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)

and tug at my clothes.

I just read one of the most heart-rending stories even though these stories are told thrice daily by women of all ages. Here's the beginning of it but it would do you a disservice if you do not link to the rest of it--including the comments at the bottom of the link. Here's an excerpt:

Blank Noise Project

I have terrible posture. That's what I discover in every exercise-dance class that I attend. Movements that should look graceful with the right posture look awkward, my shoulders droop. Did I never learn to walk with my head high in air, shoulders thrown back, breasts thrust up and with the confidence of being secure in the space around me? Actually, in my first gawky teenage moments, horrified by the first signs of a sexual persona in the form of growing breasts, I closed in my body to obliterate this shame of mine. And thus I walked home from school, fearful that my transition to womanhood would attract more of the sort of groping and pinching that had sporadically occured even when I was a child.

Yes, even at age 7. By a man who had kindly offered to seat me, the little kid, in his lap in a crowded bus. And then proceeded to grope me under my dress. I was puzzled, terrified, and never mentioned one word to my beloved uncle who had seated me on the monster's lap to save me from being choked by the crowded bus. In later years, I had the relative security of a school bus full of fellow students for most of my commutes, but the rare bus ride would be full of dread and anxiety, and as I grew up, I created a mental force field around myself, and became preternaturally aware of any clammy hand that tried to violate my physical space.

However, unsavoury incidents occured frequently. I told a male friend that I had been harassed twice by bastards who had been trying to press their obviously erect organs agains my shoulder as I sat in a bus. He was incredulous, he couldn't believe that there could be such lewd public behaviour in a country that can't seem to shut up about morality. A few weeks later, he called me, shocked, and told me that he had indeed seen a man on the bus he travelled in, with a very public erection, trying to thrust it against an unsuspecting seated woman. I wore, loose, ill-fitting clothing in the hope that it would make the harassers forget about my gender. Regardless, men even when they couldn't touch my skin, would try and tug at my clothes.

Read the rest: Blank Noise

But we can’t deny the Screams:

I dreamt last night that I saw a movie about a little girl who was telling her Daddy that something happened but it wasn't too bad and she knew he'd sit down with her and listen as she gently exposed the violent details~~~because she didn't want to arouse his anger too soon. Then the six-year-old's Daddy got a phone call and it was business and in the movie dream I could see the girl's face fading to white amid clouds of desperation and slowly the clouds engulfed her until she broke down because it wasn't really all OK as she had told him~~~she was needing to die.

Her face in the dream is shrouded like a veil and as her features break down in the crying frames, she then loses control and screams: I was raped!

Daddy then leaves his business and comes to her because he loves her and he holds her and you know in the dream he is going to vindicate his innocent little girl. Then I found this post today:

Smash, drip and evaporate...learn to be a woman by silbil
Screams free you! They did that too Naseeruddin Shah in Hero Heeralal But what happens to the screams of the heroines? … …okay? So what I have done is that I have begged you to save me from yourself…understood? … Than to rape me just once in while. Also now you can focus on so many more freelance rapes…
Marriage is all about common sense, my love…. First they decide what a beautiful woman should look like … See.they are men and therefore practical so they divide the work amongst them …fine? … because the bloody women always look enticing…
And they have to do that
You think it’s fun for them.
You think they enjoy this.
They ask irritably and wearily.
And I feel sorry for the poor darlings
Can they help it…that unfortunate hard-on and all that….

(Read the Full Text at: dostlog aur main)

An Ode to Women, Mothers, Grandmothers, Lovers

What a nice surprise to see such affection towards women and their invaluable gifts:

Make Some Noise: Some Blank Noise by Anjaan
women … have made me the man I am today. Its these women who make me a better man each day! My mom, my grandma, my aunts, my school friends, my classmates, my ex girlfriends, my teachers, my neighbours daughters, my friends, my sisters, Ammu and my female listeners. A huge Thank you to each one of you! :)

(Read and See the Rest at: The Tune of Irony)

Dreams of Racial Harmony

Dream by Neoh
Yesterday got a dream. I dreamed of how to promote racial harmony and deepen the bonding of Malay, Chinese, and Indian…

(Read the Dream at: NEOH)

'In the Lap of Nature'

I feel like I am constantly howling for healing in this world. There’s so much hatred and although it can be energizing for a time (or forever for some) I find that although it is easier to create for vice and malevolence, it takes much more strength and bravado to create for benevolence, excellence. Thus, I’ve posted the beginning of a poem from “Heal the World’s” blog. There’s a link below to read the rest, which links directly to that blog, which is not mine. I’m just a collector and surveyor of beauty throughout the blogosphere.

Gratitude by Meetu
moon seemed sprinkled with glitters
shining through drapes of night
breeze so calm and soothing
thought to stay awake
a little more
heaven so vast yet humbled
my gratitude to you
before i forget before i am no more
u never asked for anything in return
wish i can pack my bags
hold my guitar and air in my lungs
walk away to unknown destinations
everyone including me a stranger
a forgotten song on my lips
a forgotten rhythm on strings
in the laps of nature

(Link to: Heal the World)