Proms are right around the corner. Victoria mentioned that she will be going next year and of course, I started making mental preparations; we need a dress, mani & pedi, hair appointment, maybe a few tanning sessions, not that she needs it, and then tickets.
I stopped for a moment and I asked her, who pays for the ticket?
I had been to prom twice. Once to Luis’ prom and mine, in both occasions we had been each others date. I can’t remember who paid for what, so I was curious to find out how the Millenials handled this issue.
She said she really wasn’t sure, but if it was such an issue, she would pay for her own ticket. Thank you very much.
That’s my girl! Strong, independent and she makes her own way! (Two snaps up in a circle!!)
She left for school and I got ready to write on an entirely different subject and I couldn’t concentrate, finally I let my mind wander, not too long mind you, lest it wanders away forever.
I kept going back to the conversation with Victoria. I told myself that she was independent and strong and able to stand on her own two feet and needed nothing and no one to make it in this world.
The voice in my head began suddenly took on another tone and I was startled.
Honestly, I was more than startled, I was horrified; I sound just like my mother.
Not that there is anything wrong with being like my mother. I didn’t think that I was like that.
My mom is the quintessential Rosie the riveter. She is strong and she is a hard worker and she does not need a man to give her anything. Shove your home life idea because she will be out there, every day working hard and providing for her home. Remember that song, “that little frail girl can do more than a man can do”. That is my mother.
She pushed away anything that was domestic, hiring a maid for the household and enrolled us in the best schools. When my dad could not decide what he loved more if her or the bottle, she paid him off for his time in the marriage and escorted him to the door and never looked back. There was a lot more to her story with him, but suffice it to say she felt she had been able to buy her freedom.
Like my mom, my aunts are all very strong women. They knew how to work hard, how to achieve and how to be successful. They worked two and three jobs and they have even changed their brain circuitry away from the usual circles of women, to become problem solvers and linear thinkers.
Ask any of us. You have a problem? Let me help you fix it…. PLEASE!!!!!! I know so many things, I am so well trained to deal with these things, I can solve this problem for you…
We don’t actually come out and say that, but we might as well. We take over the problem and get involved , too involved.
As the next generation from the Rosies, we are out to proof ourselves just as hard workers as the previous generations and as good providers, problem solvers and go getters. We are hard.
But hold on a minute, I don’t want to be hard.
I can be all of those things without being hard. I can be strong and not hard. I can be resilient and not tough. I can be warm and loving and independent and not isolated, bitchy and cold.
Somewhere in our brains, we got it all mixed up.
The strength of a woman doesn’t come from doing everything a man can do. It comes from knowing the things that only she can do.
Yes, men and women can do anything that the opposite sex can do. Absolutely, very true, I will not refute it.
But that is if your personality is suited for it.
There is nothing worse than a man trying to be nurturing when he is not feeling it. Or a woman trying to come off as a hard-ass, when you know, that she is crying inside.
Because of the lessons that the women in my life had learnt, I was not around very nurturing women while growing up. So I had no idea how much strength derives from a woman’s love and a woman’s tenderness. How her quiet ways and indomitable faith makes her as powerful as the most impressive show of brute strength.
We thought that by being tough and strong we showed men we could be just like them. Yea!!!!
Power and strength manifest itself in different ways. Just like a tornado can rip off a tree from the roots, so can the soft wind germinate the next season’s flowers. The ten foot wave that swallows the shore is the same water that slowly erodes the rock.
Point? Fine, I will draw you a picture.
There is beauty and power in being soft, resilient and nurturing.
Women nowadays have a hard time dealing with that. Women, who still want to be cared for and loved, feel uneasy about showing these needs because they feel vulnerable. We chastise ourselves for feeling any weakness and beat our daughters when they do not show themselves as completely self assured.
We make it a point to make our boys tough, don’t cry, boys don’t cry. And girls cry but they also get up and kick the boy’s butt, don’t let him do that to you.
Being a bitch is marketed as a commendable trait and more and more you see marriages and relationships deteriorate when women take on this attitude . “Be a bitch and he will love you more”. Skinny bitch, pretty bitch, apparently being a bitch is something desirable.
As with every good thing that was taken to an extreme, a woman’s rejection of her innate nurturing side has had devastating consequences.
It is not uncommon for a mother to leave her child with a grandparent, to not feel a bond with it, to not nurture it and sometimes even mistreat it.
Don’t fly off the handle, I am not saying that this is the reason why these things happen, but follow me for just a moment.
If my mother left the house to go to work in the morning and didn’t return until late in the afternoon and I came home to an empty house and no one was there, or looked at my homework or even ate with me or showed that they cared one bean about me. Chances are that when I grow up, I will be the same way.
In relationships, in parenting, in everything.
Then this becomes ok to you, because, well your parents did this to you, and you are still here, so it must be ok, right? WRONG. Just because your parents made the mistake they did, it doesn’t mean that it’s ok for you to make it as well. Just because your parents were not aware of the consequences of their actions it doesn’t not mean that you are allowed to perpetuate them.
All of the problems that did not exist back then, can find a root at this hardening of women and their decision to walk out of their home in search of real power.
Obesity, well the kid is not buying his or her own food, and when he or she comes home there is no dinner made, what exactly do you want the kid to do?
Early sexual activity: where are they going? Not all of them are under the bleachers. Why be here in this park honey, when your parents and mine are gone to work until six.
Teenage pregnancy: Ask any teen parent and they will tell you, they just wanted to feel love and to feel wanted. Think it’s hooey? Look it up there is over 200 studies showing that most teenage kids who end up being parents were seeking love in either the sex or the child.
Drugs: If someone is at home watching what you do, they will notice the change. Whether they choose to do something about it is a different story.
ADD, ADHD: More than half of these diagnoses are not based on biology, only on behavior deviations. Whatever is causing these changes in the behavior of children, it can be handled by parents who are involved. Involved? Yes, put your drama aside, put your work aside. Focus on the child. No wonder the child can’t focus on what he needs to do, as parents, we haven’t been able to focus either.
Will it solve all of the problems in the world if women suddenly walked out of their jobs and came home and became June Beavers? Probably not. We are in too deep. We are too committed to this new life, to this new culture that has sprung from that movement that started back in WWII.
Can we make changes? Of course.
