Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Just so we are all on the same page, you do realize we are born with expiration dates right? I'm unclear how people can be shocked by someone's death. I pretty much treat everyone I come in contact , as maybe the last time I see them. I was only caught off guard one time and after that, I realized that "The last time I saw you, might be the last time I see you. The earth is a classroom and students come and go everyday. If you are here, it is for certain you will leave. Living in the moment keeps me from feeling cheated when someone takes exit. I would guess to some it might seem fatalistic, but that to me implies a certain amount of gloom. That is not my case though, there is nothing gloomy about enjoying the presence of someone like it could be the last time I saw them. When my friend Lee burned out on drugs, I took the time to talk with him and tell him everything I would hate to not have said if the death he was sprinting to happened before I got to say them.
 I had a friend who came to my school back in my Jr. in high school. He was only there for a couple of six weeks before he moved back to Dallas. When I lived in Dallas there was always part of me that searched every crowd for his face. A decade later, quite by accident, a fluke, I saw his name listed among the dead from the gay plague. I realized, the last time I saw Larry would be the last time I saw Larry. It was the last death that caught me off guard. He taught me in his death that anyone can be out of here at any time.
 There are still faces, beautiful faces I look for in every crowd, but I know that the love I have for those people isn't contingent on them being in my life or even being on the planet. That love partially shapes who I am and just because a physical story ends, I believe the most interesting part begins when we take exit. The psychical presence of a person is never necessary for me to think of them and allow the part of my heart they live in to light up.
It's all temporary. There is no such thing as permanence. People will die, people will leave your life. Why is this such a surprise to so many people. The lesson is to BE with people when you are WITH THEM. The tragedy, the real tragedy when someone leaves their live is all the time we wasted not being with them when they were here. You don't get those chances back. "  "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with"

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

" Remember if it isn't practical, it isn't spiritual."
______
I don't know if it is human instinct or Clinton instinct to overwork, over embellish and over do most things, but recovery has taught me the beauty and value of simplicity. Even as a I type the word "Simplicity" something inside me says "BORING". When I would go to the sewing store with my mother or grandmother when I was little, there were patterns called "Simplicity", and then there were much shower or ornate patterns by VOGUE. The Vogue patterns required a skill and patience level of a master craftswomen and neither my mom or grandmother has a lick of interest in the Vogue effort level. Even a decade before the disease of Alcoholism, then drug addiction had took hold, "Simplicity" bored me to shit. On a daily basis I have to remind myself to keep it simple, that not everything needs to be over thought or overwrought. The entrance ramp to a peaceful satisfying existence is label "Simplicity". My dad has a garden every year in the backyard of his home. In an effort to grow more, grow bigger vegetables he over unknowingly over fertilized the plot to the point that a decade later the cumulative effect caught up to him. .This past summer , everything he planted burned up shortly after it was but in the ground. He over fertilized to the point that the soil is now useless because of toxic levels of nutrients that in low doses expedites growth but in massive build ups over the years has rendered the ground useless. I can love something to death. I can over fertilize, over water just about anything figuratively. I have to ask myself a dozen times a day, "Is this necessary", "Is this practical" or " Does the next thing I have to say improve the silence or pollute it"?

Sunday, October 13, 2013

I'm just days away from the last week of my 45 year on the planet. It's been the best year of my life. Nearly every day I was free of fear and I have carved out my own unique and special path a higher power that gives me the sense of a connection I didn't know was possible.
I ran into a friend the other day and he rattled of all these things he was angry about, mostly the president and the Democrats. I could see his very essence getting eaten up before my by righteous indignation. His ego, in desperate attempt to stay in power, has gone on overdrive making him "right" about things the government is doing. 

In order for the ego to survive it must find things to be "right" about. The ego has to be right and it needs you to be wrong. The thing is, the ego and the spirit can't coexist. I am either being led by spirit or I am being led down the path of misery by the ego.

The single best definition of a "Spiritual Awakening" I"ve heard in 20 plus years of search is that it occurs with the spirit separates from ego. I don't go around needing, demanding to be right on a daily basis. I've had great success letting dumbasses be dumbasses without trading any of my piece with them. Peace is a choice, love is a miracle and gratitude is the fuel for a spirit based life. 

I spoke briefly to a woman who seemingly had something going on for herself. Recovered for decades, helping others and then she let loose on this survivalist, end of banking shit that made my mouth almost drop open. I'm sure if she noticed but I took at least to steps back because I don't like to get close enough to people steeping in fear.

I don't fear disaster, I don't fear catastrophe. I don't think there is a deadly Kodak moment coming for me anymore. From my earliest memories of being 4 or 5 and the phone call in the middle of the night came twice where my parents were informed family had died, I lived in fear. I was so frightened as a child that I don't know how I survived. I stayed awake at night guarding my family in my little kid world. I had not one person to crawl into the lap of and be comforted long enough the fear subsides.

There is a chemical in our bodies called Cortisol that is produced when human is in fear or anxious. The presence of this chemical actually causes the memory to basically burn in vivid detail the things that are happening when Cortisol is flowing. This is why my memories of my scary childhood are so vivid and fresh. 

I do not live steeped in fear today. The greatest thing that recoverying from drugs is that by tapping int the flow of creation I am not paralized with fear any more. The year of my 45th has found me stepping fully into the role of spirit having human experience and living. Living means I accept the fact that there will be easy fun peaceful times and some that arent. Labels are stupid. They limit us. What my ego says is bad or scary, my spirit knows how to use those things to expand, to deepen my faith and understanding..

Expansion. That is the final word I have on my 45 year. My spirit is now larger than fear, it is larger than unforgiveness. It is larger that being right or being pretty. It is larger than the idea that I need to pull of a great magic trick to get everyone to like or worship me. I am connected. My best year comes down to this recipe,,,,,, Forgiveness is for my benefit, what I say about others I say about myself. I don't write other peoples stories today and know one has permission to write mine. Love you when you fall short of the mark and love myself enough to do the same for me. I ask myself often , in a years time will this even be a speed bump, in 5 years will it barely even be a faint recollection. Free to love, free to try and free fail. That which doesn't kill is teaches us. Wisdom is garnered by making mistakes or thank god, learning from the mistakes of others.

