Guess who finished revising and doing personal editing to his own ebook?! Yep, exciting, but that is the easiest part. And guess what else? I’m not really done.
Even though it’s only twenty-two pages long, I did what I thought was finish and realized I didn’t put in a little table of contents. Need to do that before I send it off to my real editor. I probably could have used an alpha reader or two and then some beta readers, but it’s so short and I’m so ready to get something published before the novel that I may just send it off, unless I run across some folks who wish to read. I’m not asking anyone in particular right now. As I read through it and consider the tone, I am relatively pleased. I might insert a paragraph as a mini-introduction or conclusion (I have both of those right now) or just leave as is. I thought about this because I want to make sure anyone reading this absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt, knows how much fun all this should be. There’s definitely a balance in the book, because the subtitle — right now — is The Grand Unified Theory of Humanity, which sounds heavy duty like the whole physics thing. In the short work, I simply explain how all of human behavior I observe rests on the choice and conflict of Ego or Heart as the primary operating system of anyone. Coming to know yourself is a joyful journey, one bound up in epiphany when you realize who you really are and then process as you seek to live that core Self. Joy, love, peace, purpose. As I worked last night, I wanted to ensure the ebook was that simple and the tone that light. With that on my mind, I woke up this morning and was still thinking about it. When I spent my sacred time in fellowship with my own Heart, I thought about this analogy. I’m big on analogies because I know how effective they are in education. Coming to know core Self is a journey. In the beginning, it’s like planning a vacation. Have you ever done that?! Whenever going to a new place, I always want to discover new things. Oh, they aren’t like brand new, previously unknown things. They’re new to me. When I get some insight into a culture I’ve never been close to before like the Native Americans in the United States or indigenous peoples of Mexico, I get to see how life can be different — not better or worse, just different — and I love the diversity, the richness, the values others hold. So, when planning, I have a sense of anticipation and excitement; I know I will explore and discover something new. Looking over information about a new place includes what things we want to see and experience. Lodging is chosen based on those points of interest, those things that grab our attention and speak to our soul at an emotional level, places where we wish to create some sort of connection with others or with history, places that resonate with the soul and stimulate the mind. See, I get excited just thinking about it. This is the spirit and attitude that should attend the exploration and discovery of Self. Many times the experiences, expressions, or work of others make us look around and think, “Wow! I’m in a new place. What do I want to get from this?” And at this point, anything that resonates with your soul, pay attention to that. Enjoy that. By the way, you may, as I did, find things that have some chords of resonance but others that sound in disharmony. Ignore those. Any people or organizations dealing in creating guilt, anger, and resentment in the soul are like those back alleys in bad neighborhoods in foreign places — areas to which outsiders should never venture. Get my point? No guilt, anger, resentments dumped on you by anyone else. You may have those and need to deal with them in your exploration of yourself, and that’s the way it should be. Just don’t accept anyone else’s creation of those on your behalf. When we discover core Self, discover the innate and untapped power of eternal Spirit within us, we can start enjoying the vacation. How can we find the best spots? Ask questions of your own Heart. Discovery of all the points of interest of YOU takes a happy lifetime. Speak to your Heart. Maybe it would help to look in a mirror and do that. Or address your core Self in conversation while you drive, when you are going to sleep, waking up, or taking a break. Do it aloud or do it silently. It doesn’t matter. Just ask and listen and discover. Plunge into the excursion you book with your Heart. I’ve written other places about this, including my ebook. You get to create from the discoveries resulting from the exploration of yourself. You get to make something new. You are not bound, hobbled, or handicapped by anything, and I mean anything. Your future is yours to create. Enjoy yourself, your discoveries, your vacation of life as you plan it to have the experiences you want at Heart level. Heart always has it over Ego, so don’t be fooled by what anyone — family, friends, or strangers — thinks is “best” for you. Bon voyage! Blessings!
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You do understand, don’t you? You know that there are no guarantees in life, right? No guarantees about what is paraded about as truth. No guarantees about — no, I’m not even going to develop a list. No guarantees.