Don’t reject your nurturing side. No, don’t sit there and coddle and become a helicopter parent or spouse. But show your love, your care, your concern, freely.
Children blossom under the direct light of love and men stand a bit taller, a bit prouder when they know they are loved and appreciated.
Don’t be afraid to be weak. Don’t be afraid to fall. It is part of our nature, of our humanity. Physically we are different from men; it stands to reason that we are also emotionally and spiritually different. Being able to show emotion is part of our strength, being able to love intensely is part of our strength.
As my mother quickly enters the third age, it becomes more and more of a struggle for our role reversal to survive, she cannot be cared for, she cannot be provided for despite the fact that she doesn’t have the same stamina as before. She does not know how to be vulnerable. So until now, she gets up and goes to work, she gets out there every day and makes things happen. But if you ask her, what she wants more than anything, it s to be around her grandkids. As you age, your hard shell disintegrates and you realize that what is really important, what really matters are the moments where you were loved, where you were soft, where you were nurtured.
I don’t know if one day she will allow herself to be soft, to be loved and be vulnerable. I have to believe she will, if there is a chance for her, then there is still a chance for all of us.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A perfect little home
In the outskirts of somewhere or the other, there are 50 acres with our name on it… Don’t even try to look for it; it sits away from the road, down a happy little driveway. As you get closer to the house the tree lined driveway brings you to the little fountain we built, Tony says it’s our lucky fountain, I think he built it just so the kids can keep throwing coins in.
The gargoyles play guardian to our door, and the fishes swim in happy circles in the front pond.
The house is immense, I think it has more than 3000 square feet; it has rooms for each one of the kids. A library, a game room, a craft room and also a study, not that anyone studies in it… hahaha!!
The house was built over two hundred years ago and when we bought it, it seemed like it had been two hundred years since anyone had taken care of it.
Like someone who lovingly takes a child into his heart, we took the house into our hearts.
We have fixed other houses to live in, we once moved into this house that was so nasty, I thought I would never be able to sleep in there. But this house was different. It was beautiful; you just had to peel away the layers of dust and life the years had piled up on it.
Everyone grabbed a hammer and ripped up the floor. I called my brother and he told us what we needed to do to install hardwood floor. Little by little, we installed each floor board, we hammered in each nail. We were forced to spend time together and I can’t even begin to tell you how much money we spent on band aids and antibiotic cream. It became a competition, how much could be done in one hour; we were constantly trying to outdo one another.
Victoria worked with us every step of the way, being that she was a teenager, I thought that she would not want to be as involved, but she was there every time, hammer or paintbrush in hand, although we never gave her sharp tools, just as a precautionary measure. She has a bad history with sharp tools.
The house seemed more magnificent from one moment to the next. As we peeled off centuries of paint that had been heaped upon her to make her look better, each layer removed from her walls revealed a little more of us and our love for our work, and she grew in beauty in our eyes.
Some spots of her were too damaged, had been beyond repair and we all ran out and bought new fixtures and made this house fit us and we changed with each renovation in order to fit her.
We sanded and stained and painted each little bit of this house. We built new rooms and took down others and discovered new areas of her that we learnt to love. She had others that loved her, but they were gently reminded (birds) and others not so gently (mice) that she was ours now and we would not be taking other guests.
As we picked the colors for the rooms, we fretted like if we had been choosing a name for our child. We wanted to make sure that she was shown at her best. Sherwin Williams associates started hi-fiving each other as they saw us pull into the parking lot, nothing but the best for our lady.
Door frames were sanded and aligned again, only to discover that termites had claimed them before we did, so as we remove the door frames, we design new doors for our home, we used Damian’s drawings on the doors, a little carving and voila, custom made doors. He was beaming with pride; the house loved her new doors.
New lighting fixtures were bought and installed and the warm glow of the new chandeliers softened her up and gave us a second wind to finish our work.
Sinks and plumbing fixed; you would not believe the work in that, more than I care to comment on. Tubs taken away, we scrubbed and scrubbed and fought mold. Tile was installed and as the final battle for world dominance was fought with the caulking guns…we finished 5 bathrooms, from top to bottom. Then we had to call the plumber to fix our plumbing.
Everything went better after that. At the suggestion of the plumber we did a whole treatment and update on the septic system; I don’t care to discuss that experience. Not at all.
The deck off of the master bedroom was designed and the kids called on a strike. They adamantly stated that they would not work in an area of the house where they would never be allowed in. Tony gently reminded them that he could always take apart the game room. It is amazing how much a little persuasion can get you.
The girls took over the design of the outside. They picked out flowers and patterns for the walk ways; they took to their research and went nuts. They selected flowers that bloomed with each season and drove Tony crazy asking him questions about shade and ph levels in soil, they picked out flowers for beauty and scent and also looked for their natural environment. They wanted flowers and plants native to the area; the tulips, the lilies, the pansies, and all of the other ones will be so beautiful all year-round. Tony put in a beautiful white gazebo, surrounded by flowers and beautiful wind chimes. I heard Victoria tell Gabriela that she was getting married in that gazebo, I heard Gabriela say, me too.
As the living area was being finished, we began thinking of our barn and how we would house the animals. We would need enough space for all of them. Damian wanted goats and I have always wanted mini dexters. I know Tony wants chickens, but I am a little scared of them. I grew up in a house where cock fights was the thing for Sunday afternoons, I know what chickens can do.
We will plant our vegetables and our fruits, I love the seed catalogs, I have already researched the types of vegetable and plants that are native to the area. I cannot wait…
We pickup our dogs in another six weeks. Our Masos will be ready to come home soon and we have had to proof the yard for them. They are beautiful giants who will be a part of the family as well as work with us. Princess Gabriela wants something else, but then again, she will probably pick something little, overtly cute and completely purposeless, but it will make her happy.
Almost all of it was done, we had left the kitchen until the end because our special appliances had not arrived and we were having fun creating designs with the tile that we were installing. When suddenly, I decided that the area we had designed as a pantry area would not be large enough. So in a last minute dash, the massive washer and dryer were taken downstairs to their newly finished game room and installed opposite their WII, I said they could pretend that they were on rocket ships when the washer shook and they played Mario galaxy, four pairs of eyes glaring at me limited the rest of my comments
Finally, the laundry room was built into a walk-in pantry and the regular pantry was specially shelved for spices, yes I do own that many spices, and the appliances finally arrived and were installed.
