I have four children

and they're now 20, 22, 24 and 26! I don't know how I did it but there is a God!

'Passion is something that drives me...

I am at heart a passionate person. Not in some sort of romantic chick flick kind of a way, just in that I latch on to anything completely. I love the idea of committing to something completely. In my previous blog, I talked about how my passions have run my life. Passion I think can be a very good thing and a very bad thing. I've been told by many that it is one of my greatest characteristics, but I'm not so sure. A lot of times I am unable to focus on anything other than what I am passionate about at the time being. Right now, I'm so passionate about guitar and worship music that I struggle maintaining other areas of my life because all I want to do is play guitar or think about arrangements, but how long is that going to last. Infatuation might be a better word here because they don't last. I'm just able to disguise it to others as passion.

A couple months ago I kind of realized that recently I've let these infatuations control my life and almost serve as an excuse or distraction from dealing with life (I guess that would be the most appropriate word). I get so much crap about not wanting to date it's absurd. When I get that pressure I always have the same rhetoric... "I don't want to date because it will distract me from _______." Lately, the fill-in-the-blank word has been guitar. I want to focus on guitar so much that dating would just be a distraction from learning my latest craft. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I do have to question it myself when the blank has been filled with different things for the past 5 years. (By my best estimate, it has been 5 years since my last date, yikes!) After my last relationship ended I said I needed to focus on my education, after that it was my move to California, after that it was skiing, after that it was finding a new job, after that I'm at the guitar phase. Those all seem like they could be legitimate reasons, but I wonder if they aren't just excuses... .

Read the Rest at PresentlyRestless...

i think (really, i do)

that i'm finally learning the real ins ands outs of this blogosphere. really. well hopefully. but i'm trying anyway. (it's a jungle out there, you know.)

the beauty of the blogosphere

is that it doesn't really matter who you are or what your ancestry is or what color your skin is but that you just live, think, breath and blog. amen

i am the happiest person in the world

i never want yesterday
i would never want that again
now that i know more
i would never make the same mistakes
toda
yes i'll make a few new mistakes
but i never wish for
yesterday.

amen

"The world breaks everyone,

then some become strong at the broken places." ~~Rev. William Sloane Coffin

There's a whole lotta stuff

going on.

I love the lord

forhe heard my voice, he heard my cry.

Mercy?

There's a strange world I saw

but if I just keep going and let go of a lot, there's a beautiful world out there even though it takes so much wandering.

Allegiance to earth & flora & fauna & human life that it supports ~~ Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin

I’ve been surfing the blogosphere, just linking from one site to another, trying to find something inspiring from blogs I’ve never seen before. I think I feel a strong need to do this when I don’t trust myself, when I don’t trust what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling, or I don’t know how it will be received, taken, understood, misunderstood, et al. That’s why voices on the wind of the world-wide-web help me. It’s someone else saying things that I can hear~~and know I’m not alone. (You might be surprised how difficult the task is, how many hours it can take.)

"The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places." ~~Rev. William Sloane Coffin

Poetic Justice

According to the April 13 New York Times obituary, he said: “Courage, he preached over the years, was the first virtue, because ‘it makes all other virtues possible.’”

I fear I’m getting close again to politics but here is another quote:

"Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race," he declared, adding: "Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports — one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all."

New York Times Obituary, April 13, 2006

I'm a journalism student and there is much talk about how we can not trust people on the web. Just wondering...what are your thoughts? (is it just insider jargon?)

Remembrance From 'Dancing on Colette's Grave'

…a quote she used in the book from Nietzsche:

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star"

Dancing on Colette’s Grave

I found a little quote today that made me think of a powerful dream voice I heard years ago while undergoing major changes in my life~~with its attendant chaos.

Many years ago, after leaving a church where I had been a devoted member and student, I went to sleep one night after looking above enormous elms and evergreens and asking the sky to give me a name. I had been used to having a name to call on in contemplative times and meditations and it had been a long time without a name. It wasn’t really all that conscious but I had left what I had known, been wandering for a long time, and just cried it out before falling off to sleep.

I would not have remembered the celestial query if a "disembodied dream voice (a term I learned from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' works)" had not answered.

The disembodied dream voice just simply, but clearly, said: "The Name is Morningstar."

I was quite taken aback as I’ve never heard, simply, a voice in my dream with nothing else. (However, I could tell it was an ancient ancestral woman’s voice.)

I spent some time researching "morning star." I've written about it in my journals for years and if and when I get the courage to delve into them, perhaps I’ll write about some of the specifics. Because it was the birth of a star in a mystical way that kept me going for about seven years, maybe more maybe less.

In times of trouble, the Morning Star was just there.

I’m not sure what my point is at all except Colette's quote reminded me that the present chaos can point to a dawntime and I am grateful.

This morning I decided that I think there is no god

There is nature and the sun is godlike as it heals the soul but I think there is no god the way I used to believe there was a god. This probably isn’t true but what if it is?

The other day I sat outside

on one of the first warm days of the new season. There were so many birds singing their songs~~they frightened me. I have lived amid nature my entire life and I've never seen so many birds at one time. And, I realized that if they passed along information to one another~~determining in their own special way~~that I was some sort of prey, then at a moment's notice thousands of oscine warm-blooded feathered vertebrates could come hissing and jeering down at me. I went indoors, safe from the signs of springtime. .

Where do our fears emanate from? Why is it so difficult to find or feel security?

I Love You Dear But Can I Love Myself Now?

As I ponder the choices we need to make and consider the people in our lives, I would like readers to consider the freedom of giving oneself permission to be, just who they are.

...that I love you my dear, but can I love myself now? Can I just hum or howl a hush so you can’t hear the stillness amid this noise--in pregnant expectation of my melody ....

(Read the Rest at: WomensBlog)