Therefore, when I write about abandoning myself to Heart, following my Heart, I don’t know specifics of what will happen. I jump into the vast, inexhaustible ocean of Spirit energy, leap from the cliff of solid, safe rock of Ego urgings and society expectations. Following the nice, safe path of getting a good job with a good retirement and being dressed and groomed appropriately so as not to raise anyone’s eyebrows or cause them to question what kind of kook I am — all of that is fine. Fine is not fine for me. Why? Because fine means living for weekends, vacations, and retirement to escape fine. Fine means we don’t act on dreams, passions, joys, and love. So, I leapt. Six years ago. I dove off of that fine cliff. If I had not had Heart working within me, if I had not been hearing those whispers and asking questions, if I had listened to Ego, I would be just fine, but I wouldn’t be here now, writing these words. To live with abandon to Heart-truth, we — as a friend’s comment about my post reminded me — must jump in. To be all in, we have to take the leap of faith that we have divine Spirit within, wanting to express through each each of us. We don’t sin by living fine lives, but we will suffer emptiness and nagging questions. In my novel, The Fellowship of the Heart, Eric and Anne Lafarnge have experienced an epiphany in terms of the realization of Heart within them. They know that this acknowledgement might mean their lives will change. Eric has been dealing with this, but when Anne comes to the same place, spiritually, they face the decision to have fine lives or live dynamic lives, ones that may even involve censure or actual danger. Here is a piece of their interchange as they think about this. Anne is speaking to Eric about his explanation of the way he took his plunge off of that perfectly fine career cliff, not knowing the end or specifics of all that would involve. _______________________________________________ “Eric, it didn’t until you said it. This is a spiritual moment for me. I think I know why I heard my heart, that voice. I love working with Kathy and Ed and a team that puts together good work, environmentally friendly work. I think, beyond that, there’s a negative part that resents being used, being part of some conspiracy that I don’t even understand right now, but somehow, because of that voice, I know it. I know Paul and Stan are up to something. In the meantime, I need to be smart and figure out how to go forward with my life. How do our lives work together now?” “Oh, I think we have to do what is in our minds and souls. We have to consciously speak to our hearts and hear that voice. I have a few times in the past month. But I’ll be honest. Sometimes, because I’ve been so alone in this, I wonder if it’s real and I wonder if there will come a time where I seek the voice and can’t hear it, like it will forsake me, or if I imagined it and can’t conjure up a scenario anymore.” “Eric, no. It’s real. It must be. Let’s do something about it. Let’s try it together. Tomorrow, after we enjoy this evening and have a good night’s sleep. We have nothing we have to do. Tomorrow is just for us. Okay?” __________________________________________________________ Fine doesn’t work for me. I can face not knowing the specifics because I’m following my Heart. I live specific actions, but those actions don’t guarantee any specific outcome. I visualize and play scenarios in my mind that produce the emotions I wish to feel, but I don’t know if those visualizations will be what happens. I do know my Heart, though, and that guarantees I will experience those emotions. While no guarantees exist in the world of fine or in Ego insistence that things must work out very specifically, Heart guarantees spiritual and emotional realities that far outstrip a specific house in a specific place with a specific person and specific amount of money in investments. And that’s fine with me. Not really. The word fine sickens me a bit. I know my Heart. I know I came here to remember I am eternal Spirit in a mortal body and I’ve come here to feel, to enjoy, to live a life of passion, significance, and love. That’s awesome! I will explore and value what others say and make my own discoveries. And ultimately, that’s all anyone can do if they live Heart truth. I can offer myself, and if something in my writing resonates with folks, then use it for discovery. If it doesn’t, then at least I hope I’ve helped one to have a smile and sense I’ve expressed love for them in my work. I will write. Guaranteed. Blessings! Have you ever really, truly lived with abandon? You know, the way it is commonly referred to as having no restraints and doing anything and maybe everything that offends polite society because you do and say whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever and however you want? Very few people have ever done that, and if they have, they weren’t very well liked.