That was our cue to move in.
The dragons came to rest in our home. (You would call them angels, we have dragons) We drove up our beautiful driveway with our little truck filled with all of the things that had made up our life. We watched with tears how everything that we owned, new and old, fit into our new home.
As we sat in the family room, with the fireplace going and everyone hooked by the hypnotic effect of the flames, we looked at one another and realized that we had not only rebuilt and renovated a home, We had left a part of ourselves within this house and when future generations came, they would know that in every nook, in every painting, in every little detail of this house is etched little bits of us, to live forever in this home.
When we found our house, she was sadly kept and not maintained at all. It takes a special love to see the potential in things. It takes a special dedication to invest so much of yourself in something and give it of your time and of yourself without thinking of a profit margin and the market value of the thing.
We built this home for ourselves, much as we have built everything in our life. A little bit of research, a lot of dedication, a little bit of muscle and whole lot of work. A little bit of finagling and a whole lot of luck. Regardless, as a genius works on a master piece, also we did not create it so much as reveal it.
A house is built with wood, cement and paint. A home is built with laughter and sweat, with stubbed toes and splinters and paint-stained pants. A home has that special corner that dad built all on his own, the flowers we planted together and the special color that made mom smile so.
A home is a little bit of you and little bit of me, it is things we have built together that create a new life and new memories. Our house was now perfect for our perfect little home.
The gargoyles play guardian to our door, and the fishes swim in happy circles in the front pond.
The house is immense, I think it has more than 3000 square feet; it has rooms for each one of the kids. A library, a game room, a craft room and also a study, not that anyone studies in it… hahaha!!
The house was built over two hundred years ago and when we bought it, it seemed like it had been two hundred years since anyone had taken care of it.
Like someone who lovingly takes a child into his heart, we took the house into our hearts.
We have fixed other houses to live in, we once moved into this house that was so nasty, I thought I would never be able to sleep in there. But this house was different. It was beautiful; you just had to peel away the layers of dust and life the years had piled up on it.
Everyone grabbed a hammer and ripped up the floor. I called my brother and he told us what we needed to do to install hardwood floor. Little by little, we installed each floor board, we hammered in each nail. We were forced to spend time together and I can’t even begin to tell you how much money we spent on band aids and antibiotic cream. It became a competition, how much could be done in one hour; we were constantly trying to outdo one another.
Victoria worked with us every step of the way, being that she was a teenager, I thought that she would not want to be as involved, but she was there every time, hammer or paintbrush in hand, although we never gave her sharp tools, just as a precautionary measure. She has a bad history with sharp tools.
The house seemed more magnificent from one moment to the next. As we peeled off centuries of paint that had been heaped upon her to make her look better, each layer removed from her walls revealed a little more of us and our love for our work, and she grew in beauty in our eyes.
Some spots of her were too damaged, had been beyond repair and we all ran out and bought new fixtures and made this house fit us and we changed with each renovation in order to fit her.
We sanded and stained and painted each little bit of this house. We built new rooms and took down others and discovered new areas of her that we learnt to love. She had others that loved her, but they were gently reminded (birds) and others not so gently (mice) that she was ours now and we would not be taking other guests.
As we picked the colors for the rooms, we fretted like if we had been choosing a name for our child. We wanted to make sure that she was shown at her best. Sherwin Williams associates started hi-fiving each other as they saw us pull into the parking lot, nothing but the best for our lady.
Door frames were sanded and aligned again, only to discover that termites had claimed them before we did, so as we remove the door frames, we design new doors for our home, we used Damian’s drawings on the doors, a little carving and voila, custom made doors. He was beaming with pride; the house loved her new doors.
New lighting fixtures were bought and installed and the warm glow of the new chandeliers softened her up and gave us a second wind to finish our work.
Sinks and plumbing fixed; you would not believe the work in that, more than I care to comment on. Tubs taken away, we scrubbed and scrubbed and fought mold. Tile was installed and as the final battle for world dominance was fought with the caulking guns…we finished 5 bathrooms, from top to bottom. Then we had to call the plumber to fix our plumbing.
Everything went better after that. At the suggestion of the plumber we did a whole treatment and update on the septic system; I don’t care to discuss that experience. Not at all.
The deck off of the master bedroom was designed and the kids called on a strike. They adamantly stated that they would not work in an area of the house where they would never be allowed in. Tony gently reminded them that he could always take apart the game room. It is amazing how much a little persuasion can get you.
The girls took over the design of the outside. They picked out flowers and patterns for the walk ways; they took to their research and went nuts. They selected flowers that bloomed with each season and drove Tony crazy asking him questions about shade and ph levels in soil, they picked out flowers for beauty and scent and also looked for their natural environment. They wanted flowers and plants native to the area; the tulips, the lilies, the pansies, and all of the other ones will be so beautiful all year-round. Tony put in a beautiful white gazebo, surrounded by flowers and beautiful wind chimes. I heard Victoria tell Gabriela that she was getting married in that gazebo, I heard Gabriela say, me too.
As the living area was being finished, we began thinking of our barn and how we would house the animals. We would need enough space for all of them. Damian wanted goats and I have always wanted mini dexters. I know Tony wants chickens, but I am a little scared of them. I grew up in a house where cock fights was the thing for Sunday afternoons, I know what chickens can do.
We will plant our vegetables and our fruits, I love the seed catalogs, I have already researched the types of vegetable and plants that are native to the area. I cannot wait…
We pickup our dogs in another six weeks. Our Masos will be ready to come home soon and we have had to proof the yard for them. They are beautiful giants who will be a part of the family as well as work with us. Princess Gabriela wants something else, but then again, she will probably pick something little, overtly cute and completely purposeless, but it will make her happy.
Almost all of it was done, we had left the kitchen until the end because our special appliances had not arrived and we were having fun creating designs with the tile that we were installing. When suddenly, I decided that the area we had designed as a pantry area would not be large enough. So in a last minute dash, the massive washer and dryer were taken downstairs to their newly finished game room and installed opposite their WII, I said they could pretend that they were on rocket ships when the washer shook and they played Mario galaxy, four pairs of eyes glaring at me limited the rest of my comments
Finally, the laundry room was built into a walk-in pantry and the regular pantry was specially shelved for spices, yes I do own that many spices, and the appliances finally arrived and were installed.
