One Light

Yes, there is darkness in the world. Yes, there are forces that seek to oppress. Yes, there are ill-willed human beings that desire total control and conquest through fear. Yes, there is even the blackness of one's own mind to contend with. You can choose to cower before these dark forces. You can choose to give in. You can lay down your will and submit to the conquest or you can choose to shine.

One light, my friend, one small candle, one struck match and darkness retreats. It takes so much darkness to cover a light and so little light to banish the dark. Light can be a candle, a lamp, a word of kindness, an offered hand. In a room full of dark lies and deceit, one sentence of spoken truth will ignite the dawn.

Keep matches in your pocket. Keep courage to speak the truth. Keep love in your heart. When darkness comes, strike your match. Unleash your truth. Throw down your love at the base of false evil. Let God's light within you shine forth.

The Path of Destiny

Suddenly, I find myself staring down the path of destiny. It is a curving path with no roadsigns, no speed limit, no recorded length. It is not a paved path. I see no footprints or hoofprints or tire tracks. This is not the path less traveled. This is the path yet-to-be traveled. It begins at the end. The end of 6 cycles of 7 years, in which my body and cells and thoughts have renewed themselves for the 6th time. It begins at the end of a life lived as ordinary, predictible and tame. Though the landscape hugging the path is lush and green and filled with the promise of growth, I cannot see past the first curve. I cannot see what lies ahead.

No matter.

My heart is the lamp I hold firmly in front of me.
Courage and trust are the shields I bear.
Love and respect are the fuel for my journey.
God is my unfailing guide.

Come peace.
Come harmony.
Come adversity.
Come destiny.

My footprints are already marking the path.

Expect The Unexpected

When asking the Higher Power of your choice to grant a wish, fulfill a dream or answer a prayer, you must be careful what you ask for and you must keep an open mind. The grant, the fulfillment and the answer will rarely show up in the preconceived form you cling to in your mind. It is more likely to reveal itself in a form that forces you to stretch yourself beyond your limits to receive the bounty. To receive the healing. To receive the love. Only a pure heart can receive a wish, because only a pure heart will recognize its arrival.

Wishing for greater bounty and abundance? Stop expecting cold hard cash to flood your coffers and instead attune your heart to the smallest gestures of kindness that begin to mark your days. Notice smiles and return them. Accept the door held open. Receive compliments graciously. Become aware of sunshine. Above all, be thankful for every morsel of goodness that trickles into your life and soon, very soon the trickle will become a stream, will become a river and your heart will be cleansed and your coffers will be filled in ways you could not have imagined.

Dreaming of great love to soar into your life? Stop expecting the blue eyes, the buxom babe, or the billionare bachelor to stop you in the lobby and declare you are the fantasy realized. Instead, love yourself and all your foibles. Love yourself some more. Then cast your net wide. Wider than you ever dared. Priaise your Higher Power for having granted great love before it ever arrives. Feel the emotion of being in the company of your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife before they enter your waking life. Keep your eyes open. Look for the dark horse. Expect the unexpected.

Be open to love in whatever package it arrives. Whatever skin color, or eye color, or hair color it arrives. Whatever race, or religion, or region of the world it arrives. Great love exists everywhere, in every possible guise. Stretch your mind. Open your heart. Your wish is waiting to be granted. Your dream is waiting to be fulfilled. Your prayer will be answered in unlooked for ways. Awaken, recognize and receive.

The Compass Heart

All answers lie within. All truth lies within. Everything of great importance, of great meaning lies within. We need look no further than ourselves when faced with opportunities or challenges or pathways that will change the course of our lives. The yes or the no, the stop or the go can be clearly heard within, if we would only choose to bend our ears to our hearts.

The heart is our compass and our guide. It unfailingly points the way to our highest good. Our final answer. Our most direct path. The heart is never wrong, for it is aligned with God. It is aligned with our life's blueprint and is privy to the destiny of our soul. It is the conduit that allows grace to flow and bless our lives in extraordinary ways.

