I had to drive out to Wyoming to work with a client, and I remember how exremely eerie it was to have nothing in the air. Nothing. I talked to my cousin who was flying for Life Flight a while after that, and he said that he was in the air on a flight, and it was the weirdest feeling to have nothing on the radio waves that was "normal."
I remember thinking though, that maybe our administration wasn't as guiltless in all of this as it suddenly was made out to be. I've thought much since then about what the target of these people were... these radicals that dared to die for what they believed in. They attacked the symbols of our financial world. They attacked the government that they believed was misleading the "Godless" people of the west, who worshipped the material over the spiritual.
Did I sanction their attack? Not in the least. Did I understand their attack? Unfortunately for me it seems sometimes... yes I did.
I was brought up in the public school systems learning all sorts of rallying cries... Remember the Alamo... Give me Liberty, or give me Death; and every day I stood up in the morning and we pledged allegiance to our flag, our God and our Nation.
I served my country right after high school for three years. And then I served it again as a reservist for another 2 or three years. It was a peace time army, in a time when the nation was trying to understand the outcome of Vietnam, and folks were passionate on both sides of the coin.
I was born with a musician's heart, and a writer's soul. I was drawn to the music and lyrics and movies that cried for peace. I understood the hippie movement, but was not one. I understood the patriotic movement, and served my country, but began to see the falacies of how government was running things in my little part of the world, and I didn't really care for the waste.
As an Army musician I played the Star Spangled Banner more times than most Americans will ever hear it. I still feel a tear in my eye when I am at a military funeral, and I see the flag draped over the coffin of a soldier who has passed on. These things still stir the blood and honor in me.
I love America, but America is not the pure and innocent country that was suddenly thrust upon me the day 9/11 hit.
In the aftermath, as I prayed for peace in my heart and with many that felt like me, the nation's administration and the general mood of Americans around me were bent on war. Did I sanction those feelings? No. Did I understand them? Yes.
I sometimes think it would be so much easier to see the world in black and white... to not think, and buy into the rhetoric of the times. It seems that the administration and many of the religions of the world really played the trump card and whipped up anger and hatred against each other. Ah, that same old same old way that the problems of the world are always dealt with... war.
I found myself on the wrong side of the general clamor all of a sudden. The president let it be known that if you weren't for his war, suddenly you weren't patriotic. And I felt that around me as well.
Did I honor the victims of 9/11 any less than the flag waving folks at the time? No. Did I understand their "righteous" anger?
No.
Support America. God Bless America. Support our troops.
Yes, I still honor those sayings, but only in part. The God I began to know on the day that so much came down in America... wasn't an American God. God was the creator of all things, of which this planet is such a small part.
So in my heart I began praying, God bless this earth, and all her people, and all her creatures, and all her beauty, where ever it is.
And then one day I saw a bumper sticker that said "God bless the World."
To be honest, I cringe even now when I see the slogan "God Bless America." To me, it is only the beginning. We can not be One if we are only going to recognize one point of view.
To me, the lesson of 9/11 wasn't so much a cry to become more patriotic, but a reminder that it was time to become a more spiritual people. Not a religious people... a spiritual people. A people that can finally begin to see how much more we have in common with the rest of the world than not.
God Bless our Universe, and all that makes such be.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
On the Lighter Side:
I met a new blog site this past week or so... well, I guess I could say that as I've never met the writer, although I have met the man... well, I guess I can't really say that I've met the man, but we Face Book now, and we were introduced by a gal that I e-mail and went to High School with, and I have met her, so I suppose I can say that I've kinda met the writer of the blog, well I know she's met the writer of the blog somewhere in their pasts because she and I are in Utah now and he's in Texas and my wife and I would be in either the upper Oregon area or the upper New England area this time of year but definately in Arizona for the warmth when the snow flies so I guess we wouldn't be in Texas where the writer of this blog whom I've never met but now know lives.... lives.
(Whew)
He was doing something I hadn't thought about! He was writing two or three blogs, depending on his mood, and you can go to one blog if you want serious, and you can go to another blog if you just want a peice of his mind and you can go to other blogs to meet his family (my girls have started their own blogs and they are all over there on the left hand side if you want to go to any of them which I would recommend because I love to go there...)
(Whew, agian.)
For myself, I've just been cutting and pasting on this site mostly because I've been putting what little there is of my mind into my computer for quite sometime, and I figure I deserve the break now that the technology has caught up to me!