My favorite quote is from Actress/Writer Carrie Fisher. "Losing your mind is a terrible thing but once it's gone it's fine, completely fine. There is no longer a part of you left that knows the rest of you is missing." I tried to kill or silence that tiny thread that still knew I was here for years. I'm glad it didn't happen. 

I've been thinking of my friend Rusty that killed himself a few weeks ago. He took an early exit. I'm ot sure if his pain was any greater than the rest of us' is, but I do know it was one of the worst waste of life I have ever seen. Had I had my way for DECADES, you all good have said the same thing about me. I havent had a drink or a drug,(including pot) in four and a half years, and that is remarkable, but the real miracle for me I have stopped trying to prove to myself and the world that I am worthless. I don't go out and try to prove that I am worthy either. I live a life based on integrity, which I learned at Narcotics Anonymous. I keep my word, I do my share, and I try with all my might to be a valuable member of the human race. Today I am asset, to my family, friends, work and to the planet full of people I will never meet. It's a connection I couldn't have comprehended experience.

 I don't believe despite NA/AA statements that "Everything happens for a reason". I do believe we can get what we need from every experience, but if i really believed there was no randomness in the world I would be depressed. The whole "Everyone has a purpose" feels like some ego driven B.S. to me. My purpose is to live here on the planet and not cause pain to those who try to love me, to put back more than I take and to take only what I need. I loved the quote on Facebook by Erma Bombeck that said something like when she dies and stands before her maker  she gets to say, "I used up EVERYTHING you gave me, I wasted nothing". I hope at the end of year 46 I have came closer to giving all away and using up every gift and talent the spirit put it me.

My dream is when the grim reaper comes for me, I have built such a lovely life filled with relationships and laughter that I beg for one more day. I bed for one more hour. I beg for 5 more minutes. I'm closer to that dream than I ever have been but I have to earn those things I mentioned being willing to fight for, that means stepping out of the box I create to keep me safe and taking chances with loving the people I come in contact with. I'm willing and showing up for human duty. 

Show up, do your best, tell the truth and let go of the results. This is advance I got twenty years ago and it helps me to this day. Let go of the results. Follow the voice of the spirit inside and ignore the voice of fear.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

HOpe is great , hope is necessary but hope alone will fail you. Action must be attached to hope in order to make any real progress. Hope alone, has an expiration date on itm my personal experience is hope fades. Hope with out action is nothing more than a wish that lingers and takes us no where. When we attach action to hope, we amaze ourselves and the world around us. Give your hope a power source and put it to work............cg

Sunday, October 6, 2013

The first cool air is cruel to me
It lands apon my skin and it confuses.
The warmth of your lips and breath
Against mine, under a sky lit by diamonds.
Heart beats and the instant recall.
How could a cool night bring it all back to me
How can October hurt me so, how could October air be so cruel.
I'm still a technicolor fool.

Our perspective often blinds us to the experiences of others. I am not dairy intolerant so I don't really pay much attention or give it much thought when someone mentions they have that issue. I don't need the "Affordable Health Act", so I don't pay attention to the millions that do need it. I have too much food to eat and yet I don't think about the mothers all over the world who wake up thinking , worrying and wondering how will she get food for her kids to get them to live another day. I like my job and I don't often think about the millions of people who go to work in impossible and sometimes life threatening situations for a few dollars a day. I don't like it when I forget that I am just a dot on the big picture . I look across the fields that have greened up since the rain came here and I don't think of the people who can see nothing but gray war destroyed land as far as they can see. Gratitude makes what I have, enough. It makes for an empty life to live by the idea that if it doesn't concern me, it doesn't concern me. I 've worked very hard to become a mindful, thoughtful, aware human, a member of the world's society and when I remember it's not all about me, I feel it. I feel it down in my bones. It feels like freedom. Today I try hard also to be respectful of your human experience, even when it doesn't look or sound a thing like my own.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Do you think it's wrong or egoic to want to be someones favorite person on earth. I'd really like to described as someones favorite person on the planet.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

I'm disappointed in myself over last night for two reasons. The first was a coworker who has frustrated me since she started, was over whelmed with part of her job. She half assed it and I ended up correcting it later that evening when I discovered that she failed to do what was her responsibility to do. I stood there watching her early and I could see that she was in over her head and I got a sick kick, out of seeing her struggle. I made sure the supervisor saw the half ass messed she left, I started getting out of my head and it dawned on me , that my duty has a fellow spirit in human form was to ask if she needed help. Shortly after I made a big stink about it I came to me center and saw that I had really failed to live by spiritual principles. I was very disappointed in myself because I knew better but didn't do better. Next time I hope to lead with the spirit.

The second thing I am disappointed in my self was, I let man I don't like, who has no warmth or charm say something to me  and I let my ego get the best of me. He made a comment to me and I felt momentary rage and I just wanted to show him who he was dealing with, by unleashing a powerful barrage if skillfully chosen put downs and insults. I didn't and 5 minutes after the altercation I am steadily trying to plug in principles and perspective so I would not give over head space to a man I could care less about. It was just ego, and what he told me , he meant to get under my skin. So that tells me, I intimidate him in some fashion.

Sharing compassion, forgiveness and tolerance to those you love is easy and there is no particular growth in that. Choosing to apply spiritual principles to someone u dislike or who is trying to attack you is the real test of your spirituality. lol  My ego has tried to pick this issue back up several times since I woke up but I keep chosing to let it go. Just let it go, "don't give over any of your thought space to this man" because the situation is this is most likely the last weekend I will be working with him.