Our job, our responsibility is to heed the heart's call. To trust its impulses. To make it our final authority. We must put aside opinions and commands from outside its chambers. We must respectfully turn away from the fears and the noise of those around us, and humbly turn our attention within. We must trust and know our hearts would never betray us, and never lead us into anything that is not for our very best at this very moment. We must trust and know our hearts seek only unbounded, unselfish, unwaivering love. In everything we do. In everywhere we go. In everyone we meet.

We must reverently and humbly bend our ears to listen to the beat of wisdom within. We must catch the first impulse, the first word, the first rush of emotion that comes to our conscious awareness. There do the answers lie. The heart is quick and concise, truthful and final. It offers an answer immediately.

We must trust our heart, follow our heart, and live from our heart. The reward and the result will be a life spent in peace and prosperity, a life spent in love.

Courage

Courage is associated with bravery and valor. We think it most often applies to the military, to firefighters, to police officers. We think courage is about saving people from burning buildings, rising up in defense against hostiles during war and facing the gunman in a dark alley. Courage is most certainly present in all these acts of high heroism. But courage can be applicable, as well, to getting out of bed, laying down the past and following the urges of the heart.

Ordinary living takes a certain amount of fortitude. Extraordinary living takes courage. Audacity. Mettle. Extraordinary living requires us to step boldly into our ring of fears and allow the monsters of our minds to have their say. Courage is what keeps us in that ring, facing the horrors of our imagination and our past experiences. Courage is what keeps us breathing and conscious until the monsters and the horrors and the demons of our past begin to sputter and lose their life energy. Whether we are moving to a different location, changing careers or confronting great love, in the face of courage, in the face of great determination, all fears are revealed as false. Powerless. Impotent.

More than any other scenario, to follow the drum beat and the pull of passion from the hardest working muscle in the body takes courage. For love, as lead by the wisdom of the heart, is the final frontier. The passage to the great unknown. The consuming fire that burns the chains of the past to ash. Courage, my friend, is the only thing that will allow us to approach the fire. The only thing that will enable us to throw our whole selves into it. The only thing that will sustain us in the searing ecstasy of fears consumed.

Courage is the bridge that delivers us to the final frontier. To everyday high heroism. To love unleashed. Without it, we are chained to the false, the powerful, and the potent. Our lives remain ordinary.

Rise up, my friend. Rise up with me to meet the dawning force of love. We'll bring our courage. We'll cross the bridge. We'll burn. We'll love. We'll fly.

Today

Today, I am no one. I am not an artist. I am not a designer. I am not a child of nature. I am not your friend. I am nothing I was or thought I was 2 days ago.

Today, the mask is gone. Veils have become prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. Doors are hanging on hinges. Teapots are teetering off shelves.

Today, the light is blinding. The comforting shadows are gone. The tarot deck reveals The Fool.

I don't know who this person is, this person looking out through silver glass. This person who now dreams of Arabian horses and sheds hot tears while peeling onions to their core.

Today, I am no one. No one I recognize. No one I know. I have no map. I have no voice. Thoughts are swallowed by silence.

Today, in this blinding void of the present, I have no past. Faith is my only companion. Love is my only guide. I am no one. I am everyone. I am.

Go To The Door Laughing

This being human is a guesthouse.
Every morning is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness~
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice~
Go to the door laughing
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes.
For each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

Jelaluddin Rumi {1207~1273}

Honorable Mention

There is very little talk of honor these days. It barely rates a mention in most conversations. It is seldom demostrated in daily life. It seems to be an out-moded concept in today's fast-paced world. Honor means respect. High regard. Integrity. Honor is the acknowledgement of greatness and worthiness as seen and demostrated in others. It is the reason for genuflection. It is the reason for sincere gifting. It is the reason hands are kissed. Honor is lacking in today's world because we allow very little time to know one another, understand one another and peer into each other's souls. To feel genuine honor for another person, we must have witnessed the God-energy that resides within them. And we must have witnessed it first in ourselves.