That was our cue to move in.
The dragons came to rest in our home. (You would call them angels, we have dragons) We drove up our beautiful driveway with our little truck filled with all of the things that had made up our life. We watched with tears how everything that we owned, new and old, fit into our new home.
As we sat in the family room, with the fireplace going and everyone hooked by the hypnotic effect of the flames, we looked at one another and realized that we had not only rebuilt and renovated a home, We had left a part of ourselves within this house and when future generations came, they would know that in every nook, in every painting, in every little detail of this house is etched little bits of us, to live forever in this home.
When we found our house, she was sadly kept and not maintained at all. It takes a special love to see the potential in things. It takes a special dedication to invest so much of yourself in something and give it of your time and of yourself without thinking of a profit margin and the market value of the thing.
We built this home for ourselves, much as we have built everything in our life. A little bit of research, a lot of dedication, a little bit of muscle and whole lot of work. A little bit of finagling and a whole lot of luck. Regardless, as a genius works on a master piece, also we did not create it so much as reveal it.
A house is built with wood, cement and paint. A home is built with laughter and sweat, with stubbed toes and splinters and paint-stained pants. A home has that special corner that dad built all on his own, the flowers we planted together and the special color that made mom smile so.
A home is a little bit of you and little bit of me, it is things we have built together that create a new life and new memories. Our house was now perfect for our perfect little home.
Monday, April 26, 2010
falling off the wagon
I have fallen off of the proverbial wagon. Not the diet one, I broke that one a long time ago. I have fallen off of the spiritual wagon.
At times our actions are guided by our emotions, at others, by our intellect and sometimes, by our ego. Metaphysics tell you that listening to your ego is the equivalent of a capital sin and my faux-pas was a biggie. My ego ran away from me and turned into a monster and left behind a mount of guilt and endless self-analysis that only stopped when I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard… well you know what I mean.
Your ego tries to convince you that you are special that you are better than others; that you are right and they are wrong. When in reality, we know that we are all one and as every other teacher that I have studied from tells us, there is the divine in all of us and we are all a part of a greater whole.
Well, in a colossal act of self-destruction, I let my ego take charge, for just an afternoon mind you, and now I feel horrible, betrayed and dirty.
What did you do that was so horrible? You may ask.
Well if you promise to keep it to yourself, I will tell you.
I stood in judgment of another person.
Oh stop it with the melodrama! It may not be horrible to you but once you do it, you take your self out of the stream of well being and well, you are left bereft of comfort and understanding, because you have denied it to yourself by denying it to others.
This isn’t an exercise in writing, this is more of a coming to terms with this action, so bear with me, I apologize in advance if the writing is a little convoluted, as it is, I am parked directly on Chaos Drive and it is going to take some fancy maneuvering to get out of this situation.
So what is so horrible about what I did?
I stood outside of a situation, I took a very few and weak facts about someone and I came to a conclusion about them and I stood in judgment and condemned their actions and their decisions. Then I recruited others to my idea and began the hateful act of murdering someone with words.
I don’t know why this person did what they did; I don’t know if this person is perhaps ignorant and did only what they knew was best. But I knew better, I knew better than to try to judge someone without walking a mile in their shoes, and even then, who am I to judge someone else.
This is not the path that I have chosen.
It was an unconscious decision really when I began to toddle along the spiritual path. It began with a book and with the constant and nagging feeling that there was more to life than what I could see. There was always a feeling of not belonging to the human race as if I knew that all that we saw with our own eyes was, not real.
Little by little, I began rebelling against many years of programmed thoughts and began asking not so much as to why, but why not and all the other questions that come to be once you get past the why. And I began to realize that there were others who were in this same path, and there was no unifying trait to all of us looking for more, except that we knew in our hearts that there is more.
I won’t try to tell you everything that encompasses living a spiritual path, even if I told you, your own path may be different and I could not dictate that, nor its contents. But I do know that there are certain truths that help me live a happier life.
I know first and foremost that we are all having an experience and that certain people choose for their experience to be a certain way or another. I also know that there is no such thing as right or wrong, that only we make something so. I know that everyone has free will to be and act and walk through this path experiencing whatever it is they want for themselves.
And I don’t know this because I read it in a book, I know it because I feel it in my bones, like I know that the ocean is large and that the sun is hot. I know it in my heart; I know it in my soul. So after more than twenty years of studying this spiritual path, you may be wondering what may have possessed me to walk away from everything that I stood for and believe in and act this way.
You are still not going to tell anyone, right?? OK, I will tell you. It was my ego; it was my desire to be special and to be better than someone else. It was my need to proof that I was right and the other person wrong.
And so I faltered and I flayed this person, I took my time and dissected this person’s character with all of my spiritual expertise and became the very thing that I had accused this person of. Mind you this person never knew what I had said, and I said it to someone inconsequential and there would be no repercussions from having said it. But I knew, I knew that even if I never tell someone that I have ill feelings for them, they will feel it, their instinct will warn them. The current that animates life itself runs through us and that at that level, there are no secrets from each other.
At first the realization wasn’t immediate; I started having a bit of indigestion. I began by getting irritated with things that don’t usually irritate me and by being impatient and ill tempered and then in a conversation that had nothing to do with the subject. It came to me. I was out of integrity and I felt disgusted with myself. I tried to rationalize, my ego is quick, but I knew, I already knew what I had done and I was so beside myself, I could not walk past a mirror for fear that person, the one who had said all those things, may be looking out at me.
I meditated on it, I prayed and then I also reached out, and although I did not get a clear answer, I knew that I had to tell you. I knew that I had to share with you, the words were bubbling over and spilling out of me and I knew that I had to sit here and tell you all about it.
Will you grant me the compassion that I failed to give that person? Will you look at me with understanding and tell me that I only made a mistake? Will I make it better because I have apologized to that person and cleaned up my mess?
Those of us that make a conscious decision to live life in awareness know that people make mistakes, know that situations sometimes can be tricky and that regardless of good intentions, sometimes, you make a decision that does not come from your highest thoughts. It is in our power and our capability to comfort those who have made the mistake and enlightened them to the fact that even despite the pebble in the way, the lesson they walk away with can be enormous.