Sometimes I get really deep and serious, and I like being deep and serious (I'm not sure too many people around me can stand me that way,) but then I deny myself the Joy of being just plain goofy! I love being goofy! I love that life came with a humor button that we can push when it get's too much! (And I know most people around me can't stand me that way!)
So, to lighten it up, I thought I'd cut and paste a writing I did about my dreams into this blog, and maybe you will connect, and maybe you won't, and maybe, if my fan meter is accurate, you will have already read this, but it's worth putting in another place, just so I can come somewhere else where it looks different!
.... well I'll be derned... I can't cut and paste this one into the editing box right now. I wonder if I'm in voilation of Copyright infringement on my own work? It wouldn't surprise me. My computers are saving me from plagiarizing myself! Thank you most wonderful and gracious peices of......
(beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep)
(Whew)
He was doing something I hadn't thought about! He was writing two or three blogs, depending on his mood, and you can go to one blog if you want serious, and you can go to another blog if you just want a peice of his mind and you can go to other blogs to meet his family (my girls have started their own blogs and they are all over there on the left hand side if you want to go to any of them which I would recommend because I love to go there...)
(Whew, agian.)
For myself, I've just been cutting and pasting on this site mostly because I've been putting what little there is of my mind into my computer for quite sometime, and I figure I deserve the break now that the technology has caught up to me!
Sometimes I get really deep and serious, and I like being deep and serious (I'm not sure too many people around me can stand me that way,) but then I deny myself the Joy of being just plain goofy! I love being goofy! I love that life came with a humor button that we can push when it get's too much! (And I know most people around me can't stand me that way!)
So, to lighten it up, I thought I'd cut and paste a writing I did about my dreams into this blog, and maybe you will connect, and maybe you won't, and maybe, if my fan meter is accurate, you will have already read this, but it's worth putting in another place, just so I can come somewhere else where it looks different!
.... well I'll be derned... I can't cut and paste this one into the editing box right now. I wonder if I'm in voilation of Copyright infringement on my own work? It wouldn't surprise me. My computers are saving me from plagiarizing myself! Thank you most wonderful and gracious peices of......
(beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep)
Monday, September 6, 2010
A Letter
There was a Facebook posting going around about "hit like" if you are a True Christian. I have a hard time with those things, so I jotted down what I felt here.
Dear God:
Am I a Christian?
I read your book several times. There are some beautiful passages in it, but… even as a little kid I had a hard time reading it. The writing alone was sloppy, edited beyond belief, but I found I could use it to justify my points of view, but somehow… it felt like I was missing the point… well, really, I just didn’t get the point, or at least… I thought I did… but I felt empty.
Then a church came along God! And they said that you hadn’t stopped talking, and that made sense to me! So for a long time I went to this church, well… on and off… but I read all their books too, and they had beautiful passages in them, but my friends who called themselves Christians would get mad at me and show me passages in their book (the one I had trouble reading, remember?) and would tell me the devil had a hold on me.
I was scared God. I didn’t like what I had read about the devil, and I never wanted people to think that I followed him! I certainly didn’t consider myself a “devilian”. I would have thought that the way I was trying to live would make me a good Christian. I guess I didn’t get it God.
So when I got a bit older, I began to wonder who Christ really was. I mean, I had a picture of Him from your book God (you remember, the one you “wrote” that is so mysterious and not so well written) and I had realized by now that your book had been written by men who loved you, but other men had changed and twisted your words and called them yours so they could have power over other men around them. What had been written about Christ was not what I think Christ would have been proud of… and it bothered me God, that Your Son had not been allowed to write in your book in the first place, other men had just tried to remember what he said years after he said them (I can’t remember what I said yesterday!)
But I still felt like I was a Christian God, I mean, I hoped that I loved your Son, even though I was not a perfect boy, but I wasn’t trying to hurt people or nothing! I was really trying to live what I felt Christ was teaching on the mountain that day… but I still felt that something was missing.
In your book, in James somewhere, you mentioned that if we didn’t understand, we could come to you, and that you wouldn’t be mad at us (I guess that’s what “upbraideth” means – by the way, that word doesn’t pass my spell-check) so I turned on some music that touches my heart deeply, and I quieted my thoughts the best I could God and I listened for you. I truly tried to listen for you.
And I heard you God! And I heard your Son, and felt your love, excuse me, your Deep Love for me and everything you have created everywhere… (of which this world is such a small part) and I started using my little talent to write what I was feeling and the tears flowed over the paper and in my heart… you know, those cleansing ones You love to send to us little children when we feel we’ve gone astray…
And I shared my feelings God. I thought my Christian friends would love them, but I heard so many times that they ran counter to your book God. I don’t get it. I really don’t.
