Connected Souls

Moving through the time of one place,
and here I am.
Come and go, and I arrive.

When men seek of good, they are all
working to better all.
We are connected as one through
our souls.

Shores of Truth

When the men of tomorrow reach the shores of truth,
they find the sands of time, washed by the tides,
and as the waters recede that come ashore, it continues
to remove the footprints left embedded for those who followed.
orig....11/29/2010

The Spirit Within You

The Spirit Within You

When the water went dry it was time to let it go.
I felt it leave.
I knew it.
My soul was going, missing, hungering for thirst.
I didn't want to go. Not like this was my choice.

Time is of no consequence. The love lives on and never
dies. Energy abounds in the place you hold dear;
surrounded by pure abounding joy. It will encompass
and feed you.
If you feel the spirit within you, let it grow, and let it breathe.
Hold nothing back.
Your light shines so bright, lighting a path for all to see.
Share it with the world. Give it to all who are in need.
Ask for nothing. Want for nothing.
The joy is in their receiving.

Let Go of the Fear

Let Go Of the Fear

When we first believe and seek truth in the light of

all we know, we will find the road of knowledge of 

believing in of we can follow.

And give yourself the time for healing the soul. 

The water and river of life deeply is inside and nourishes oneself.

Travel this life far and wide.

Freely and fly on the wings of love.

Out of this world. Not of this world. 

As many want to say, but of this plane of existence. Getting mired down

in the troubles and not finding peace. Tranquility exist in where you find and when 

you do, can you see it? Maybe.

 Some can and some can't. It exist.On one plane, on two or three.

No. On many levels. Oh ,there are so many; they go on and on.

Forever and ever. Hmmm. Yes. So many. Too many to count. 

Jaded and clouded by a world we create for ourselves to keep from seeing beyond

our own fear.

Let go of the fear and believe.

Let go of oneself. 

Be free.

Be free of yourself and let yourself be true to exist and be of who you are.

It is all I can offer you. Love abounds and exist of no boundaries. Beyond this world. No controls.

Give way to Freedom of your mind without limitations of your soul.

Trust the soul of yourself.

The Committee

I am probably the only person who reads this (well my committee and me) so that gives me the freedom to write whatever I want. I didn't want to just post poetry because I am more than just that. I wanted to write all those crazy thoughts in my head. Well, not all of them, cause let's face it, if I did that, someone would actually probably read this and then have me committed. Isn't that like the law of physics, or Newton or someone like that who was really smart or something ( see I am rambling). Doesn't matter, it's just me and my crazy thoughts anyway.

Anyway, before I continue to ramble, I thought I would introduce The Committee. Some may understand what that means and some may not. Let me back up for a second, and I promise I won't get off track (too much).  It's always important to try and meditate to clear the thoughts and have a blank canvas to help clear the thoughts, you know have a starting point. Well, that is so much easier said that done. It takes practice. There is deep breathing, relaxing, closing your eyes, getting prepared. Needless to say, most of the time I end up falling asleep. Better yet, my mind wanders off and I end up preparing my grocery list or paying bills in my head. Sometimes, "The Committee" takes over. I end up somewhere far off playing out some scene in my head and forget that I was supposed to be meditating and then my stress level is just, well through the roof and. well, I can save that story for another day. 

So, today, I thought I should introduce you to The Committee. My Committee is made up of  some dear old friends who like to tell me what I should have done, could have done wished I had done, and so forth and so on. They live in my head and they plan my life for me day in and out.  They never shut up.  They sometimes don't let me sleep, keep me up all night, wake me up at odd hours to remind me of what I was supposed to do, didn't do, need to do, should not have done; you get what I mean. I am not sure sometimes why I keep them around. 

First, I thought you should meet  Should Have Done. I am sure most of you are familiar with this. Should have done is the ring leader and never misses an opportunity to let me know. I hear this constantly. Oh, SHD never calls me by my name, it just YOU Should Have Done... and what it was. If I forgot to pick up something or if I didn't tell someone the right thing. No matter what it is,  SHD lives in my head all day. It is never ending. 