I see the lesson. I acknowledge my error and I take responsibility for the situation and for the words that came out of my mouth and for the whole conversation that took place. I walk away totally convinced of the power of my own words against others being only against me and I pray for the wisdom to operate from that place of divinity inside all of us.
I do have the hope of another day, of a new beginning and a new opportunity to create myself anew.
Come morning, come sun, bring me another day.
Until tomorrow, Good night!
At times our actions are guided by our emotions, at others, by our intellect and sometimes, by our ego. Metaphysics tell you that listening to your ego is the equivalent of a capital sin and my faux-pas was a biggie. My ego ran away from me and turned into a monster and left behind a mount of guilt and endless self-analysis that only stopped when I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard… well you know what I mean.
Your ego tries to convince you that you are special that you are better than others; that you are right and they are wrong. When in reality, we know that we are all one and as every other teacher that I have studied from tells us, there is the divine in all of us and we are all a part of a greater whole.
Well, in a colossal act of self-destruction, I let my ego take charge, for just an afternoon mind you, and now I feel horrible, betrayed and dirty.
What did you do that was so horrible? You may ask.
Well if you promise to keep it to yourself, I will tell you.
I stood in judgment of another person.
Oh stop it with the melodrama! It may not be horrible to you but once you do it, you take your self out of the stream of well being and well, you are left bereft of comfort and understanding, because you have denied it to yourself by denying it to others.
This isn’t an exercise in writing, this is more of a coming to terms with this action, so bear with me, I apologize in advance if the writing is a little convoluted, as it is, I am parked directly on Chaos Drive and it is going to take some fancy maneuvering to get out of this situation.
So what is so horrible about what I did?
I stood outside of a situation, I took a very few and weak facts about someone and I came to a conclusion about them and I stood in judgment and condemned their actions and their decisions. Then I recruited others to my idea and began the hateful act of murdering someone with words.
I don’t know why this person did what they did; I don’t know if this person is perhaps ignorant and did only what they knew was best. But I knew better, I knew better than to try to judge someone without walking a mile in their shoes, and even then, who am I to judge someone else.
This is not the path that I have chosen.
It was an unconscious decision really when I began to toddle along the spiritual path. It began with a book and with the constant and nagging feeling that there was more to life than what I could see. There was always a feeling of not belonging to the human race as if I knew that all that we saw with our own eyes was, not real.
Little by little, I began rebelling against many years of programmed thoughts and began asking not so much as to why, but why not and all the other questions that come to be once you get past the why. And I began to realize that there were others who were in this same path, and there was no unifying trait to all of us looking for more, except that we knew in our hearts that there is more.
I won’t try to tell you everything that encompasses living a spiritual path, even if I told you, your own path may be different and I could not dictate that, nor its contents. But I do know that there are certain truths that help me live a happier life.
I know first and foremost that we are all having an experience and that certain people choose for their experience to be a certain way or another. I also know that there is no such thing as right or wrong, that only we make something so. I know that everyone has free will to be and act and walk through this path experiencing whatever it is they want for themselves.
And I don’t know this because I read it in a book, I know it because I feel it in my bones, like I know that the ocean is large and that the sun is hot. I know it in my heart; I know it in my soul. So after more than twenty years of studying this spiritual path, you may be wondering what may have possessed me to walk away from everything that I stood for and believe in and act this way.
You are still not going to tell anyone, right?? OK, I will tell you. It was my ego; it was my desire to be special and to be better than someone else. It was my need to proof that I was right and the other person wrong.
And so I faltered and I flayed this person, I took my time and dissected this person’s character with all of my spiritual expertise and became the very thing that I had accused this person of. Mind you this person never knew what I had said, and I said it to someone inconsequential and there would be no repercussions from having said it. But I knew, I knew that even if I never tell someone that I have ill feelings for them, they will feel it, their instinct will warn them. The current that animates life itself runs through us and that at that level, there are no secrets from each other.
At first the realization wasn’t immediate; I started having a bit of indigestion. I began by getting irritated with things that don’t usually irritate me and by being impatient and ill tempered and then in a conversation that had nothing to do with the subject. It came to me. I was out of integrity and I felt disgusted with myself. I tried to rationalize, my ego is quick, but I knew, I already knew what I had done and I was so beside myself, I could not walk past a mirror for fear that person, the one who had said all those things, may be looking out at me.
I meditated on it, I prayed and then I also reached out, and although I did not get a clear answer, I knew that I had to tell you. I knew that I had to share with you, the words were bubbling over and spilling out of me and I knew that I had to sit here and tell you all about it.
Will you grant me the compassion that I failed to give that person? Will you look at me with understanding and tell me that I only made a mistake? Will I make it better because I have apologized to that person and cleaned up my mess?
Those of us that make a conscious decision to live life in awareness know that people make mistakes, know that situations sometimes can be tricky and that regardless of good intentions, sometimes, you make a decision that does not come from your highest thoughts. It is in our power and our capability to comfort those who have made the mistake and enlightened them to the fact that even despite the pebble in the way, the lesson they walk away with can be enormous.
I see the lesson. I acknowledge my error and I take responsibility for the situation and for the words that came out of my mouth and for the whole conversation that took place. I walk away totally convinced of the power of my own words against others being only against me and I pray for the wisdom to operate from that place of divinity inside all of us.
I do have the hope of another day, of a new beginning and a new opportunity to create myself anew.
Come morning, come sun, bring me another day.
Until tomorrow, Good night!
Whole in your arms
Through the whirlwind of the day, in the madness of this moment
I walk the shadows in stealth, trying to make it home unscathed
As I find our sanctuary and I fling myself to safety
I recall what I’ve always known; I am whole in your arms
For wars will rage and people will wrath, and dreams broken will litter my path
In hate and in shallowness, in grudges and in pain
The populace walks aimlessly, firing their deadly poison
But then there is you, there is home and there is us.
In the safety of your love, in the exuberance of life
In the risk of our daily rituals, one thing remains constant
One thing keeps me alive, after the overwhelming day
I recall what I’ve always known, I; I am whole in your arms.
I walk the shadows in stealth, trying to make it home unscathed
As I find our sanctuary and I fling myself to safety
I recall what I’ve always known; I am whole in your arms
For wars will rage and people will wrath, and dreams broken will litter my path
In hate and in shallowness, in grudges and in pain
The populace walks aimlessly, firing their deadly poison
But then there is you, there is home and there is us.