Honor begins at home. The bodily home our souls reside in. If honor is scarce and turmoil is rife, collectively, we are dishonoring ourselves. We are willfully ignoring the needs of our bodies, minds, emotions and spirits. We are willfully caught in the web of illusion that permeates this planet. The illusion that encourages us to abuse our bodies with unhealthy food and drink. The illusion that encourages us to separate from each other instead of joining together. The illusion that washes our brains with visual bombardment to keep us numb and dumb. We are encouraged, from one society to the next, to hold ourselves in low regard and serve the financial titanism of the few.

Honor of the self is a choice. It requires action and perseverance. It requires healthier food and drink to flood the organs and tissues of our soul's home. It requires less visual stimulation and more reflection. It requires loving kindness directed at ourselves. Daily. Hourly. Moment by moment.

We have no honor to give if we think very little of ourselves. If we cannot feel our greatness and worthiness. If we cannot see our own God-energy through the societal haze. Honor, like love, is something we cannot give if it is something we do not possess.



{Winged lions, as seen on North Street in downtown Buffalo, NY.}
All words and images Copyright(c)2007 Graciel

Your Hands

Poetry by, Pablo Neruda

All the years of my life

I walked around looking for them.

I went up the stairs,

I crossed the roads,

trains carried me,

waters brought me

and in the skin of the grapes,

I thought I touched you.

The wood suddenly brought me your touch,

the almond announced to me your secret softness,

until your hands closed on my chest

and there like two wings

they ended their journey.

The Great Shift

For thousands of years, men have needed to dominate women. In the 21st century, that need is still being met. Dominance of one aspect of God over another is found in every corner of the globe. In every country, every state, every city, every neighborhood. In one form or another. Both overt and subtle. The need for dominance of men over women has shaped all existing societies. That need is in the process of destroying the planet we live on. If humanity wants to save itself, if global warming can be slowed to a crawl, there must be a shift in the balance between men and women. There must be a great shift.

The need for dominance over anyone or anything is based, at its core, on fear. Fear of being overtaken, lost and crushed like a bug. Fear that the other is actually more powerful and more wise. In the case of the feminine, the masculine is correct in its fearful suspicions. Women are more powerul than men. In certain aspects. In needful aspects. In aspects that hold the keys to saving our species, saving our planet and saving our souls.

Women hold the keys to compassion, fairness, healing and love. Women are the embodiment of love. But the powers inherent in the feminine aspect of God only flower when conditions are ripe to support those powers. Those conditions and that support are the responsibility of the masculine to create and hold the space for the feminine to work its magic. It is the responsibility of the masculine to use its needful warrior energy to ensure the feminine is honored and revered. To ensure God's womb of creation is safe.

With that responsibility, with that devotional level of support comes everything the masculine could possibly need: freedom. True freedom to be whomever God made them to be. True freedom that only comes when untold levels of nurturing and healing and love are unleashed on every country and state and city and neighborhood.

It is the responsibility of the feminine to receive that honor. To use the warrior energy as a platform to launch a campaign of healing around the globe. It is the responsibility of the feminine to first and foremost believe it is equal in importance to that of the masculine. To believe its own power exists, to embrace that power and share it with those in need. It is the responsibility of the feminine to steadily wean itself of the lesser role, the dominated role, the helpless role.

The key to everyone's betterment, the key to respecting and saving our planetary home lies in the hearts and minds of men and women. We must agree that balance, not dominance, is the foundation of lasting freedom for all. We must agree to dedicate ourselves to accomplishing a great shift, a do-or-die shift in the relations of men and women. We must honor ourselves and honor each other. We will then automatically honor our planet. We will not be overtaken. We will not be lost. We will instead be loved.

The Death Mask

In the depths of winter, a quiet form of despair can seep into our minds. A weighted apathy can slow our pace. A disinterest in the world can shut us away. We wonder where our enthusiasm went. We wonder where our passion went. Friends don't satisfy us. Books don't satisfy us. Food is always on our minds. We feel stuck. Bloated. Impatient. We worry this will not pass.