My world picture isn’t helping me God. In my heart I felt a deep love for all things, for all beings, for all creation… and that it all breathes Life, and that you breathe all of this into everything. But my Christian friends don’t often get that. They read in your book to love your enemy, but they hold their banners high and march into “righteous” war against them. (By the way God, didn’t you tell me that their enemies were your children? Why are they trying to destroy half of themselves not to mention your children because of their banners?)
I don’t know God. I know I love you, and I know I love Christ as I feel Him in my heart… but I have a hard time seeing that Love I feel inside in the outer world right now. The ones who claim your book is your only literal word seem to be making as big a mess of things politically around me, as the other ones who say their book is your literal word.
Are Religions your home God? Do you sanction this group over here above that group over there? Why did you make us so different in our thinking God? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier to make us all the same? We wouldn’t fight. We wouldn’t call each other names. Wouldn’t we be true Christians then?
Oh, and God… somewhere along the line I got the crazy idea that your heart and love are in each one of us, and that we have the gifts to lift our world, but so many of the folks around me think you have to do all the work yourself. Aren’t you doing that through us? Aren’t you asking us to be quiet, and listen to our hearts and learn that you still walk among us? And that we are you in that respect! That you lift the world through us?
Isn’t that what Christ was trying to tell the people on the mountain so long ago?
Anyway that’s what I got. I’m sorry I missed the point God. I know that if I publish this letter in my outer world, all sorts of Christians are going to call me a Deviler, or maybe they won’t call me that but I will be given some label, and probably have to go get drugs to fix me up somehow.
Anyway God thanks for listening. I do love you. I do love your Son Christ that I have felt in my heart and in my hands so many times. I just wish that qualified me to be a Christian…
That’s all.
Dear God:
Am I a Christian?
I read your book several times. There are some beautiful passages in it, but… even as a little kid I had a hard time reading it. The writing alone was sloppy, edited beyond belief, but I found I could use it to justify my points of view, but somehow… it felt like I was missing the point… well, really, I just didn’t get the point, or at least… I thought I did… but I felt empty.
Then a church came along God! And they said that you hadn’t stopped talking, and that made sense to me! So for a long time I went to this church, well… on and off… but I read all their books too, and they had beautiful passages in them, but my friends who called themselves Christians would get mad at me and show me passages in their book (the one I had trouble reading, remember?) and would tell me the devil had a hold on me.
I was scared God. I didn’t like what I had read about the devil, and I never wanted people to think that I followed him! I certainly didn’t consider myself a “devilian”. I would have thought that the way I was trying to live would make me a good Christian. I guess I didn’t get it God.
So when I got a bit older, I began to wonder who Christ really was. I mean, I had a picture of Him from your book God (you remember, the one you “wrote” that is so mysterious and not so well written) and I had realized by now that your book had been written by men who loved you, but other men had changed and twisted your words and called them yours so they could have power over other men around them. What had been written about Christ was not what I think Christ would have been proud of… and it bothered me God, that Your Son had not been allowed to write in your book in the first place, other men had just tried to remember what he said years after he said them (I can’t remember what I said yesterday!)
But I still felt like I was a Christian God, I mean, I hoped that I loved your Son, even though I was not a perfect boy, but I wasn’t trying to hurt people or nothing! I was really trying to live what I felt Christ was teaching on the mountain that day… but I still felt that something was missing.
In your book, in James somewhere, you mentioned that if we didn’t understand, we could come to you, and that you wouldn’t be mad at us (I guess that’s what “upbraideth” means – by the way, that word doesn’t pass my spell-check) so I turned on some music that touches my heart deeply, and I quieted my thoughts the best I could God and I listened for you. I truly tried to listen for you.
And I heard you God! And I heard your Son, and felt your love, excuse me, your Deep Love for me and everything you have created everywhere… (of which this world is such a small part) and I started using my little talent to write what I was feeling and the tears flowed over the paper and in my heart… you know, those cleansing ones You love to send to us little children when we feel we’ve gone astray…
And I shared my feelings God. I thought my Christian friends would love them, but I heard so many times that they ran counter to your book God. I don’t get it. I really don’t.