Now, SHD is followed closely by a relative "Could Have Done" who I am going to assume took lessons from SHD because it's like a broken record with the two of them. It's You should have done and You Could have done.  

Sometimes they bring a friend named "Why Didn't You".  This is one who ask me questions that, well, it's my life and why is my life asking me questions?  I thought I was in control?  Really?  Why didn't you do it this way?  Why did you let her walk all over you? Why didn't you tell her to shove it?  

There have been times when The Committee will wake me up and I hear " I wish you had not done that."  OK, this could not have waited? I mean, it's like 2am. Just a few more hours. I actually was only asleep for ten minutes ( I just convinced The Committee to let me sleep), and this couldn't wait a couple of hours? 

I like to call the voices in my head The Committee because its better than the alternatives. Trying to stay focused can be hard when life shows up. When I have ten minutes to sit down and meditate, I have a difficult time to do that.

The Committee is less likely to wake me up at 2am today than they were five years ago.  They are still there. I am learning to meditate and calm my mind. Writing is an outlet for me and not allowing things to bother me the way they used to helps too.  There are still times that The Committee goes with me everywhere I go. Take for instance, once (this was many, many years back when I first learned of their existence), I was waiting for an elevator and having a really bad day.  Needless to say,  Should Have, and Could Have were having a field day running rampant in my head and just giving me the blues. So, at precisely the moment the elevator door opened was the moment I picked to say out loud, "Ya'll are not going to worry me today!"  I was standing alone on the outside of the door and this gentleman steps out and looks around, then he looks at me.  I just smiled and said, "Hello, sir, nice day."  I proceeded onto the elevator and let the door closed. See,  problem solved.  Do I have the power to quiet The Committee? Well, yeah!

When One Door Closes . . .

Today I was searching for a way to get my poetry copyrighted and published. I have had a few poems published several years ago. I sort of stopped writing a few times, then start again. I keep putting it on the back burner. Why is it the one thing sometimes we so love to do, we just can't seem to find the time to do? Not everybody. My life has seemed to keep me from doing the one thing I love to do most.

About six years ago, my husband and I moved to New York from St. Louis. We were living this much slower pace of a life. We were off work by 5pm, and home by 5:15.  It was sort of mundane. Since we are both recovering addicts, we attended 12-step meetings a couple of times a week, we helped his mother out sometimes, visited other relatives, and you get the drift. Nothing exciting in our lives. One day, my husband said, "Babe, I want to be certified in the field I am in (he works in Orthopedics).  Well, there were several choices for locations. Two of those choices happen to be in much warmer climates. He said to the person he eventually accepted the job offer from and he also said to me that if this is meant to be there will be no confusion surrounding this move. He was right of course.  Two of those other choices were in the path of the Hurricane Katrina.

Since we made the move to New York, our lives have become extremely busy and very time consuming with commuting. It took some time to adjust.  Once you learn navigating the subway system here, you can travel anywhere. It is really not feasible to drive in Manhattan in the downtown areas, so I took the subway to my first job. Since my husband worked uptown, he could use the car and it benefited him due to the hours he was working. It would take him almost 2hours by train.

Now living here also meant that I had no time to do anything but get up at 4:45 am and go to bed at 11pm every night. On the weekends meant doing errands and chores I had no time for during the week. I all but forgot how to manage any of my time. I couldn't figure out why I was so fatigued all the time. My doctor sent me to a specialist who diagnosed me with a connective tissue disease.  To make a long story short, in the coming months about two years into living here I was let go from my first job in New York.  There is that when one door closes....

I made the most of it, and a friend/colleague of my husband introduced me to someone who was looking for someone who needed an assistant to work from home. Although this still didn't afford me the opportunity to still get back into my passion of writing, I was employed again. It lasted about six months and I went back to work part time.