There is nothing I can do to make him any more miserable than he already is and I don't want to rot in the jail I plan for someone else, because that IS the way life works. I am not my mind, I am not my thoughts, I am a spirit housed in a human form with an ego that wants to believe it is the soul.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

I tried religion repeatedly and it failed to do for me what I needed it to. You either believe our literature or not. We read every meeting that religion, psychiatrist and medicine won't work. I exhausted all three. The day my psych doctor looked at me and said "Clinton, there isn't a pill on the planet that is going to do for you what you want it to do. The best I can do is get you on level ground enough that if you want to get better you are going to have to do the work". He may have told me that before, but that one particular day was the day I "HEARD" it. I believed him and I have never went to a doctor after having heard of a new depression medication on a tv commercial since. I treat my psych issues methodically but the struggle I have with hope, reason to be here, and purpose are things I personally have to address everyday with methods from NA, AA and string of spiritual practices. None of my problems are magically prayed away. I cannot denounce any of destructive behavior patterns, selfishness, self-centeredness, resentment or cowardice as the work of some mystical evil force. It isn't the boogie man, the devil or satan. I am my own destructive force. I am the only thing that can cut me off from the sunlight of spirit. It would be great if I could shift focus from my defective character and claim an evil force made me steal, take drugs or hurt people, but by saying that I take no responsibility for myself-my actions. The whole nugget of recovery is shifting blame off others, our family, magical spirits and placing it where it belongs- On our diseased thinking and self centered actions. Today I am responsible. I'm responsible for my choices and my actions. I'm responsible for my INTENTION. I'm convinced the reason I flailed about in and out of recovery for 17 years is I kept trying to go to the "default" God of as it was understood FOR me. It wasn't until the slate was cleaned off and I began to put together truly my own understanding of a high power that my life began to take flight. I started pathing a stoned pathway to a loving spirit, my own direct river to the sea. I"m certain that the reason AA then NA have stuck around for decade after decade is the fact it urges you go come up with your own HP AS U UNDERSTAND HIM. All those programs that have hijacked the steps that conveniently leave "AS YOU UNDERSTAND HIM" off will fail for most people in the south because we were told some FUCKED UP CRAP about the creator of all things. Front loaded with boobie traps and land mines , judgmental and punishing, it's hard for us folks in the south that don't drink the Koolaid and nod with the Pat Robertsons and Robert Tiltons of the world. Most religions close people off, put themselves behind walls , draw battle lines of "us and them". Spirituality opens you up , it connects you to everything , it removes walls and erases battle lines. Why anyone would want to put anything as powerful and meaningful as a connection to all things bigger than you in a tiny box and guard it like it could be taken from you is beyond me. I find the more I give this hope and love away, the bigger the return. My understanding constantly evolves and grows and not many days go by that I don't hear something or see something that deepens my gratitude and fuels even more wonder about this Wonderful World and My Connection to it. When it's my time to leave here I hope for two things. First, I hope that I fight like hell for just one more day, one more hour , one more breath and two, that I leave this place a little bit better, a little bit prettier and a little more filled with love, simply because I added that to it. My days of taking for the sake of taking are done, as long as I stay plugged in. The secret of life as I know it is to be thankful for what you have and you get more to be grateful for. Oh, and that the universe rewards effort, it will rise up to meet you when it sees you a trying, and sometimes it uses people to reach out and meet you in your efforts too. God works for us and through us. Don't let anyone tell you who God is or isn't. When someone claims they speak for "God", I back away pretty quickly. When I want to know about "God", I watch animals, I watch the miracle of a seed grow into a tree, or bright pink and green Caladium leaves appear straight out of the dirt from a bulb that looks like a dog turd. I watch a violent thunderstorm appear in 20 minutes from a clear , hundred degree August sky in Texas. I watch an old married man feed his old married wife in a nursing home when her hands no longer can hold a utensil. I see God when a man has walked for miles to buy his child medicine at a convenient store in the heat to discover he forgot his money and a stranger pays for it for him, because he knows how frightening is is to have a sick child. I find out who God is when it is me that is compelled to do for a stranger what they cannot do for themselves. Dorothy in "The Wizzard of Oz" went on her journey looking for happiness. If I can't find a connection a to power greater than myself in my own back yard, then it's me that is at fault. You can find spirit in a tool shed if you are looking for that connection. The best news is, it is in our energy, or composition, our DNA to seek and make this connection. It's the one sure thing we have in common, an innate desire to reconnect with that thing that is bigger than us. It's why we feel so empty and desperate to fill that space with whatever we can find within arms reach. I looked for God in a package store, a pill bottle and a Doritos Bag, to no avail. I did do extensive research in what God is NOT. Breath, Forgive and find a way to enjoy this experience of being a spirit in human form. Find a power sources and recharge as often as you plug your smart phone in to an electrical socket. Step fully into the flow and find out along with me just what you were designed to do before self or circumstance redirected, misdirected our flow of spirit.
People Magazine asked Valerie Harper's, "Why with terminal Brain Cancer would you say yes to Dancing With The Stars" and her reply....."When they asked, I thought, 'Why would I say no?' " says Harper. "When life asks you to dance, you just have to dance."

(I am not a dancer but I really appreciate her answer. When life asked for our participation, we just need to show up, do our best and let go of the results. Life isn't really a spectator sport.)


I was going to tag everyone on my list with this, but hope this will suffice. I just wanted to remind everyone I care about, impossible things happen every day. The word itself states Im POSSIBLE. "Hold On for One More Day, it can be the day the tide turns and it all turns around".
Notes from something I put together and found. Good stuff. It's long.
Everything we hate, resist or disown about ourselves takes on a life of it’s own and it undermines our feelings of worthiness.

When we make peace with ourselves we instantaneously make peace with the world.

We choose to forget who we are then we forget we have forgotten.

Find compassion in your own mistakes then the mistakes of others will not affect you.

We attract whomever or whatever we need to mirror back the aspects of ourselves that we’ve forgotten.

Within ever desire is the mechanics of it’s fulfillments.

Our fears stop us.

We see in others what we like and what we don’t like in ourselves.

We cannot see ourselves. I am your mirror and you are mine.

The Ego is our false and ignorantly assumed identity. So ego then is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with it’s result : a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing and to, to keep alive the fiction of it’s existence.

Transformation itself only takes seconds. It is a shift in perception, a change in the lenses we look though.

When you come face to face with an aspect of yourself that you hate, express it. Express it with the same intention of releasing all your judgments, your shame , you pain and your resistance to taking back this disowned aspect of yourself.

The pain of perceived flaws cause us to cover them up. When we deny certain aspects of ourselves, we overcompensate by becoming their opposite. We create entire personas to prove to ourselves and others that we are not that.

We are dominated by everything from which our self becomes identified, We dominate and control everything from which we DISidentify ourselves.

You must be willing to spend time exploring your own inner world. “If you do not go within you go without”

Pain is passed down from generation to generation and if it’s not questioned will never break the cycle.

The pain you experienced when you were 3, 5, ,6 and so on is just beneath the surface of your consciousness. Until it is transformed it is always there driving your life.