When anyone lives like that, in all reality they have abandoned any sort of care or concern for others. Of course, people abandon things every day, so this is no shock. Unwanted pets are abandoned; babies are abandoned; significant others are abandoned. I know reasons exist for each one who abandons anything. Sometimes people abandon things that aren’t usually thought of in a negative way: sinking businesses are abandoned before it’s too late, for example. Abandonment has this idea of giving up. It’s a word from the Old French that worked its way into English. Perhaps the most negative aspect of abandonment is this idea of not only giving up but also of giving up absolutely, a willing choice. Apply this to dreams, passions, or life purpose — or even Heart — and it’s an abandonment that results in more misery than all those other negative ones put together. How? When someone gives up on their dreams, when those dreams dry up, shrivel, and blow away from conscience, all the benefits, blessings, and love that could have been known through that person’s dreams is lost. The dreams go to the grave with the person. More than that, though, such people live lives that are usually filled with bitterness and emptiness, and even if they hide that from others, they suffer it internally. Let me make it clear that they are not wrong; they just lower the frequency of the global energy field. Let me go back to the Old French etymology for a moment. The word was also used in the reflexive sense, to abandon oneself, and it meant to totally give self to a reason, cause, purpose — a focused abandonment which implies full commitment. Today, a common term that signifies the same principle is being “all in” on something. Total abandonment. All in. At any cost. The purpose, the mission, the goal will be accomplished — no compromise. Done deal. In my life, I have pursued various skilled jobs and careers with enthusiasm, but I ended up abandoning them because they were not my life Purpose co-created with Heart, with Spirit. Yes, they were good, I was good, but I was always looking for more, always felt as if something was missing. And it was; however, Heart worked through all of those to help me see this, and I have abandoned myself to this writing and communications field. My point tonight is my characters, Eric and Anne Lafarnge in The Fellowship of the Heart, although very successful, needed to come to Heart acknowledgement, needed to see that they bear eternal Spirit, I am, and then create the purpose they knew was theirs to create and live, one in which they could express that core Self and be fulfilled, significant, and happy. They are both accomplished and admired professionals, but they come to realize they were missing something. Whenever Ego works to rationalize us to live a soul-deadening practicality, dreams die. Thoreau said it beautifully: “I did not wish to live what was not life.” Life is living out our personal truth, our Heart identity and life Purpose of our own design. When that is engaged, as the Lafarnges will find, there is no going back. It’s all in. It’s living with abandon to enjoy and, as Thoreau said, “…suck out all the marrow of life…” Ego will present many diversions and alternatives to try and keep us safe and acceptable to others, to try and make us not seem so consumed with a purpose that it makes others uncomfortable. And that gets us back to living with abandon — not the wild, un-purposed kind that is meant to just offend others — that’s Ego, too — but the focused sort of accomplishing our dreams by living our life Purpose passionately and lovingly. That’s worth doing whatever it takes. All in. Abandoned to light, love, joy. Blessings! I don’t have a lot of lead-in or afterthought to this entry. I have worked today on both of my books. Actually, my eyes are burning right now because I’m so tired.
I wrote much more than I share tonight, but this is the realization of Eric and Anne Lafarnge as they recognize the process of awakening they have been experiencing. What seems like an epiphany has really been the faithful working of Heart in their minds and souls for years. They understand part of this, and they understand there is much yet to learn. I hope their experience here might give you cause to explore and discover even more of yourself. I know when I write these types of passages, I keep discovering more of Me! The following scene begins with Anne as she asks Eric about his experience in awakening to his heart, the little voice they both heard. _________________________________________________________ “Okay, I hear you. Is that where I am now? What is this sensation, this voice?” “Anne, there’s so much I don’t know, and it would be so easy to turn to religious, theological ideas. But that just didn’t do it for me. All those months you thought I was being mopey and lazy and irresponsible about my career — all of that time I was gradually hearing that voice and that memory of my parents. So let me tell you the best I know how.” Anne’s eyes misted over. “Please, Eric. Please forgive me. I had no idea.” “Anne, this is the way it is meant to be. I do not blame you, even though I was often angry with you. I didn’t know these things early on, so I’ll tell you what I felt. So many things in my life — as I look back now — were times when that little voice, my own true self, was speaking to me, trying to make me see, make me respond and own myself.” “Who is that, Eric? What have you learned?” “That I have this deep part of me that just is, the part of me that came here to experience life. And even though I can look back and see my heart — that’s the part of me I have come to know, allow, and acknowledge as that little voice. It was working, and one day a couple months ago, just in the little park across the street from the office, it all came so clear — the voice, a conversation, a reality. I knew I was part of this whole great plan of the Universe. In the deepest part of me, I am eternal, so I could face taking your resentment and others’, too.” “Oh, Eric, I think that’s how I’m feeling.” Anne paused once again. “No, I know that’s how I’m feeling. This is an epiphany, but a weird one. It’s been on the way for awhile now, hasn’t it?” “I think so, Anne, and I am listening to my own words and yours now, and I can hardly believe that we are in this together. Is this the way it should be? Do others experience this? Couples, families? It seems miraculous, marvelous. And some part of me is telling me I’m being melodramatic, but I know we came awful close to losing our relationship.” “No, Eric, don’t listen to that part of you. That’s got to be ego. That’s your nature, part of what I blamed on your lack of ambition. I thought that part of you was telling you that you’re not good enough for a partnership, but you are. You don’t want it, though, do you? Why? Is it that ego voice?” Eric paused now, picked up his glass and sipped the last bit of beer in the comfort of their deck and the warm late afternoon sun. “Anne, no, I have recognized that part of me, too. I reject it. Almost simultaneous with the recognition of my heart speaking to me, seeing that it is the true me, I knew I had a purpose. No, It’s not that I had it, but I decided on it, created it, because I knew somewhere, somehow, what was consistent with this new acknowledgment of my true self.” “And what was that, Eric?” Anne was hanging on his words. “I know that I was all about justice, about giving a voice to those who have been silenced by legislation that is rigged against them, rigged to protect the politicians and lawyers and oligarch type organizations and people. I knew that I wanted to be a voice for the voiceless, to seek justice for those who experience injustice from corrupt, biased, and willful conspirators in fixing laws so they can maintain power and bulldoze those who stand it their way.” He looked at Anne and recognized how fixated she was on him. “Anne, look in my eyes. I got carried away here. I think this is what I have felt. I have not vocalized this to anyone else. I think this all came from my heart. Does it make sense? Any of it?” _________________________________________________ And that is all for tonight. Does it make sense to you? I hope so. It was my intent. Engender and enjoy those Heart conversations, and please don’t allow Ego to dissuade you of these spiritual realities. Blessings! Funny Valentine’s Day story! (I think I owe you one after yesterday’s heavy duty post!)