In the depths of winter, we put on the death mask. The mask is an opportunity to turn away from the world and look within. It is an opportunity to embrace stillness. In that stillness of the death-mask experience, we are invited to look at our true selves. We are invited to relinquish our false and fearful selves. We are invited to die to all that holds us back from realizing our full potential.

The death mask, with its accompanying despair and apathy and disinterest, is a divine tool of transformation. The only way to transform and move towards greater levels of happiness, is to see ourselves clearly as we are~ beings deserving of joy and goodness and loving kindness. We must turn away from the world and its distractions to see and hear the truth of ourselves. We must turn away for a time, to uncover new worlds within. To know ourselves more intimately. To attend to the rage and the shame that holds us back. To feel how beautiful we are.

We must die to the false beliefs we have stubbornly held about ourselves. We must die to the idea we are less than others because of our life circumstances. We must die to the notion our every life-affirming wish cannot come true.

The death mask is ours to embrace. We are not stuck. We are transforming. Through the gifts of despair and apathy, we can choose to turn inwards. We can choose to use winter's opportunity to heal our darkness and reveal our light.

{Egyptian death masks, from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Germany, discovered during my glorious light-revealing trip in the spring of 2006.}

The Wisdom Within

I am a work in progress. I write electronic letters to myself to serve as guideposts for times I might veer off course. For times I might need a lamp in the dark. For times I forget who I am. Because I write about something does not mean I've mastered the subject. It means I am aware of the importance of the subject. It also means I am aware of the need to capture the wisdom within as it flows from my heart to my unskilled typing fingers. Because everything I need to know lies within myself.

The statistical scores for the 1968 World Series will not be found within me, but everything that is truly of value to live a balanced and blissful life will be. The information bubbles to my conscious awareness and I am compelled to record it, knowing I will forget the poignant information, the clarifying information just when I need it the most. I take dictation from my wise-wired heart and store it within reach for the times I can't seem to punch my way out of a ripped paper bag. For the times I am marred in self-pity. At those times, my wisdom within, my compass, my heart seem faulty. Cloudy. Non-existent. When I need the information God has stored in my being the most, I usually fail to access it. So my motto echoes that of the Boyscouts: Be prepared.

My letters to myself serve to remind me that healing is a slow, but steady process. That responsibility for the flow of goodness into my life is mine. That love is the answer to every question I might have. Because my life's journey evolves in a spiral formation, where lessons are learned in layers and sometimes appear to repeat themselves, my letters often help me in the moment and help me again 3 months from that moment. The wisdom within, stored in my heart, knows the right time to set me down at the keyboard and rattle off a needful notion. It knows what is coming down my spiral path and how far in advance the information must be gleaned. The wisdom within knows exactly what I'll need to weather any storm.

And so I write.

Emotional Tour

Intellectually speaking, I know emotions are the key to a passion-filled life. I know emotions are the key to creativity. I know emotions are the key to opening the heart. Unfortunately, my emotions are currently stifled. Held at bay. Dry as dust. What this means is my desire to create art is blocked, my culinary interest is weak and my heart is gated. If I don't do something to jump-start the flow, my emotional dam will burst on its own in an uncalled-for moment. I can see it happening in the Mega-Mart while shopping for toilet bowl cleaner. "We need a cleanup in aisle 14B. Bring the mop. It's a river."

Emotions are what usher in beauty and usher in love. The most eloquent music vibrates with emotion, the most breathtaking art is a still-frame of emotion, the most passionate kiss is emotion unleashed. The emotional has nothing to do with the intellectual, which makes it uncomfortable for me. However, if I claim to want more love in my life, if I claim to want more passion in my life, it's high time I get over my discomfort. It's high time I do whatever it takes to let the dam burst and get over myself.

What I am in need of is emotional healing and, Sweet Mother of God, it can't be done alone. Not fully and not to the depths needed to usher in the love. It takes a witness. And it takes the courage to ask for the witness. It requires vulnerability and willingness. On everyone's part.