Prejudice is passed down and so is pain, guilt and shame.

Pain has it’s purpose, it wants to guide and teach us about higher levels of awareness.

Every word, incident and person that still has an emotional chared needs to be retraced, faced, replaced and embraced. Then we face the incident, owning up to it’ss reality as part of your past. We need to become fully aware of the influence it ahs on our life. Then we look at the incident from a different perspective which allows us to replace our negative feelings with positive ones. We take control of our lives by choosing our interpretations. That enables us to embrace our disowned past and unplug ourselves from other people.

It’s our perceptions and our interpretations that affect our emotions not the incident itself,. It’s our perceptions and interpretations that deny responsibility and lay blame..

Each of us has to make a conscious decisions to alter our world by altering our interpretations.

To overcome fear we must overcome our fear and we FACE IT and REPLACE it with love.

We have to set aside our harsh judgments and come to terms with the mistakes we’ve made. We must know that we worthy of forgiveness . This divine gift teaches us that part of being human is making mistakes.

Forgiveness comes from the Heart not the EGO. Forgiveness is a choice.

Desperation comes from the gulf between God and Self.

If we don’t challenge our most basic beliefs we won’t grow as spiritual beings. Our lives will simply run along lines established by our parents and we will never go beyond those boundaries that were set when we were kids.

Boldness has a genius, power and magic to it.

When we realize that no one is coming to save us or do it for us, and that our old wounds are there whether we love them or hate them, we realize that we are the ones who have to fulfill our potential.

I knew that to truly change my life I would have to be uncomfortable.

Prayer without action is dreaming.

If you tell yourself that you are going to eat healthier foods and don’t do it you are broadcasting to yourself AND the universe that you can’t be trusted. If you say to yourself your going to get a new job next year and don’t do it your sending a message that you cant be counted on . Even if it is a small task you are saying to yourself and to the universe you don’t keep your word. These broken promises wear down our self esteem. Each time you do what you say you are going to you are telling yourself and the universe you can be trusted and counted on. Then you can work on larger goals.
Had an encounter tonight that completely caught me off guard. This has happened before but usually only when I was is a "mental facility". Talking to a well dressed man in his late 60's, clear blue eyes. Discussing his love of music then WHAM, I realized he suffered from schizophrenia when out of the blue he told me about human trafficking by our local courts, stolen identities and the the government dissolving on Sept. 11th to bring about some sort of Reformation league of justice. I looked into his eyes and wondered how to did manage to exist with this illness to get to his age. Very well dressed and his eyes were so crystal blue, so clear. I have monsters that occasionally appear a mess with me but I go long breaks from it now. It made me grateful to the core that my mood disorder is very treatable and I don't find myself on street corners preaching a message that an illness whispers into my head. His wife died three years a go and how she must have loved him to deal with his illness for decades. No one in the theater enjoyed the music tonight as much as he did. I took the scrap of paper on which he had written 2 web addresses for me to go to and join up for the new legion of America and slid it in my pocket and thanked him for speaking with me. I'm grateful for the meeting and grateful that for today , all my illnesses are manageable and that the universe is terriblely kind and forgiving. My hope for him is there is not a part of him left that knows the rest of him is missing. If I go crazy again I hope i don't know it, complete decent in to madness is preferable than being keenly aware that you are completely out step with sanity. I was going to say reality, but reality is just perception, I guess sanity is too. Go figure.
What a great weekend. I was fully present and invested in every moment . Riding with the current of the flow is so much more pleasant that fighting against it. Have some real clarity this morning regarding gratitude. If I don't bring it with me and put it in to action with those I come in contact with, it doesn't do anyone any good. Are the words coming out of my mouth necessary and are they kind? Does the energy I bring to the mix foster growth or disease?

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Great Essay on DEPRESSION

I found this on another blog, it's good

This is long, but if you have ever had clinical depression you will agree, it is spot ON.

"Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.
Depression is humiliating.
If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too.
Depression is humiliating.
No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged."

Catch up

I can believe I haven't updated in 2 or three months. Still trying to get it right. Still clean, still centered and still working. I must confess much of the stuff I usually would blog here about ends up on Facebook instead. It's summer and it's my least fav. time of the year usually. The heat in Texas is usually misery for me, but I guess being 85 pounds lighter makes the summers a little less oppressive.

Random Thoughts

I heard someone talking about a book called "Who Moved My Cheese" and specifically they mentioned people who are "Injustice Collectors".  It made me think about my sister.. She is the most blame assigining person i have ever been around. Nothing is her fault and if you stand still long enough she will find some blame for you. Aggravating.

There are times when I know for sure that I am spiritually centered and living less in ego. My sister left town to take a job in Houston . I was at first glad to get a brake from her drug use and denial, but now I'm just worried that Houston will eat her alive. Dallas wasn't a place for me when I was diseased up with addiction and low self esteem. I don't think Houston will be good for her for those reasons too.

I asked the question on Facebook the other day. "When was the last time you changed your mind about something".  For me when I have a change of stance, I know that I am teachable. I come from a long line of folks who believe once you make up your mind about something, never question it again. When my position changes on ideas or people, it makes me feel good. Open Mindedness. I can entertain a new idea without necessary having to accept it. It's possible though.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

grinding down

Had a headache since I woke up, it's now roughly 18 hours later. I was afraid that I caught a virus from a guy who had it last night. I guess it's more effects of quitting smoking 6 almost 7 days ago. I've been tapering on the the "gum". Detox I reckon'. Trying to to attach myself to the dull feelings. This to shall pass.

My circle, inner circle of recovery folks has shrunk like crazy and I am frustrated my phone isn't ringing and there is no one to call who is into the quest as I am. I ask my HP to put some people in my life who have open minds and a real desire to grow in spirit.

My sponsor is in the throws of disease and he isn't available and worse, even when I do talk to him, HE ISN"T there it's some ungrounded poor version of himself. It makes me mad as fuck, he keeps taking that mess of a girl back and completely regress into someone he claims he doesn't want to be.

I hope I never have that situation in my life.