When I taught British literature for seniors, I would always present a little bit of The Parliament of Fowls by Geoffrey Chaucer. Written in approximately 1381–1382, the Middle English language was a fun challenge for the students. I would let them play with the first few stanzas of this 699 line poem. I would tell them it is the first time in English literature that Valentine’s Day is associated with love and Cupid. Then, I would do a very brief version of the story. The narrator, while never having been in love himself, knows an awful lot about it from books he has read. He has a vision, and in the vision, it is this time of year when all the little animals choose their mates and start their little animal families, especially the birdies. Of course, they aren’t the only ones, because humans start feeling the love bug in the earliest stirrings of spring. And Cupid is there to help out — well, not really help out but rather use it to his advantage of using his petty, godlike cruelty against puny humans. He isn’t presented as some sweet little cherubic, angelic being, but rather the overbearing taskmaster of love, who does shoot arrows to afflict his targets with love. However, they aren’t some cute Nerf mini-arrows; nope, they are made of material that is forged and filed. I would ask students what kind of material that might be. Metal. How big is the bow and how big and powerful must Cupid, referred to as “our Lord,” be to shoot metal arrows that have been hardened and sharpened with a file? Not only that, but his daughter, Wille, presented as the human will personified, double hardens the heads of the arrows. Why does she do this? What does this make it possible for the arrows to do?: “Some for to slay, some to wound, and some to carve.” And then, the operations of Mother Nature in the bird, fowl, empire shows how those arrows might work. Before all the multitude of little birdies can start their little birdie families, they have to wait on a royal princess babe eagle bird to choose a mate. Three royal eagle dudes vie for her. The first one is very wealthy, very impressive, and the hunkiest of the three. He offers the princess half of his kingdom. All the lesser birds witnessing this go freakin’ crazy. “Take him! Take him!” they shout. She’s not ready yet. The second bird is no slouch. He offers her his whole kingdom, his whole kingdom. The “silly geese” as well as all the others can hardly stand it. There’s almost a riot. “He’s the one. No need for the third. Choose him and let us go make our little birdie families.” Hubba! Hubba! “Nope. I want to hear the third guy’s offer.” The third eagle, though royal, obviously isn’t the same caliber as the first two. “Look, Baby. I’m not as wealthy as those other guys. I don’t have kingdoms to give you, but what I have is yours. You have my heart.” Pandemonium amongst all the birds of Nature gathered there. Mother Nature asks the royal babe bird which suitor she chooses. And this is where I would rile my classes up — in a good-natured way that they took in the right spirit! I would tell the class this: “Look, guys in the class; I want you to understand how this boy-girl thing works. After those poor shmucks offered their hearts to this hot royal bird babe, she with coyness and sickening sweetness says, ‘You know what? I think I’ll wait till next year to decide.’ That’s what girls do to us. They make us promise them everything, pit us against each other, and then walk away from us, flipping their hair over their shoulders as they stomp our hearts into the dirt.” OMG! The guys in class would all be grumbling, ready to participate in a mass uprising to drive the girls out of the room. And invariably, one or several of the girls in class would run to my wife’s office — she was a counselor at the school — and say, “Do you know what your husband just said about girls?!” We all had a good laugh. My girls knew I held no bias towards them. It was just great fun for us all. So, that’s my Valentine’s Day story — at least one of them. I hope it was a great day for you. Blessings! |
Questions to consider:How many times have you asked yourself or simply thought about the following questions?
Who am I, really? What is my truth? How do my actions reveal what I really feel and believe? What would I do with my life if I could do anything? What is my passion? Why am I here? How can I discover answers to any of these questions? If you have considered any of these questions, I hope that my experiences and writing will give you some guidance. Please read my blog and comment and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you! Archives
December 2019
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