My world picture isn’t helping me God. In my heart I felt a deep love for all things, for all beings, for all creation… and that it all breathes Life, and that you breathe all of this into everything. But my Christian friends don’t often get that. They read in your book to love your enemy, but they hold their banners high and march into “righteous” war against them. (By the way God, didn’t you tell me that their enemies were your children? Why are they trying to destroy half of themselves not to mention your children because of their banners?)
I don’t know God. I know I love you, and I know I love Christ as I feel Him in my heart… but I have a hard time seeing that Love I feel inside in the outer world right now. The ones who claim your book is your only literal word seem to be making as big a mess of things politically around me, as the other ones who say their book is your literal word.
Are Religions your home God? Do you sanction this group over here above that group over there? Why did you make us so different in our thinking God? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier to make us all the same? We wouldn’t fight. We wouldn’t call each other names. Wouldn’t we be true Christians then?
Oh, and God… somewhere along the line I got the crazy idea that your heart and love are in each one of us, and that we have the gifts to lift our world, but so many of the folks around me think you have to do all the work yourself. Aren’t you doing that through us? Aren’t you asking us to be quiet, and listen to our hearts and learn that you still walk among us? And that we are you in that respect! That you lift the world through us?
Isn’t that what Christ was trying to tell the people on the mountain so long ago?
Anyway that’s what I got. I’m sorry I missed the point God. I know that if I publish this letter in my outer world, all sorts of Christians are going to call me a Deviler, or maybe they won’t call me that but I will be given some label, and probably have to go get drugs to fix me up somehow.
Anyway God thanks for listening. I do love you. I do love your Son Christ that I have felt in my heart and in my hands so many times. I just wish that qualified me to be a Christian…
That’s all.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Affirmation - Two days after my birthday in 2002
Sky canvas,
cloud, blue, cloud,
then rain.
A bow of color sometimes,
A place to dream.
Sky.
Flight and daring
and caring for all
that moves softly below.
The sway of trees
and the rustle of the grasses
that pass within the vision
of the heaven beings,
The hawk and crow...
They see and know from the sky
what I see below.
I long to see from their eyes
and try my own wings.
To soar over the mountains
that now defeat me.
That keep me from my goal’s end.
In my mind I fly their way,
but day to day I walk my own path,
and sooner or later,
if I am moving as well,
the same mountains are crossed.
Whether bird or man...
I can.
Bruce K Bushman 4/25/2002
Friday, September 3, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
My First Writing in almost 2 years - New
There is a Time
There is a time
for being noisy and raucous,
for letting it all hang out…
…for screaming when the roller coaster
slings you at hurtling speeds down
the track of your life
as the wind blows your hair
in a million directions.
There is a time for being busy.
A time when you place
your mental effort
into the projects of your days
and play the responsible card
in your hand.
.
A time to grandly attack the needs
of others so that
you can take care of
the needs of yourself.
There is a time to let go
of the busy day…
to focus on the family side of life…
to laugh and to cry
and to try to figure out
what it is each of you are missing,
or forgotten that you had.
There is a time for all of this.
So why are we always out of time for any of it?
We are stressed;
tested to the point of frustration
because none of the pieces
that we are tying to juggle
will stay in the air anymore.
There is a time to swear.
To give up and to crawl
into a fetal ball
and make the world go away.
And there is a time to wake back up…
to remember the visions of your night;
the dream that came back to you
in your fetal sleep…
…your childlike innocence,
and remember again.
There is a time
to put your feet back on the floor,
look at the day anew,
and let the failure (that was no failure, really),
open your eyes to
perhaps a new way of looking
at the old ways that didn’t work,
and find a new way
of expressing a beautiful you.
BKBushman 8-30-2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Process...
A few years ago a friend of mine asked me what I did to get in the mood to write what I write. I told her that it always begins with music for an inspiration. For the last several years, I have had an affinity with music called "New Age." That music has become the backdrop, or canvas from which I generally will start painting with words.
Sometimes I will enhance the mood of the room a bit, a soft candle burning, but not often. Mostly, music is enough to enhance the muses to come out of hiding and help me in the process of poem creation.
When I began writing back in 1975 or so, I would pull out a yellow pad, turn on the music (almost always it was Neil Diamond's Jonathan Livingston Seagull album because at the time that was the deepest spiritual music I found around me) and then I would quiet my mind, put pen to paper, and then just let my hands start forming what came inside of me.
It was a process that I have no real words for, because it was like sensing something within that wasn't part of the every day world coming to the forefront and leaving footprints of thought on the page before me. Afterwards, I would read the writing and be amazed at what would often come out. So much was so deep, and so beautiful (to me anyway.)