In the safety of your love, in the exuberance of life
In the risk of our daily rituals, one thing remains constant
One thing keeps me alive, after the overwhelming day
I recall what I’ve always known, I; I am whole in your arms.
My dearest Child
My dearest Child:
One of these days I won’t be here. I won’t be able to hold your hand when someone has hurt your feelings, when you need someone to hear your writings or when you just need a hug.
One day my body will leave its fleshy shell and I will be no more. My spirit and my love will forever be with you, but in the midst of life, we forget that we have not been forgotten.
In those times when I am gone and you can’t hear the song of your heart, remember baby, remember, be true to yourself.
Be true to yourself and do what you feel you have to do, with integrity and with pride. Do it so that it gives you satisfaction, do it so you are happy with what you have done.
People have ideas of what they think you should be doing, saying, wearing and even eating; but you have your inner compass and only it leads you to happiness and fulfillment.
Happiness is not a period of time; it is moments that strung together remind you why you get up everyday and why you do what you do.
Each person is its own universe. Not that they are that deep, but that they have their own notions based on their own experiences and there is nothing you can do to change them, they are a result of what they have been through.
Every relationship you have is a reflection of who you are and how you see yourself. Honor the person that brings you that awareness but realize that you also serve the same function in their life. We are mirrors into each other’s soul.
When you fall on your knees, and you will, remember that it does not matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up. And that in life, it’s about being IN the game, not watching it from the sidelines, but in the thick of things, living the experience to the fullest.
Don’t fool yourself my love, despite it all, I am always with you, you only need to think of me to bring me close to you, to feel my love surrounding you, to know that I have never left you.
Smile child, death is not an end. Nothing has an end, you are never finished. Life is continuous and never ending. Even if you make mistakes, you can fix them, no matter what you do, there is always tomorrow and tomorrow comes full of opportunities and possibilities to create yourself anew. Don’t despair, you cannot see the path unfold before you, but trust me, heart of mine, there is a reason, and there is a way.
The answer to all of your questions is you. You, you, you, always you. It matters not what others do, think or say. They will fall or rise by their own doing. It matters what you do, think or say; you will succeed or not, based on your own steps, your own decisions. Your happiness comes from you, so does your pain and misery.
I love you, never forget it, never doubt it and for even in the darkest moment of your life, you are beautiful, and you are perfect in my eyes. Never will you be any less, never could I love you any less, for I love you with eyes of love and in love everything is perfection. The flaws that you see are not real; the faults you create don’t exist. Be kind to others, but above all, be kind to yourself, love yourself, for the most important relationship you have is with you.
When I am no longer here child, take a look around you, I am in all the things that you love; in the wind that caresses you, in the sun that warms your skin, in the soft rain that falls, in the calls of birds in spring. Don’t forget, I am not gone, look inside, I am always there, I am the whispers of your heart reminding you to smile, I am the subtle rocking that comforts your sorrows away, I am warmth that creeps into your day.
NO matter where my spirit goes, I will always be around, as a cloud in the heavens, as a flame in the dark, from very far or closer than you think, I will always be with you child of my heart, child of my soul, I love you forevermore…
One of these days I won’t be here. I won’t be able to hold your hand when someone has hurt your feelings, when you need someone to hear your writings or when you just need a hug.
One day my body will leave its fleshy shell and I will be no more. My spirit and my love will forever be with you, but in the midst of life, we forget that we have not been forgotten.
In those times when I am gone and you can’t hear the song of your heart, remember baby, remember, be true to yourself.
Be true to yourself and do what you feel you have to do, with integrity and with pride. Do it so that it gives you satisfaction, do it so you are happy with what you have done.
People have ideas of what they think you should be doing, saying, wearing and even eating; but you have your inner compass and only it leads you to happiness and fulfillment.
Happiness is not a period of time; it is moments that strung together remind you why you get up everyday and why you do what you do.
Each person is its own universe. Not that they are that deep, but that they have their own notions based on their own experiences and there is nothing you can do to change them, they are a result of what they have been through.
Every relationship you have is a reflection of who you are and how you see yourself. Honor the person that brings you that awareness but realize that you also serve the same function in their life. We are mirrors into each other’s soul.
When you fall on your knees, and you will, remember that it does not matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up. And that in life, it’s about being IN the game, not watching it from the sidelines, but in the thick of things, living the experience to the fullest.
Don’t fool yourself my love, despite it all, I am always with you, you only need to think of me to bring me close to you, to feel my love surrounding you, to know that I have never left you.
Smile child, death is not an end. Nothing has an end, you are never finished. Life is continuous and never ending. Even if you make mistakes, you can fix them, no matter what you do, there is always tomorrow and tomorrow comes full of opportunities and possibilities to create yourself anew. Don’t despair, you cannot see the path unfold before you, but trust me, heart of mine, there is a reason, and there is a way.
The answer to all of your questions is you. You, you, you, always you. It matters not what others do, think or say. They will fall or rise by their own doing. It matters what you do, think or say; you will succeed or not, based on your own steps, your own decisions. Your happiness comes from you, so does your pain and misery.
I love you, never forget it, never doubt it and for even in the darkest moment of your life, you are beautiful, and you are perfect in my eyes. Never will you be any less, never could I love you any less, for I love you with eyes of love and in love everything is perfection. The flaws that you see are not real; the faults you create don’t exist. Be kind to others, but above all, be kind to yourself, love yourself, for the most important relationship you have is with you.
When I am no longer here child, take a look around you, I am in all the things that you love; in the wind that caresses you, in the sun that warms your skin, in the soft rain that falls, in the calls of birds in spring. Don’t forget, I am not gone, look inside, I am always there, I am the whispers of your heart reminding you to smile, I am the subtle rocking that comforts your sorrows away, I am warmth that creeps into your day.
NO matter where my spirit goes, I will always be around, as a cloud in the heavens, as a flame in the dark, from very far or closer than you think, I will always be with you child of my heart, child of my soul, I love you forevermore…
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Social Networking
I have 176 friends in Facebook. Well, I had. Mind you, they weren’t just friends; they were relatives, people I usually stalk
(Yes, I am a stalker… Hello, my name is Claudia and I am a stalker….)
Back to subject at hand, people I admire, people I support, a plethora of people from all over the world.