Because my soul is craving a deeper understanding of love, a deeper experience of love, my emotional tour of healing begins today. With one witness to start and eight more to follow. Am I nervous? You bet. But I can't live anymore with the fears that block my emotional life. I can't live anymore with my feelings held at bay and my creativity crushed down. I surrender. Release the river and let the fears be washed away. Ungate my heart and let love sail on in.

The World of Rumi

I was dead, then alive.

Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love
came into me,
and I became
fierce like a lion,
then tender like
the evening star.


{Jelaluddin Rumi, one of my favorite poets, was born in 1207 in what is present day Afghanistan. It is the 800th anniversary of his birth. Look for more of his ecstatic words here throughout the year.}

Soul Food

This is my favorite meal on planet earth. This is German Soul Food. This is Pfutchens and Wine Soup. Waistlines be damned, clogged arteries be damned, when the call goes out in my family that my beloved Oma is making the meal of meals you can bet your life I will show up at her dining room table. You can bet your life I have eaten very little else beforehand to allow for proper gorging. If I have a date with you, if your goldfish is dying, if you think you need me to help you through some crisis in your life, rest assured, if pfutchens and wine soup are suddenly on the menu, you and your date, you and your flushable goldfish, you and your crisis will be unceremoniously dropped like a hot potato. With no apologies. I'm that selfish about soul food.

The meal is ingenious. You get to eat dessert first. Trans-fats, white sugar and alcohol make up the better part of the first course. Hot wine soup is made up of a bottle of white wine and loads of dried fruit. It is the nectar of the Gods and the cure-all for constipation. Pfutchens (the "p" is silent) are deep fried balls of dough. Fried in Crisco. Here's the beautiful part: you eat the wine soup and pfutchens at the same time, both piping hot. Load a pile of sugar on your little plate and dip each hot dough ball into the pile, being sure to over-coat it, and bite off as much as you can chew. Swallow. Smile. Dip your spoon into the bowl of alcohol and slurp it down. Swoon. Repeat process until your pants must be unbuttoned.

The second course is equally ingenious. It's salty breakfast. Fried potatoes, onions, turkey bacon and eggs all scrambled together to perfectly balance out the sugar-rush in your system. This is cholesterol heaven. At this point, zippers are becoming an issue on your pants.

If this meal is being served up by an old-school German, there will be a third course. Traditional dessert. Likely some outrageously sinful torte with whipped cream topping. Despite difficulty in breathing and muffled groans being uttered at the table, I recommend soldiering onward and finishing the last morsel. Only then can you claim to have spent an evening at the Gastronome's Paradise Diner. Only then will you understand why I left you crying on the phone and waiting in the rain at the show.

A Letter Of Worth

{A friend of mine has been going through a most difficult time. Her story is familiar and applicable to many of us. After getting out of an abusive marriage, this beautiful mother eventually met a man who swept her off her feet, declared his love, made plans with her... And walked away, leaving her heart shattered for the second time. She asked for my advice on what to do and how to get over the pain. This was my response.}




My Dear Friend,

I do hope you feel a bit better now that you've spilled your heart. For myself, just being able to speak my truth is a freeing exercise. I'm happy to listen and I hope I can help.

What I want to say has nothing to do with Jack or your ex husband. I understand the angst of the situation, as I have been down that road myself. But let's take the man/men out of it. Let's focus on you.

Meeting someone when you are vulnerable and in need of validation is always a recipe for disaster. If it wasn't Jack, it would have been any man who told you how pretty you are, how smart you are, how good you make him feel. No matter who came into your life, when you are feeling bad about yourself and doubting your worth as a woman, you would end up getting hurt. Men are not the antidote for women in doubt, women in personal crisis, women whose self-esteem has been abused out of them. The answer to healing and mending and regaining self respect is the company and empathy of other women. I speak from experience. If you can find a women's support group, I would recommend that option highly. I spent 10 years with a group of women, meeting and calling regularly, just to regain and perhaps, find for the first time, my self esteem. My value. My worth as a woman. This is impossible to find in the company of a man. You must bring these self-values to a relationship, never try to find them in it.