Friday, May 17, 2013

I'm oddly lonesome tonight. Myfriend that I have talked nightly to for over a year has taken this chick back in. Even when I talk to him, I am not talking to my friend, I am talking to a less real version of him.  Being the one who has been terminally single except for 2 years in the 80's, I hate when close friends "hook up" and suddenly they aren't available to me. I've had 50 good girlfriends get their man and family they hunted for. This is the first male that has done this. He's the first real male friend I've had. Definately the closest straight male I ever had. I feel compassion for him. It doesn't look like to me that this is going to be the thing he is looking for but that is my judgment. I'm going to work on being less judgmental about everything. 

I had a good day of being IN my body.  I was fully present all day and went to the gym twice in order to get both weight and cardio done. I left after weights to catch a meeting at noon. It was a fantastic meeting and it really brought a simple idea to me. In step do, I actually come to meetings so I can believe. I literally come to believe.

Working Sat and Sun and looking forward to seeing what that boys in the treatment center are doing this weekend. I hope I have something to give them.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Respsonse to a girl lost inside her mind.

It seems like your thoughts and thinking are completely distorted. What you think you know for sure isn't true. Your thoughts and feelings can lie, and I think you are being lied to be them and you don't hear anyone around you telling you what you are perceiving isn't real. Your worth as a spirit on the planet has nothing to do with performance at school or at work. Your here and you matter , end of story. You have to find a way to stop being obsessed with thoughts of yourself and realize there is a whole world out there and be a part of it. I just lost another friend to suicide, a gruesome bloodletting act, it was a waste because when he wasn't consumed with himself, he connected to people easier than anyone I guess I have known. When what your trying to do continually falls short, it may not be you, it may very well be you are trying to portray the life you "think" your suppose to be living instead of living the live you were created by "Creative Intention" to live. When I gave up artistic direction and stepped into the flow rather that fight it out my way, I quit wanting to die, found real compassion for others and mostly I found compassion for myself. It was a profound experience to find out children have to be taught how to be human and I had in essence been trying to create and live an elaborate lie and showing the world who i "THOUGHT i was and was suppose to be".  You don't have to spend the rest of your life fighting this hard to go no where. There is ease and flow available. I was happy yesterday from the moment I woke up until I went to bed. I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world most days. I haven't been in a hospital or facility in 3 years, I'm completely off antidepressants for two years and some odd months. I haven't used or drank and everyday I try to challenge myself with new ideas. "An new idea can't be grafted on a closed mind", so I hang with people who are like me, have open minds, new ideas and most importantly I don't sit around and pick out reasons why I am pitiful anymore.  "All rivers lead to the Sea".  Just find YOUR river and I will meet you at the sea.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

My recovery kindred is lost to himself again. This broken street woman appears and he aquieces. One again she is in his house and has free access to treat him like he thinks he deserves, vile and heartless words fly from her and then she turns the page to soft neediness which makes him feel big. I often think he is dancing with destruction then I think he is not dancing with it, his darkness is reeling her in like a prize. I have told him repeatedly that I see disaster, he agrees and nods. I want to scream in his ear to "WAKE UP" My old psych. used to use a term he read in a book that said most adults quit living by the time we were 7, so the world is full of dead children who don't know they are dead.  I was snooping on a strangers Facebook page and saw that in September she had included the sentence," I have been happy since I woke up today", and i had a guttural reaction to it. I almost sobbed because I have been happy since I woke up but I didn't know how to articulate it. She did it is has never been truer. Since I finished the last "person" on my 9th step list and a day or two later, the torment I had held onto for 15 years was completely removed, I have been happy like a child is happy.  After 20 plus years mostly IN the recovery world, I had no idea that this could really happen. The moment the room was made inside my spirit from the removal of the hurt and anger, I was filled with fizzy lifting liquid. lol I fucking effervesce in water. lol Not really, I don't release bubbles from my skin but I do sparkle. I'm am so free . Free Free Free. I have moved past the lie of religion, I found my own freeway that gave me action to the flow and I have nothing that I am holding on to to impede the ride. Now let's get this spirit party started............

Sunday, May 12, 2013

It appears I have lost my shell, or as I think of it as an undelicious non candy coating, meant to keep my heart same and you and a safe enough distance I can't get hurt.  A popular item on seafood restaurants in the south of 'soft shell Crab".  The reason they are referred to that way is the one time a year they crawl out from there shell, if they are captured and eaten before the new shell has had time to harden eating them is a breeze. So when they leave their shell they are the most vulnerable they will ever be until the next time this happens in their life cycle.

I was born way more sensitive than most people i know. From the earliest of times it seemed as if any emotion in the wind could give me a crushing bruise. So I stayed alive long enough for my shell to form. It has remained untouched since 1986 when a talented blue eyed damaged boy hit me between the eyes with love. It was the first time and only time I was in love and it nearly killed me. We were two children playing house in a world that we had no coping skills, no living skills to be in. He liked the pot as much as I liked the drink so it was a couple of years of "go away , no wait a minute" that ended in 1989 and in the year 2013 , he is still the only person I ever felt that "Fourth of July" explosion at the sight, thought or mention of . He was perhaps even more broken and fragile than I was but we were kids.  We were children ill equipped for life in grown up bodies and certainly had no business setting up a house.

He was the last person I was interesting in that way and he was the last person I let get that close.

So I have lived behind the Great Wall . I've seen every couple I have ever known spare one, maybe two, fail, crash and burn. I haven't put my heart out there in a long time and frankly I'm not sure it exist for me.

So, as part of my recovery plan I have to attempt at amending people I have damaged or hurt.  When my mother's friend married my dad, I was consumed with rage. Part of the rage came from my personal long history with the woman who had been a mother figure to me my whole life. She threw her best friend under the bus to get my mothers husband. There has been a thousand different faces but on the rage I had for them was white hot but in order to live the program I try hard to live i had to address the scathing letters I would fire off to her while highly medicated with benzo's or muscle relaxers.

It took three years but I faced her and let her have the time to respond to my face for the chaos and pain , at times, I had made my life's purpose about heaping on her and my father. She railed and railed at me, the pain I had caused, the standing in the town I had taken from her with my gossip I spread. I knew what it was like to dread going into the store and facing someone, anyone who wanted to sling rumors and judgments so she said she had nothing left in her in her late 70's to fight with.

I saw a broken woman in front of me , steeped in depression, regret, anger, and emotional pain and I found myself awash with pure heartbreaking compassion for her. When she paused I was stunned to find myself with the mouth open asking her the question, "Bobbie, do you have any joy in your life, is there anything that gives you pleasure to do"?