Facebook is a wonderful thing. Social networking had broadened our horizons and has allowed us to reach out and touch people who would have otherwise disappeared from our life. AT&T never had it so good. Even people who you have never spoken to before got a chance to get to know you, on the computer and some people found their support system in the people who came looking at their status and their page on a regular basis.
Even games like Mafia wars and farmsville provide the premises for team work and cooperation from unlikely groups and create a sense of community. My neighbors, my mafia… you know, my people.
As if that wasn’t good enough, social networking allowed us an outlet for expression. We looked for witty quotes, funny sayings or just a chance to simply blurt out whatever was in our minds, others comment on it, it is interaction with others, as defined by the 21st century.
MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are available to you everywhere, and I mean that literally. If you have one of those nifty blackberry phones, you could be on the porcelain throne and update your status, some people have done it…
You see, and that’s when I think facebook becomes something negative.
Being able to reconnect with friends and family is all good. Seeing how people have changed and how their lives turned out is amazing, some people have changed radically, others are still the same as almost twenty years ago. Social networking permits us, again, to make connections that would never have happened.
But what if they weren’t supposed to happen?
There were 170+ friends on my facebook, I spoke to them initially and it was great, new things to discover about old friends and the joy of discovering the old ones gave us a sense of recognition, as part of us acknowledged par t of them. Sometimes it did not even go that far, sometimes it was the first message and the emotion never sparked, there was no excitement in the reconnection, it was only the satisfaction of having found someone else, (now you understand how a stalker feels). Some of them, I didn’t even greet, I just accepted their request and it didn’t make a difference, one way or another.
However, if you were to go back and look at my page, you would realize that it was only the same people, over and over who went back to my page. My circle, my friends. As I constantly kept up with their status, so did they come and look at mine, we commented back and forth and it was just another way of strengthening something that was already there.
With others though, there is no real connection. Not that you would expect it to be, but in an age when computers and smart phones have taken over our communications, it is really easy to delegate our commitment to others to a few text messages. It is really easy to become engrossed in other drama or even become hooked to the interaction in posts or games. We do this, I have done this and I have forgotten something much more important.
The human factor.
As humans, we relish interaction. We need someone to talk to, to talk at us, with us, around us. Aside from talking we need to be touched, it has been proven in countless of studies that human beings need to be touched, a hug, a pat on the back, even a shoulder to cry one. All of these things are intrinsically coded into ourselves and without it, WE know, we know that despite the connection, it is not the same.
Things are lost in facebook; the love someone can convey to another cannot be fully expressed to one another through a post on a social network site. People post things on each others status and the misunderstandings and Drama it creates is enough to give the Hallmark channel enough fodder for the next millennia. And the number of people willing to air their dirty laundry is appalling.
Because we make posts onto the computer, we allow ourselves to say things that we would never have the courage to say to each others faces. It is so much easier to be cruel, sarcastic and plain rude on a computer. It is so much easier to take whatever someone has posted on their status or used as their flair and take offense from that. We are a narcissistic society, we believe that everything others do or say has something to do or is caused by us. We react to it and thus more hurt feelings, more misunderstanding.
Many times, social networking can create exclusion towards one another.
You know the person is on, they updated their status. You know they were on for a while, their farm was fertilized. They have been on regularly; their fence around their farm is finished.
But there was never any effort in contact. Not a comment, not a word. Never.
When you actually meet, there is that whole routine about missing you, about wishing for more time to spend together, for more interaction, for more, more, more…
And then you realize, the people who are not part of your immediate circle are not there by choice.
When a relationship is good and it flows, it flows everywhere and anywhere. It grows and it is nourished by all things that you do. It may take time, but it is time given unconditionally. It may take some nurturing, but it is nurturing that enriches the giver and the receiver. When feelings are hurt, there is compassion and understanding that together you can make things right and there is even space, to think things away from each other, only to come back and share them.
You may have a thousand facebook friends, but how many of them are real friends?
Many of you will think that I am insane, that EVERYONE knows that facebook is a tool; it is just something fun that you do. That there are no feelings involved and others actions and interactions do not affect you. For the other 99% of the population, social networking is great but it is also an empty shell.
The 3000 friends on your profile will post on your account, like your status and even help you kill the idiot who attacked you on the five minutes it took to get you home from work. But when stuff hits the fan, it is only a precious few that will give you a hand to stand back up.
Many understand, in theory, the true distinction between friends and facebook friends. But many act otherwise. They are on facebook in the morning while they drink their coffee, at work during their break, in the afternoon while dinner defrosts in the microwave and right before bed and every other time in between.
Social networking has created a shift in our day to day routines. We look incessantly to see if someone has commented to our status, if someone responded to our message or to see if our meal is ready in café world.
The internet alone is considered to be one of the biggest timesinks of our time, but facebook users have surpassed that by far. In studies it was found that people who have facebook will spend 3 times the amount of time online than they do visiting all other websites, combined. That means that if you were usually a ten-minute- check in and check out kind of person, if you are a facebook user, you spend up to 30 minutes a day on social networking.
Then people wonder why we are an obese and out of shape nation!!!
There are so many things that you could be doing in those 30 minutes.
You can exercise, you can finish that to-do list, you could read a really good book, you could meditate, you could play with your kids, make love to your spouse, create a new playlist on your ipod, or you could call that someone who is important to you and tell them how much they mean to you. The possibilities are endless.
The internet has eroded our social skills. Our kids are growing up to accept virtual relationships as a given, the art of socializing with actual people is being lost. Our ability to read body language, to develop and cultivate friendships, all of that is becoming something of the past. What’s more, people all over the world are becoming aware of a sense of emptiness inside of us, a sense of disconnection that something is missing. I can assure you it is not that you are missing another car or another gadget, you are missing interpersonal relationships, and you are missing the warmth of another human being.
The technological advances are wonderful. We have become a global community and we are able to reach information a million times faster than generations before, but I don’t think that we were supposed to sacrifice one knowledge for another. We were not supposed to lose that sense of REAL community, of family, of real friends, of real people. We are hyper busy, we are constantly doing things and going places, our time is sacred, what should you be spending your time on?
Time is what we have, we can have more money, more friends, more everything, but time given away never comes back to us.
NEVER.
(Yes, I am a stalker… Hello, my name is Claudia and I am a stalker….)