Then I would spend time with my old Corona typewriter (not even electric) and some carbon paper if I wanted to share something, and it was a painstaking process... and often times a green eraser that looked like a pencil but had a broom on the end of it for sweeping crumbs would have to come out (no backspace bars back then... no quick fix and edit... and especially no spellcheck!) It was a labor of love... something I felt inside I had to do and something that came into material form that eventually I was going to share.
I got the idea for a book way back then, and called it "A Poet's Journal" and I would stay up nights and nights working on the creative part, and then on the editing part. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, and it was a labor of love.
Then about a year into the writing, I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca as a musician, working on my book and my mother had some of the writings bound for me in book form to bring to me as a gift, and I was horrified! The gift was given out of love, but all I could see was this unfinished product staring me in the face! I think seeing my dream already out in the world and exposed as a little child frightened me a lot!
Over the years, as the computers came on board, I remember using the college computers to edit, compose, and re-edit my ever growing "Journal" but I never quite felt that it was time to try to hit the market. Technology kept changing, and I kept re-doing my writings every few years trying to keep up with the times. I always had in mind that some day I would like to publish a book of my writings... but 'life' and 'lack of money' became really handy excuses for not getting out there.
Sometimes I will enhance the mood of the room a bit, a soft candle burning, but not often. Mostly, music is enough to enhance the muses to come out of hiding and help me in the process of poem creation.
When I began writing back in 1975 or so, I would pull out a yellow pad, turn on the music (almost always it was Neil Diamond's Jonathan Livingston Seagull album because at the time that was the deepest spiritual music I found around me) and then I would quiet my mind, put pen to paper, and then just let my hands start forming what came inside of me.
It was a process that I have no real words for, because it was like sensing something within that wasn't part of the every day world coming to the forefront and leaving footprints of thought on the page before me. Afterwards, I would read the writing and be amazed at what would often come out. So much was so deep, and so beautiful (to me anyway.)
Then I would spend time with my old Corona typewriter (not even electric) and some carbon paper if I wanted to share something, and it was a painstaking process... and often times a green eraser that looked like a pencil but had a broom on the end of it for sweeping crumbs would have to come out (no backspace bars back then... no quick fix and edit... and especially no spellcheck!) It was a labor of love... something I felt inside I had to do and something that came into material form that eventually I was going to share.
I got the idea for a book way back then, and called it "A Poet's Journal" and I would stay up nights and nights working on the creative part, and then on the editing part. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, and it was a labor of love.
Then about a year into the writing, I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca as a musician, working on my book and my mother had some of the writings bound for me in book form to bring to me as a gift, and I was horrified! The gift was given out of love, but all I could see was this unfinished product staring me in the face! I think seeing my dream already out in the world and exposed as a little child frightened me a lot!
Over the years, as the computers came on board, I remember using the college computers to edit, compose, and re-edit my ever growing "Journal" but I never quite felt that it was time to try to hit the market. Technology kept changing, and I kept re-doing my writings every few years trying to keep up with the times. I always had in mind that some day I would like to publish a book of my writings... but 'life' and 'lack of money' became really handy excuses for not getting out there.
Today, we have such wonderful technology, and the ability to create for ourselves what we want to send out to others, and it has made the process of editing so much faster and easier, and the ability to set up files and organize and print when and where I want is fantastic, but The Process of creation is not much that different, other than typing as opposed to writing has changed.
I still start with music - wordless music if possible - and I close my eyes, take a deep breath, quiet my mind, and listen for the Muses to start their song for these hands to record. Typing with my eyes closed, I see and feel and hear the words that long to come to light, and I can type now so much faster than the writing used to go.
I never plan the work. That would take all the wonder out of the piece that I read when I turn off the writing brain and come back with my reader's eyes that see in wonder, for the first time, what came from the heart while the music played.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A thought from 2001
So I've been sitting here wanting to share something but not knowing what. I opened my document files to the writings of 2001, and this one stood out to share. So I will share it. I think Laurel did a drawing around it that we sent to my Aunt who lives in Australia. It is my memory anyway. It seemed right tonight to add it to my growing blog site.
AMERICAN MOUNTAIN MAJESTY
North American skyline,
shining softly on the mountains of the West...
tested through the storms of Eons,
created in the turmoil of
Earth’s Birth.