She matter of factly and in complete contrast to what she had said earlier said , "I like taking care of your father, it makes me happy".

I haven't been on the same page with her in many many years but I found myself bonding with her because I love taking care of people, I know what joy that can bring.


So several days later I am playing with this interaction, looking at it from all sides. Then, the paradigm changed. Suddenly I knew it would be ok, I knew that it would be entirely possible for there to be someone on the planet that doing things for me would make them happy. It was the first time I believed it might be ok for someone to be in my life that finds pleasure out of taking care of me. I hadn't expected that perspective shift. I knew as you began to make right the wrongs of addictions that long forgotten rooms would reopen, but I was stunned, stunned and thrilled to believe there might be someone on the planet that might fight happiness doing things for me, the things we do for people we love.

So I woke up this morning in a brand new world of possibility and that excites me to my core. I fucking love possibility. It's a better buzz than hope and I am standing in the middle of the biggest field of gold , feeling very worthy of someone loving.  Vulnerability, can I really have a joyous life without with out it? I don't think so. I think I am here to enjoy the experience of being human and I am here for a good time..

Saturday, May 11, 2013

I've got a lot of emotion about a quarter inch from the surface today. It almost gets freed but still it remains trapped in a bubble. I finally told my sister I thought she was the most selfish person on earth and that she was a mean mean person. That's as ugly as it got but I didn't see how I could not say anything any longer as she blames my mother for everything going wrong in her life. She thinks it was mother, not 5 years of taking a day off at a time to do drugs, sometimes 5 days in a row.

I finished up with the ammends to my stepmother and I swear, I feel freedom from it already. Today on the way to Longview, right before sunset, I noticed that the tops of trees were drenched in gold from the sun. It made me think of the time I sat at the sonic and watched a field of cane whip in circles because of the wind. I had this sense If I were leaving earth and could view just 10 things to take with me as my last memories on earth. The golden tip tops of the trees washed in the resolve of the sun as it prepared to duck out of sight and those cane I saw dancing in the wind , rhythmically like tall tall thin dancers.

I was struck with the idea that I have looked in the night sky for lights and movement like comets, something to marvel and be in awe and it dawned on me that the stars were enough all their own, they don't have to have a glittering tail blazing across the sky. Today, the stars are enough.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Some of were talking about Rusty's suicide after the meeting at noon today and I shared with them that it has been my obsveration that it is completely possible for a human to get so lost, the kindest thing the universe can do is allow them an exit. I've known people who tried to kill themselves, serious tries a half a dozen times and failed, then one more try and they make exit.  My understanding is the universe is ultimately so compassionate that it knows when a human has reached the point where they are unable to dig themselves out of the chaos and pain. I think Rusty was granted one of those exit spots.   Something that happened to me that never happened to Rusty was I had opportunity to remember who I was. When I caught a glimpse of who I came to the earth being, it was harder to hold onto the painful misconceptions I was fed or misgathered myself. This kid's pic moves me to pieces. The tiny clasp hands and the dazed look on his face that says, I'm just going to have to depend on you to help me out".  I still have him inside me, and it's ok not to know, it's ok to trust others to help. I'd love to hold that kid and kiss him a big one on his head. He looks like the runt of the litter and I am and have always been drawn to the runt. I am at my best, my god centered best in the company of misfits and outcast. Those that have fallen through the cracks are my people.

These start off near black and turn a red color that looks like it has a spot light on certain parts.



Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I spent my first Saturday trying to properly heard 16 adolescents in treatment. The level on awareness to stay on top of all the moves and noise , wore my ass out. I took a 3 hour nap when I got home. I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night , I got up at 5am after laying down at midnight. I was paranoid I would over sleep on my first real day as an employee not "officially" in training. I did not make it to the gym tonight and I had to get my NA meeting covered by someone else. Instead of wasting time beating myself up over no gym, I'm just going to give myself a break and let it go. I'm paranoid if I don't do things perfectly right, I will be consumed by what ever it is I fear happening.

I'm watching Shawshank on a marathon and because of my super nap and the subject matter, I find that my heart is very full and warm. Relationships formed when you are in the lifeboat with someone else are incredibly special. I'm friends with you because I will be consumed by insanity if you are not here with me. Interdependence, is what we were designed for, not solo existence. "Hope is a good thing".

Hope is very hard to find when you lose it. If it is gone long enough, you forget there is/was ever such a thing and the dark becomes the norm.  
This is probably journal stuff but.... I have been really rocked by the death of our recovery friend. I'm a little stunned at the fact I can't stop turning it around and over in my head. I have first hand experience with having years clean and then slipping away into the darkness of relapse. The insidious thing about an addict in relapse is the disease robs all the memory of recovery ever working, of having friends of, having purpose.  It's as if it never existed at all, just leaving a World Trade Center size hole in your spirit and your only vaguely aware that something, some something used to fill that spot but with what you are unsure. You discover a new darkness, a new despair a new fresh depth of nothingness every moment your eyes are open. You can not see the hands reaching to help you, you cannot comprehend the concept of hope. I don't know if it was luck, divination or mere chance that the last time I ended up in this condition, spiritually dead and shut down, I heard the voice a man that was paid to take care of me in the mental hospital. He managed to wake up the dead part of me and I remembered who I was. The NA showed me the path to sanity and peace. I guess our friend never had that opportunity, no one was paid to wake him up and none of us could.  I will remember him and his recovery when it was alive and well and deliciously off beat. He is yet another heartbreaking cautionary tale about separating from the herd for whatever reasons I may think are valid. The further I get from you, the closer I am to forgetting who I am. When that happens it's only a matter of moments before the dark descends and I forget you were even here and that I ever saw light, and that anything ever mattered.

Monday, April 29, 2013


One year and 83 pounds later............I can't believe I have a gym membership. Someone a fat queen is grabbing her chest and yelling no.......

Thursday, April 25, 2013

That was a tough one.