I never really disliked what I was doing, I just had no passion for it. I could feel myself being drawn to what I truly loved most. I was writing more and more almost daily now. It all began sometime in 2009. I can almost pinpoint when it happened. One might say I am crazy, but I am not. There are people who would understand this because a lot of these same people experience it too. See, I am also a Michael Jackson fan and I am not ashamed to admit that. When Michael died, it hit me really hard. I didn't think it would affect me that way. It still does. One thing it did was to awaken again in me that creative part of me and that desire I had for wanting to be the best me I can be. When Michael sings about the Man in the Mirror, he makes me want to change who I am. I have listened to the words of the music and he makes me feel everything about who I am, he makes me take a look at myself.

I again got hit with a layoff, due to the recession, and there is that closed door again. I was reading a post from twitter about not staring at the closed door, but moving on. Now I am looking for new doors, or windows to be opened. I signed up for a poetry class today. I didn't sign up because I don't think my poetry isn't good enough. I did it because I want to be the best me I can be. There is nothing wrong with perfecting my craft. When I got honest about what it is I really want to do, I realized it was to write. It is my passion. It is the one thing I would do no matter what. It has always been. I can't let fear get in the way of that. No matter what.
I want to open the new doors...

Life is Too Short

I used to be polite. A lot. Let me start from way back. I am a recovering addict. In about a month, I will be celebrating 15 years clean. I used to be this shy introverted scared little girl. One day, I got curious about drugs. I was a good little girl who went to church and did everything I was supposed to. Curiosity got the better of me. i was an adult the first time I took a drink. My using days lasted about 10 years. My first drug of choice was alcohol and my addiction progressed from there.

Active addiction is horrible and it leads us to only so many endings: jails, institutions, and death. Death doesn't always have to be a physical one either. Some of us have to hit rock bottom. We have many bottoms too. My addiction to me to some really bad places that I never thought I would end up. Towards the end, I was actually living with friends in a very beautiful home, but we had no electricity, in the dead of winter, freezing. We weren't thinking about the lights, but our next high. How sick is that? After we got the light back on, we went out to get high again. That is not living. That is living to use and using to live.

I remember my last day getting high and thinking this is not me. I ended up in the hospital. I knew I had to make a change or I would die. I didn't look back.  I decided I wanted to live. That was a choice I made for me that day.

Life is too short to be caught up in that world today for me. I have found freedom from active addiction. I choose to be clean. I live my life one day at a time. 

Discovery

Standing on the cliff's edge,
hanging n the balance,
the rocks are so unstable.
So many tears of pain, flowing
into the gulf streams of rushing
water below.

Looking beyond the water's edge,
leading to the river of life, unable to reach it;
too many obstacles; too many stepping stones.
The dismal clouds begin to part; removing the gloom in it wake.
Oh, what joy to see the sun!
Exhibiting promises of a new day.
No trials to bear.
Now, what tears of joy!
Feel the whisper of the wind, hear it say:
Trust me, take a chance today.



This is another of those about finding myself.  The thing I think I find interesting is the words apply today. What I mean is the understanding in the meaning seems to sink in more now than ever.

Peace and Tranquility

Peace and Tranquility exist in the mind
of the whole person.
Has thou not known this?
When contentment arises,
the peace is there.
When peace is obtained,
so shall tranquility abide there also.

written 5/26/92

Looking into the Past

This morning I was going through some old papers and came upon some old poetry from 1992. Oh, wow. Seems like a lifetime ago. I tried to remember what I was doing way back then. What was I doing and why did I  decide to write it. I remember I was living in Atlanta, GA at the time. I was very young and life was very carefree. The future was very uncertain. I was still searching for what I wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to go. There was no real peace in my life because I was "on the go."

When we are young, we just seem to want to always be on the move and just bounce around. We don't think about the future. At the time, I didn't even know about meditating and listening inside for answers. I just existed. I did what I learned later in life what they call "geographical change", running from my problems. I was trying to fix the outside and not the inside.  The one thing I have come to understand is to fix the whole person inside and that is where I find what I am looking for. If I stop running from me, I will settle down.