If you do not bring self-respect to a relationship, the man will end up not respecting you. The bitter truth is, we are all the authors of our own reality. If we are cruel and verbally abusive to ourselves ( because we have been taught to do so), we will sure-as-shit attract a man who agrees with how we treat ourselves, and eventually he will treat us in kind. It is a natural law.

So, what about Jack? Mourn as deeply as you can. Rock yourself to sleep saying his name outloud. Cry buckets. Just GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM. Hold nothing back in purging the sorrow. Do not soldier on if that is betraying your core essence. Do not need to be his friend if it is too painful. BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND FIRST! Jack's gift to you, for coming into your life and then rejecting you, is to point out, loud and clear, where you need to shore up your own mistreatment of yourself. Everywhere he "done you wrong" is exactly where YOU "done you wrong" to start. He can only mirror back to you what you think of yourself and broadcast to the world. Never do more for a man than he does for you. NEVER!

You must figure out how to heal yourself before you can truly find love. You must give love to yourself over and over until it is a habit. Treat yourself as you do your babies. If you have nowhere to start, no idea where to turn for a support group of sorts, get on your knees and ask God to give you definite signs of where to go and who to ask. Then watch carefully for the signs, because without fail, they will appear. Without fail.

I recommend strongly the following books to heal your Soul:

A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

In that order.

You will get over Jack. My favorite line in the movie, The Joy Luck Club is: "Losing him does not matter. It is YOU who will be found and cherished".

Have self respect. Drop all communication with him, if that is what you need to do to heal yourself and move towards wholeness. The only life that matters here is YOURS. No one else's. Heal yourself and you will grant your children the single best gift they could ever receive from you.

With love,
Graciel

The Cooking Goddess

It was unnatural. My co-workers Don and Gene spent a day this past week talking about cooking and sharing recipes. Because there are only 3 of us in this department at work, I was privy to their ongoing conversation. Two men going on and on and blasted on about cooking, and me with the glazed-over look and the eye rolls. I finally walked out of the room, only to return later to the sound of the culinary drone marching on. Something about Indian food and the perfect sauce for tentacles. Or whatever.

Then co-worker Sue trots into our department with a tupperware dish of foul-smelling stew. Turns out it was squirrel stew, compliments of co-worker Rob and his penchant for killing things. Thoroughly repulsed, I directed Sue to the websites for Rodent Eaters Anonymous and Dead Squirrels For Jesus. I told her if she came to the door with Possum Pie, she would be banned for life.

None of this was helpful in resurrecting my interest in cooking. It's not that I can't cook, it's not that I'm a bad cook and I have had moments of inspired brilliance in the kitchen, but I seem to be caught in an extended void of unbridled disinterest in food. At least, if I have to make it. Things that pop out of wrappers and right into my mouth are highly prized. I have found chocolate and cheese to be particularly good and evil friends.

But this can't go on. It's time for drastic measures. It's time for this Cooking Goddess to strap on the power-apron and call in the big-guns for help. Enter Saint Martha, Patron Saint of Cooks, who showed up miraculously after the squirrel stew incident. (Luckily, rodent is not in her recipe rollodex.) She has taken a thorough inventory of my culinary accoutrements and deemed me a not-quite-hopeless-cause. Praise be. "O blessed St. Martha, I beseech thee to help me step back from the brink of culinary oblivion and guide me down the road of the Good-Enough-Gourmet. Amen."

Embarrassingly, I have 47 cookbooks in plain view in my kitchen. I have a year's worth of Cooking Light magazines from 2004, barely touched and gathering dust under my kitchen window. After reviewing my library, St. Martha decided to start me off with the ever-reliable Better Homes & Gardens Junior Cookbook for the Host and Hostess of Tomorrow. Circa 1955. Tonight's delight will be "nipper tuna casserole", with the helpful tip that asparagus is a tasty "go-with" for tuna. Say it with me now...Yummy.