I came face to face today with a caldron of pain that I sat fire three years ago. The last time I saw my Stepmother was 3 or 4 years ago. In a Xanax fueled rage I fired off several searing , scathing, bitter emails to her unleashing my father's secrets and any dagger I could hurl to hurt her. White hot venom spewed in me and hurt burned through me like a Salem Witch back in the day. I was angry, not just angry at her and the way she did or did not play a part in the ending of my parents 33 year marriage, I was taking out my anger at my dad on her too.
I was stunned today to find an old woman living in my fathers house. Her face completely shifted and gnarled. She had no makeup on so I caught her in a moment of non-concealment. I was just stunned and frightened that she had such a darkness about her, a dark unrecognizable distorted countenance. 

I knew from instruction what I could say and what I couldn't.
 I was only permitted to say I apologize for injecting so much pain and confusion into your life with my words. An excuse  would only invalidate the apology. It was her turn finally to tell me what she wanted to. For nearly forty minutes she detailed every single hurtful thing I had said , done and caused. Face to face. I saw each hurt come alive as the spilled from her unpainted lips.  The most surprising thing that happened as she went through this speech she had rehearsed for years is she casually threw in that she wanted in her mind to have my dad present when she let loose. No, I tell you what , the real surprise is how much compassion I had welling up inside me as I watched a bitter angry old lady account for all of the misinformation, gossip, misalignment I produced in her life. It was not shame, guilt or remorse I felt, it was the compassion I would have gladly given to a thousand strangers I had met. In the in end all I could tell her was above my apology I would never intentionally inflict hurt or pain to her life and that I would try my hardest only to be an asset to her. She then accepted my apology which was really neither here nor there, she got the chance to say the speech that she had been honing to a sharpened edge for years. I would have understood if she had refused to even speak to me, so the acceptance was very benevolent.

I wasn't responsible for all of the painful slings and arrows she told me to day, not by far. Some of the stuff she talked about had little to directly do with me, BUT make no mistake my toe was in that water. Since it is doubtful, she will ever get to address the rest of the cast list of assassins , I stood there and let her get it all out of her head and heart. This is the beginning of the real amends. I was able to stand for myself and for the others by proxy, the others  who hurt her so badly. 

I never felt like smarting off, I was completely encompassed by the love of spirit.  I feel like I can sit at the big boys table at NA now.. That wasn't a pat on the head and a "So glad you feel better" response. This was a real stand there and allow her to react however she needs to. It was hard and uncomfortable and I wanted to be free of this resentment more than I wanted to put myself in a favorable light by interrupting with excuse.


Sunday, April 7, 2013

Confused. Tired. Confused. I've got so many thoughts and emotions swirling that I am stumped. I worked the first two real shifts this weekend, where I was not "training", and I was expected to hold up a real part of the work. It's been 12 or more years since I put in 17 hours in two days. I know regular people do it all the time and I'm thankful  for shot, but it has me so off center that I'm wanting to over eat and sleep. It was uphill at the gym earlier this evening and I stopped  about 20 minutes early when I got to cardio. I do NOT want to gain my weight back but i feel so out of control. I missed the Men's Dinner this week for only the second time ever. I had to do some watering in the garden and I wanted to go work out. I have nothing to do tomorrow except a butt load of laundry

Sunday, March 24, 2013

The first over nigh shift

I finished my first pay week of working at the treatment facility. What I feel from 4 days work is that the work they do there touches my spirit deeply. This morning when I was scooping cereal into the young peoples breakfast bowls before they woke up was a deep amount of real spirit stirring gratitude. I measured the sugar and put a scoop in each bowl and then place small plastic containers of whole milk beside their place settings minutes before I woke them up.

I've been on their side of treatment countless countless times. I knew the night staff was busy doing things to allow our day time care to take place and it was other worldly being on the other side. I felt like a parent, putting things out, doing their towel laundry and folding them with the client number on each one visible. Even as I shined a small light into each of the dorm rooms to check and see if they were in bed, I remembered the sensation of waking up in various facifacilities I was in when the night staff shined the light in. It never made me made , it never irked me it in fact made me sleep more soundly knowing I was being looked after. Now I have the flashlight. Funny how life can swap the roles for you sometimes.

I like taking care of things for people in my everyday life but doing things for these kids who have been so lost makes my chest warm. Even when I was leaving the facility and I looked across the pasture where one of the actual foster home that houses students sits. It's a giant stone multi-story that looks like some farm house in Scottland. I was grateful in a different way than I had known before. Even though my home life was really messed up and one or more of my parents never could step up emotionally for me. I never woke up an an unusually cold spring morning without two people there that I knew where my parents, that food was in the kitchen that power would come on when I flipped a switch, that clothes were clean and they fit me and I never worried about someone coming to kick us out of what I knew as home.  I never NEVER touched a light switch and wondered if we had electricity, and have that be a regular normal thing that I dealt with as a young person. Those were my basic physical needs and they were always met. 

How can you relive a whole lifetime is 3 minutes. Pain is pain and lonely is lonely. I guess I have just enough similarities to those parent-less children to  see my pain reflected in their circumstance. I'm grateful I know how to feel that and even as I type this, I could burst into tears if my family weren't bustling in the house .  I'm humbled by the fact that I can feel so deeply for strangers. I'm grateful that the pain of youth didn't get the chance to finish me off as an adult so far. I left good thoughts on each of those cereal bowls as they slept this morning, light barely breaking as tall skinny pine trees danced in the bitter cold wind of a spring time cold snap. I was present. Really present and even if  the staying awake from 12-8am slightly skewed my senses, it was an experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss. I've never been a parent or even wished to be but on a very small scale I got a glimpse into the care parents show their children when their children aren't looking. There wasn't a job detail I was shown to do last night that I couldn't find  care for. It was humbling to do what I could to help those young men's chances at finding some piece of information or hope to hold onto and maybe, just maybe make a difference for themselves. At 16 could I have been intervened upon? Probably not, but I was very desperate to be seen and acknowledge and I just as easily could have found it in a program like this. I just wanted someone to see me and say, "Hey, I see the real you andyou are okay". When Branch Dividian in Waco went up in flames and they talked about David Koresh, I had a small hunch that had I ran into a religious sect and they could convince me they loved and valued me, I could have been sucked in. So if I had been shown the 12 step program when I first began to bleed to death, I think something about it would have spoke to me. I like making someone Else's way a little bit easier. I like being support team. It is the spirit of service I guess. If your going to be possessed by a spirit, all in all, it's a pretty good one, but also pretty frightening at times.