Standing tall; pines, oak and beech,
reaching out to shade
the strata of life
that run and live below and around...
the ground squirrel, the deer, the elk,
the bear,
the insects there in all their variety and
glory...
a never ending story of death
and life
and the struggle to survive...
Intense is the Energy that
feeds all life there
in the high air of the
Rocky Mountain ranges.
Lakes and streams and beams
of sun and moon
are Heaven’s artwork...
the wind Her tune
that whispers through the trees and
around the rocks and grasses.
Time passes for man as a
blink of an eye
under the skyline of the mountains.
They stand as hope around man’s world
that seems to be falling under shadow.
The mountains stand patient in their
living of life.
Bruce K Bushman 12/30/01
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The first thought this morning...
"Wisdom is blending the hope of a child with the experience of an adult."
I remember waking this morning from a dream where I had gone into a little used room in my home to look for something, and seeing the blinds open, I went to close them only to disturb a nest of birds that had taken over living there. They weren't afraid of me, but rather, they were interested in what I was.... and as in all dreams the vision somehow shifted to us being in a much larger room, or even outside, and I had gotten playful with the birds. I guess one of them had thrown something at me and I had swung at it with what I thought was a baseball bat. As more of the birds started getting into the spirit of the game, and throwing things my way I realized it was some sort of fruit, and when I looked down at what I was trying to swing at the fruit with, I had a banana in my hand, and the birds thought that this was a kick, and I couldn't hit a thing, and the more I swang at the fruit, the more they were unafraid of me and I of them...
I remember thinking that I wanted to tell Laurel when she got home that we had birds that had moved into one of the rooms upstairs but not to worry... they loved us...
And then I woke up with the thought in my head... "Wisdom is blending the hope of a child with the experience of an adult."
Now I'm no dream interpreter, but I wanted to write this down before I forgot in the light of a new day. Why this dream meant so much to me, I don't know. It's one of those little things that when you try to describe it to someone, the words all come out wrong and the visions seem nonsense, but you knew it had something to teach you... something you needed to learn, or remember.
The birds represented innocence in my dream, and my being there represented being a much more mature being letting go of preconceived notions and letting my silly side come out with a form of life that wasn't the same as my expression.
Anyway, I write it so as not to forget it.
I keep thinking maybe this dream was for the birds... (my critical analyzing self), but somehow, I am not sure it was!
I remember waking this morning from a dream where I had gone into a little used room in my home to look for something, and seeing the blinds open, I went to close them only to disturb a nest of birds that had taken over living there. They weren't afraid of me, but rather, they were interested in what I was.... and as in all dreams the vision somehow shifted to us being in a much larger room, or even outside, and I had gotten playful with the birds. I guess one of them had thrown something at me and I had swung at it with what I thought was a baseball bat. As more of the birds started getting into the spirit of the game, and throwing things my way I realized it was some sort of fruit, and when I looked down at what I was trying to swing at the fruit with, I had a banana in my hand, and the birds thought that this was a kick, and I couldn't hit a thing, and the more I swang at the fruit, the more they were unafraid of me and I of them...
I remember thinking that I wanted to tell Laurel when she got home that we had birds that had moved into one of the rooms upstairs but not to worry... they loved us...
And then I woke up with the thought in my head... "Wisdom is blending the hope of a child with the experience of an adult."
Now I'm no dream interpreter, but I wanted to write this down before I forgot in the light of a new day. Why this dream meant so much to me, I don't know. It's one of those little things that when you try to describe it to someone, the words all come out wrong and the visions seem nonsense, but you knew it had something to teach you... something you needed to learn, or remember.
The birds represented innocence in my dream, and my being there represented being a much more mature being letting go of preconceived notions and letting my silly side come out with a form of life that wasn't the same as my expression.
Anyway, I write it so as not to forget it.
I keep thinking maybe this dream was for the birds... (my critical analyzing self), but somehow, I am not sure it was!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
To Rant, Perchance to Scream...
There are folks who are of the opinion that inanimate objects are just that... inanimate.
Don't give me that bunk! These must be folks who don't sit all day with one of these "marvelous tools" called computers staring at them in the face and... laughing sometimes! Yes, laughing!
These things not only are full of soul and will, they are also full of mischief, and love to make my day miserable sometimes! First off, try to get one of these things to even begin to do your bidding until they've had their morning Java. You might as well go get loaded and settled yourself before you even begin to think you are going to accomplish something some days.