St. Martha promises to help reignite my passion for cooking. Or at least keep me from eating cereal for dinner. What's the carrot-on-the-stick she's dangling to help me to stick to her plan? It's the recipe on pg. 67 for Raspberry Jam Tartlets and the Saintly advice that aprons double as lingerie.

The Search For Beauty

I am addicted to beauty. I search for it everywhere. And I almost always find it. I look for it in unusual places, in unexpected places, in places where beauty is not thought to reside. I like to search for beauty in the grey, muddy days of the fallow season. It is an exercise in present-moment awareness and seeing acutely. It is an exercise in slowing down time to notice the nuances. Because beauty is subtle and secretive when sunshine is scarce and colors are soft.

I find beauty in chipping paint and rusted chains, mudhole reflections and moss-covered rocks. Graffiti shines brightest without solar assistance. Leathered wood has more character in rain. Luckily, I have an artist's eye and see masterful compositions in leaf-muck. I see breathtaking contrast in lichen on bark. I see legions of bare trees as salve for the soul.

Beauty cannot be seen through the eyes of depression, the eyes of anger and the eyes of self-pity. I search for beauty as an antidote to the sometimes compelling desire to sink below the surface. I search for beauty to remain buoyant in times of cloudiness and stress. My search for beauty is, in essence, a needful exercise to keep my heart open and keep the blood of my compassion flowing. If I can see beauty in the most mundane and indifferent circumstances, I know my heart is aligned with Higher Forces. If I can see beauty, I know my heart and not my brain is guiding me through my days.

Epiphany

I found Jesus. At the Chat'N Stand in Akron, New York. And lucky me, it's the Feast of Epiphany. How do I know this? Because Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar were just about to present their gifts when I pulled up. Frankly, I felt like a party-crasher, but the Little Guy invited me to join the celebration.

Baby Jesus seemed quite at home in his ramshackle creche. Evidently, there are more important issues to be addressed than 4 walls, central heat and rusted buckets hanging from the ceiling. He seemed much more interested in discussing the concepts of the day at hand. January 6th, in the Christian calendar, is the day Jesus was revealed as the Christ to the Gentiles. Not being strongly affiliated with any particular religion, I had some questions and concerns. Being the patient and merciful type, Baby Jesus indulged me.

Despite the fact the Little Guy had no footy-PJs to keep him warm on this blustery day, we had a heart-to-heart conversation right out in the open. We spoke mainly of the idea of the Christ, which means "the anointed or chosen one". It is the phrase that defines the collection of Divine ideas for humankind. Ideas of intelligence, joy, substance, strength and above all love. Baby Jesus had been chosen to blaze the trail and be a living example of these Divine ideas. He was to demonstrate the possible perfection inherent in every member of the human species when God's Truth was known and embraced.

When I mentioned my desire to explore the religious ideas of the world and find the foundations of love in each, Baby Jesus started wiggling with joy and bouncing on his Mother's lap. He told me perfection, or perfect love, lies at the core of all major religions. He told me the true church or mosque or synagogue or temple is not made of creeds and books. Nor does it lie in halls of wood and stone. The true church, the true foundation of love, lies within the heart of every man and woman. It lies in the willingness of each heart to express kindness and mercy and compassion , first and foremost to itself, and then to all others. When enough hearts can give their best effort and walk the talk of perfect love, when enough hearts have personal epiphanies of the glory residing within them, the world will bask in the collective Christ light. And the human species will realize, it has always been chosen.



As the celebration wound down, and I readied myself to leave, I apologized to Baby Jesus for not having a gift to present. He cooed and smiled and told me the only gift He would like from me is the willingness to follow my heart and the willingness to live from my heart. It is the most valuable gift I will ever give.

Attics Of My Life

In the attics of my life
Full of cloudy dreams unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know
And lights no eyes can see
When there was no ear to hear
You sang to me.

I have spent my life
Seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play
You played to me.

In the book of Love's own dream
Where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lights grow old
When I had no wings to fly
You flew to me.

In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets are all told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me.

{Lyrics by: Robert Hunter
Infamous lyricist to the Grateful Dead}