Grateful, grateful, grateful. Moved and moved and moved. Thank you for this experience.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Had a talk with a friend of mine. He keeps recycling old girlfriends that weren't good choices to begin with. It made me thing of this quote, " We trade what we want, for what we want now". That is why we never get what we want because in the moment when it is uncomfortable or lonely we trade something that makes us feel better in the now and get further away from what we want in the long term. Sticking it out, waiting, surving the "in the MEAN time" is hard. IT's why we settle for what is available now. It's clear to me when my friends to this but hard to spot in myself when I do it. Take food for instance. I want o be fit, but I settle for a large pizza NOW.  I hope today, just for today, I keep my sights on my goals and don't settle or stop because it doesn't get here fast enough. I  also hope i'm willing to wait, even if it's painful or boring. I want want a freedom for settling for what is convenient and learn how to wait things out that take time. I"ll never get anywhere if I trade what I want for what I want now.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Ideas that excited me from the book "Darkside of the Light Chasers"



Everything we hate, resist or disown about ourselves takes on a life of it’s own and it undermines our feelings of worthiness. 



When we make peace with ourselves we instantaneously make peace with the world.



We choose to forget who we are then we forget we have forgotten.



Find compassion in your own mistakes then the mistakes of others will not affect you.



We attract whomever or whatever  we need to mirror back the aspects of ourselves that we’ve forgotten.



Within ever desire is the mechanics of it’s fulfillments.



Our fears stop us.



We see in others what we like and what we don’t like in ourselves.



We cannot see ourselves. I am your mirror and you are mine.



The Ego is our false and ignorantly assumed identity. So ego then is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with it’s result : a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing and to, to keep alive the fiction of it’s existence.



Transformation itself only takes seconds. It is a shift in perception, a change in the lenses we look though.



When you come face to face with an aspect of yourself that you hate, express it. Express it with the same intention of releasing all your judgments, your shame , you pain and your resistance to taking back this disowned aspect of yourself.



The pain of perceived flaws cause us to cover them up. When we deny certain aspects of ourselves, we overcompensate by becoming their opposite. We create entire personas to prove to ourselves and others that we are not that.



We are dominated by everything from which our self becomes identified, We dominate and control everything from which we DISidentify ourselves.



You must be willing to spend time exploring your own inner world. “If you do not go within you go without”



Pain is passed down from generation to generation and if it’s not questioned will never break the cycle.



The pain you experienced when you were 3, 5, ,6 and so on is just beneath the surface of your consciousness. Until it is transformed it is always there driving your life.

                                                                                                                             

Prejudice is passed down and so is pain, guilt and shame.



Pain has it’s purpose, it wants to guide and teach us about higher levels of awareness.



Every word, incident and person that still has an emotional chared needs to be retraced, faced, replaced and embraced. Then we face the incident, owning up to it’ss reality as part of your past.  We need to become fully aware of the influence it ahs on our life.  Then we look at the incident from a different perspective which allows us to replace our negative feelings with positive ones.  We take control of our lives by choosing our interpretations. That enables us to embrace our disowned past and unplug ourselves from other people.



It’s our perceptions and our interpretations that affect our emotions not the incident itself,. It’s our perceptions and interpretations that deny responsibility and lay blame..



Each of us has to make a conscious decisions to alter our world by altering our interpretations.



To overcome fear we must overcome our fear and we FACE IT and REPLACE it with love.



We have to set aside our harsh judgments and come to terms with the mistakes we’ve made.  We must know that we worthy of forgiveness . This divine gift teaches us that part of being human is making mistakes.



Forgiveness comes from the Heart not the EGO. Forgiveness is a choice.



Desperation comes from the gulf between God and Self.

                                                                                             

If we don’t challenge our most basic beliefs we won’t grow as spiritual beings.  Our lives will simply run along lines established by our parents and we will never go beyond those boundaries that were set when we were kids.



Boldness has a genius, power and magic to it.



When we realize that no one is coming to save us or do it for us, and that our old wounds are there whether we love them or hate them, we realize that we are the ones who have to fulfill our potential.



I knew that to truly change my life I would have to be uncomfortable.



Prayer without action is dreaming.                    



If you tell yourself that you are going to eat healthier foods and don’t do it you are broadcasting to yourself AND the universe that you can’t be trusted. If  you say to yourself your going to get a new job next year and don’t do it your sending a message that you cant be counted on . Even if it is a small task you are saying to yourself and to the universe  you don’t keep your word.  These broken promises wear down our self esteem. Each time you do what you say you are going to  you are telling yourself and the universe you can be trusted and counted on.  Then you can work on larger goals.


Notes I have taken from my re-reading of Eckhart Tolle's "New Earth" so far



Notes from the re-read of “A New Earth” by Eckart Tolle, thus far.

Cam human’s defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form  that keep the ego in place and condemn them to imprisonment within their own personality.

Ego is no more than identification with form, which primarily means thought forms.

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much

Language consist of 5 basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are or the ultimate purpose of the universe or even what a tree is or a stone at their depths?

You can only feel the joy of being when you are out of your head. Being must be felt. It can’t be thought. The doesn’t know about it because thought is what the ego consist of.

Whatever the ego sees and gets attached to are substitutes for BEING it cannot feel.

Letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.

 How do you know this is the experience that you need? Because this is the experience you are having.

The ego will quickly find a new for of identity, it doesn’t matter if it is a deeply unhappy one or not. The ego craves to latch on to anything it can use as an identity.
                                                                                     
If the shutters of the house are closed, the sunlight cannot come in.

Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

A long standing resentment is called a grievance. To carry a grievance is to be in a permanent state of “against” and that is why grievances constitute a significance part of many peoples ego.

A grievance will also contaminate other areas in your life,. One strong grievance is enough to contaminate large areas of your life and keep you in the grip of ego.

The past has no power to stop you  from being present, only your grievance about the past can do that.

What is a grievance? The baggage of old though and old emotion.


Every ego is a master of selective perception and interpretation. Only through awareness can you differentiate between fact and opinion. Only through awareness are you able to see.\



What constitutes insanity? Complete identification with though and emotion, that is to say your ego.

Whatever you fight, you strengthen and what you resist , persist.



Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. That is why it is called THE PRESENCE.




Me singing 6 sings from the past two appearance at the Opry House