If they reacted the same way every day, that would be something... but they don't! Take the other night for instance. Here I was trying to do too many things anyway (multi-tasking, I think we call it now...) and one of the things is that I'm trying to put a small book together in JPG form to send out to my friends, Didn't do anything different I did last week, but would it cooperate this time??? NOOOOO. To much to ask, I guess!
Ever try to sit through a scanning process? BORING! But it was only seven pages, so what the heck, ya know? Got them all scanned and just as I hit the button to put them together I get this error page that says... well, I don't rightly know what it says, but I KNOW the computer is Mocking Me!
So going back to patience lessons 101, I start all over. 1...2...3...4...5...6....7 scan them all in again, and up comes the same stupid "we ain't gonna do it again, here are your error choices you idiot human!" By this time I'm mad, and my will buttons are pushed and I'm gonna make this thing do my bidding or die trying!
Another 20 minutes.... ending in a silent snicker from my laptop as I failed yet again. I don't even care what the stupid message says this time... I "control, alt, delete" the damn thing and slam the cover down and slink off to my pity party that I was late for...
This morning I tried a different approach... I picked up my little mouse, rubbed it's little underside a cuddle or two, and in my best Scotty voice I whispered... "Good morning Computer!"
I'll be durned! No error messages... no grief... and the project is done!
Don't tell me you aren't alive and in my life just to make me crazy you technical beast you! But thanks for the help today! I couldn't have ranted without you!
Don't give me that bunk! These must be folks who don't sit all day with one of these "marvelous tools" called computers staring at them in the face and... laughing sometimes! Yes, laughing!
These things not only are full of soul and will, they are also full of mischief, and love to make my day miserable sometimes! First off, try to get one of these things to even begin to do your bidding until they've had their morning Java. You might as well go get loaded and settled yourself before you even begin to think you are going to accomplish something some days.
If they reacted the same way every day, that would be something... but they don't! Take the other night for instance. Here I was trying to do too many things anyway (multi-tasking, I think we call it now...) and one of the things is that I'm trying to put a small book together in JPG form to send out to my friends, Didn't do anything different I did last week, but would it cooperate this time??? NOOOOO. To much to ask, I guess!
Ever try to sit through a scanning process? BORING! But it was only seven pages, so what the heck, ya know? Got them all scanned and just as I hit the button to put them together I get this error page that says... well, I don't rightly know what it says, but I KNOW the computer is Mocking Me!
So going back to patience lessons 101, I start all over. 1...2...3...4...5...6....7 scan them all in again, and up comes the same stupid "we ain't gonna do it again, here are your error choices you idiot human!" By this time I'm mad, and my will buttons are pushed and I'm gonna make this thing do my bidding or die trying!
Another 20 minutes.... ending in a silent snicker from my laptop as I failed yet again. I don't even care what the stupid message says this time... I "control, alt, delete" the damn thing and slam the cover down and slink off to my pity party that I was late for...
This morning I tried a different approach... I picked up my little mouse, rubbed it's little underside a cuddle or two, and in my best Scotty voice I whispered... "Good morning Computer!"
I'll be durned! No error messages... no grief... and the project is done!
Don't tell me you aren't alive and in my life just to make me crazy you technical beast you! But thanks for the help today! I couldn't have ranted without you!
Another New Blogger in the Family
So now my daughter has talked her mom into creating her own blog site as well. Bridget got having so much fun with the blogging process the night before, that she sat down here and guided and helped Laurel get going on her own blog site, which, I think, Laurel was a little hesitant to do.
But once you get Laurel hooked on a new toy, she really gets going, and she came out with her first blog last night and I absolutely enjoyed it! She calls it "There Ought to Be a Law Against it" and it is so Laurel!
So once again, I am going to be shameless, and put in a plug for another family member who has found this site and decided to blog for themselves.
I so look forward to her next installments of "There ought to be a Law Against it!" I just hope I don't find "hubbies" there any time soon!
But once you get Laurel hooked on a new toy, she really gets going, and she came out with her first blog last night and I absolutely enjoyed it! She calls it "There Ought to Be a Law Against it" and it is so Laurel!
So once again, I am going to be shameless, and put in a plug for another family member who has found this site and decided to blog for themselves.
I so look forward to her next installments of "There ought to be a Law Against it!" I just hope I don't find "hubbies" there any time soon!
Friday, August 13, 2010
My Daughter sets up a Blog Site
My daughter spent the night setting up her own blog site and beginning to post her own thoughts on the web. She is my daughter! It took me no time to sign up as one of her followers! Her site is called "Inside This Head These Thoughts Are Deep." It is a perfect name for her blog, as it fits her all too well.