Back to subject at hand, people I admire, people I support, a plethora of people from all over the world.
Facebook is a wonderful thing. Social networking had broadened our horizons and has allowed us to reach out and touch people who would have otherwise disappeared from our life. AT&T never had it so good. Even people who you have never spoken to before got a chance to get to know you, on the computer and some people found their support system in the people who came looking at their status and their page on a regular basis.
Even games like Mafia wars and farmsville provide the premises for team work and cooperation from unlikely groups and create a sense of community. My neighbors, my mafia… you know, my people.
As if that wasn’t good enough, social networking allowed us an outlet for expression. We looked for witty quotes, funny sayings or just a chance to simply blurt out whatever was in our minds, others comment on it, it is interaction with others, as defined by the 21st century.
MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are available to you everywhere, and I mean that literally. If you have one of those nifty blackberry phones, you could be on the porcelain throne and update your status, some people have done it…
You see, and that’s when I think facebook becomes something negative.
Being able to reconnect with friends and family is all good. Seeing how people have changed and how their lives turned out is amazing, some people have changed radically, others are still the same as almost twenty years ago. Social networking permits us, again, to make connections that would never have happened.
But what if they weren’t supposed to happen?
There were 170+ friends on my facebook, I spoke to them initially and it was great, new things to discover about old friends and the joy of discovering the old ones gave us a sense of recognition, as part of us acknowledged par t of them. Sometimes it did not even go that far, sometimes it was the first message and the emotion never sparked, there was no excitement in the reconnection, it was only the satisfaction of having found someone else, (now you understand how a stalker feels). Some of them, I didn’t even greet, I just accepted their request and it didn’t make a difference, one way or another.
However, if you were to go back and look at my page, you would realize that it was only the same people, over and over who went back to my page. My circle, my friends. As I constantly kept up with their status, so did they come and look at mine, we commented back and forth and it was just another way of strengthening something that was already there.
With others though, there is no real connection. Not that you would expect it to be, but in an age when computers and smart phones have taken over our communications, it is really easy to delegate our commitment to others to a few text messages. It is really easy to become engrossed in other drama or even become hooked to the interaction in posts or games. We do this, I have done this and I have forgotten something much more important.
The human factor.
As humans, we relish interaction. We need someone to talk to, to talk at us, with us, around us. Aside from talking we need to be touched, it has been proven in countless of studies that human beings need to be touched, a hug, a pat on the back, even a shoulder to cry one. All of these things are intrinsically coded into ourselves and without it, WE know, we know that despite the connection, it is not the same.
Things are lost in facebook; the love someone can convey to another cannot be fully expressed to one another through a post on a social network site. People post things on each others status and the misunderstandings and Drama it creates is enough to give the Hallmark channel enough fodder for the next millennia. And the number of people willing to air their dirty laundry is appalling.
Because we make posts onto the computer, we allow ourselves to say things that we would never have the courage to say to each others faces. It is so much easier to be cruel, sarcastic and plain rude on a computer. It is so much easier to take whatever someone has posted on their status or used as their flair and take offense from that. We are a narcissistic society, we believe that everything others do or say has something to do or is caused by us. We react to it and thus more hurt feelings, more misunderstanding.
Many times, social networking can create exclusion towards one another.
You know the person is on, they updated their status. You know they were on for a while, their farm was fertilized. They have been on regularly; their fence around their farm is finished.
But there was never any effort in contact. Not a comment, not a word. Never.
When you actually meet, there is that whole routine about missing you, about wishing for more time to spend together, for more interaction, for more, more, more…
And then you realize, the people who are not part of your immediate circle are not there by choice.
When a relationship is good and it flows, it flows everywhere and anywhere. It grows and it is nourished by all things that you do. It may take time, but it is time given unconditionally. It may take some nurturing, but it is nurturing that enriches the giver and the receiver. When feelings are hurt, there is compassion and understanding that together you can make things right and there is even space, to think things away from each other, only to come back and share them.
You may have a thousand facebook friends, but how many of them are real friends?
Many of you will think that I am insane, that EVERYONE knows that facebook is a tool; it is just something fun that you do. That there are no feelings involved and others actions and interactions do not affect you. For the other 99% of the population, social networking is great but it is also an empty shell.
The 3000 friends on your profile will post on your account, like your status and even help you kill the idiot who attacked you on the five minutes it took to get you home from work. But when stuff hits the fan, it is only a precious few that will give you a hand to stand back up.
Many understand, in theory, the true distinction between friends and facebook friends. But many act otherwise. They are on facebook in the morning while they drink their coffee, at work during their break, in the afternoon while dinner defrosts in the microwave and right before bed and every other time in between.
Social networking has created a shift in our day to day routines. We look incessantly to see if someone has commented to our status, if someone responded to our message or to see if our meal is ready in café world.
The internet alone is considered to be one of the biggest timesinks of our time, but facebook users have surpassed that by far. In studies it was found that people who have facebook will spend 3 times the amount of time online than they do visiting all other websites, combined. That means that if you were usually a ten-minute- check in and check out kind of person, if you are a facebook user, you spend up to 30 minutes a day on social networking.
Then people wonder why we are an obese and out of shape nation!!!
There are so many things that you could be doing in those 30 minutes.
You can exercise, you can finish that to-do list, you could read a really good book, you could meditate, you could play with your kids, make love to your spouse, create a new playlist on your ipod, or you could call that someone who is important to you and tell them how much they mean to you. The possibilities are endless.
The internet has eroded our social skills. Our kids are growing up to accept virtual relationships as a given, the art of socializing with actual people is being lost. Our ability to read body language, to develop and cultivate friendships, all of that is becoming something of the past. What’s more, people all over the world are becoming aware of a sense of emptiness inside of us, a sense of disconnection that something is missing. I can assure you it is not that you are missing another car or another gadget, you are missing interpersonal relationships, and you are missing the warmth of another human being.
The technological advances are wonderful. We have become a global community and we are able to reach information a million times faster than generations before, but I don’t think that we were supposed to sacrifice one knowledge for another. We were not supposed to lose that sense of REAL community, of family, of real friends, of real people. We are hyper busy, we are constantly doing things and going places, our time is sacred, what should you be spending your time on?
Time is what we have, we can have more money, more friends, more everything, but time given away never comes back to us.
NEVER.
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