As with all generations, the newer can teach the older so many things. I think I grew up with the belief that it is the older that should be teaching the newer (kind of a black and white way of thinking) generation how to live and what life's about. Actually, it probably takes listening ears on both sides of the equation.
I loved what she had to say. She said a few of my thoughts, but in a different perspective. And some of the things she had to say were new ways for me to look at things.
I think I know my daughter... she is so much like me in so many ways... but then, since I can't ride in her brain, how much do I really know her????
I know this much... I know that I am proud of her, that I love her very much... and that I am honored to have her as not only a daughter that has always been around me since she was born, but now that she is an adult, I also have a very wonderful friend!
Good going on your site! It is fun to have you around me in so many ways!
As with all generations, the newer can teach the older so many things. I think I grew up with the belief that it is the older that should be teaching the newer (kind of a black and white way of thinking) generation how to live and what life's about. Actually, it probably takes listening ears on both sides of the equation.
I loved what she had to say. She said a few of my thoughts, but in a different perspective. And some of the things she had to say were new ways for me to look at things.
I think I know my daughter... she is so much like me in so many ways... but then, since I can't ride in her brain, how much do I really know her????
I know this much... I know that I am proud of her, that I love her very much... and that I am honored to have her as not only a daughter that has always been around me since she was born, but now that she is an adult, I also have a very wonderful friend!
Good going on your site! It is fun to have you around me in so many ways!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
For a fellow artist. You know who you are!
Let's see, in 1983 I would have been around 26 years old! Just a reference point for you! Yes, I realized the universe turns slowly way back then!
OVERHEAD WALKS THE SUN
1983
Overhead walks the sun
in majestic stride...
not caring to run
eternal abide,
slow ride...
fast tempo to shun...
at peace... one.
The clouds softly drifting,
complimenting her pace...
slow movement, shifting...
knowing their place...
oft taking chase
then her chariot lifting...
her rays sifting
as they fall from the sky
to brush my face,
and capture eye...
feel their embrace...
time, space,
their merging nigh...
completed... sigh.
The sky’s movements urging
my soul to be purging...
my life unify...
my heart purify.
OVERHEAD WALKS THE SUN
1983
Overhead walks the sun
in majestic stride...
not caring to run
eternal abide,
slow ride...
fast tempo to shun...
at peace... one.
The clouds softly drifting,
complimenting her pace...
slow movement, shifting...
knowing their place...
oft taking chase
then her chariot lifting...
her rays sifting
as they fall from the sky
to brush my face,
and capture eye...
feel their embrace...
time, space,
their merging nigh...
completed... sigh.
The sky’s movements urging
my soul to be purging...
my life unify...
my heart purify.
A New Year... A New Life
It has been so long.
I've written these words before, in my journals that few people see other than me.
Of course, it's all said electronically now, and everyone gets to put their opinion out on the airwaves for all to see. I made a rule a long time ago... if my writing goes out... I hope it is uplifting and beautiful to the eye that captures it. So even if it is just for me... as always... I gain therefrom!
I've written these words before, in my journals that few people see other than me.
2009 was so very hard on me. It's time to move on.
AFTER YEARS ALONE
1983
I tremble...
my hand at touch of pen to paper...
(and so soul to light)
to feel the words flow again
after so many years of hiding.
But trembling eases (slowly)
as once more the flow comes
through my heart, past pen,
and into my eyes gaze once more.
I still care...
and feel...
And I still need to express my heart
despite my fears of leaving traces
of my soul
for the world to trample.
I’ve been told by some close
that they miss those glimpses.
And as scared as I am
to touch you again,
dear paper...
I missed you, too.
AFTER YEARS ALONE
1983
I tremble...
my hand at touch of pen to paper...
(and so soul to light)
to feel the words flow again
after so many years of hiding.
But trembling eases (slowly)
as once more the flow comes
through my heart, past pen,
and into my eyes gaze once more.
I still care...
and feel...
And I still need to express my heart
despite my fears of leaving traces
of my soul
for the world to trample.
I’ve been told by some close
that they miss those glimpses.
And as scared as I am
to touch you again,
dear paper...
I missed you, too.
Of course, it's all said electronically now, and everyone gets to put their opinion out on the airwaves for all to see. I made a rule a long time ago... if my writing goes out... I hope it is uplifting and beautiful to the eye that captures it. So even if it is just for me... as always... I gain therefrom!
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