In Jungian psychology, we all have a shadow. I spent much of my life being too nice, too good, and basically a doormat.
I realize in retrospect, I really shocked some people in my life, especially the men, because they never imagined me being or acting the way I became. And, this takes me back to Skeleton Woman.
Skeleton Woman, in the story in Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes PhD., is a story about a fisherman who catches a skeleton woman, and low and behold and long story short, they live happily ever after. Of course, as I said before in my last blog on SageWords, sagewords.blogspot.com; this one is thenewhumanitylives.blogspot.com on which my entire novel, American Boys is written, Skeleton Woman is the woman, unaltered as she is, with all her woundedness, and eventually she grows back muscle tissue, skin and hair, blood, eyes, veins, etc..
I have been not only a doormat, but have rebelled and become the opposite. My hair has been short or long, and I have been skinny or at times needing to lose a little weight. The point is, what may have been misconstrued as meanness was really rebelliousness. When you never rebelled as a teen, or as a wife or even a girlfriend, eventually the shadow as Jung says, emerges. It emerges because it has to. She cannot go on forever the way she is. She is dying, and this is all about change. She cannot stay the same forever. It just is not possible, because she cannot grow.
In Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD., one of my favorite stories or fables with deep meaning into the psyche, is Skeleton Woman.
This story addresses Wild Man as well as Wild Woman. In all women, there is a goddess who guides us, Wild Woman. When we are in touch with our mentor, she is a sort of witch, meaning healer, young or old, in ancient tradition, (only in our culture, has witch become a bad term - I have done much wicca magic and am a healer, a Reiki Master, so in a sense I am a white witch) we have her guidance and wisdom. Witch also means wise, as in my nickname, Sage. Names are meaningful, secret names, but that is another story in and of itself.
Men must also find their essence, learn to love, live, hunt, sing, drum, hammer, but most of all to cry, to feel compassion for his own woundedness. Like Sarah Maclachlin says in her song, 'beautiful fucked up man', in Building a Mystery. This is not to say that all of us fall in love with the wounded, or must save them.
Here is the story: a man is fishing and he catches something heavy and pulls it in. It is a skeleton of a woman all twisted up on itself, foot over head, arms tangled, etc., like an awkwardest yoga position. He untangles the skeleton and she comes to life. He is somewhat repulsed. She even contains embryos and seaweed growing, and he runs in revulsion. She chases him. Eventually he cries in compassion for her, but not just that but compassion for himself. This is the short version, mind you.
Long story short, she sleeps with him, skin to skin. Yes, and they live happily ever after.
The people of the village could not believe it.
In this story once again is Life/Death/Life again, the theme of every story. There is life and then death and then life again. The Skeleton Woman thrives and once again becomes a feral, full functioning, potent woman, who can even bear children. Once again, she grows skin and flesh.
The meaning of this story is: he pulls in the first thing he finds, but rather than be repulsed by Skeleton Woman, which he is at first, and as in most relationships, the faster he runs from her, the faster she runs after him, but he eventually loves her, regardless, and in fact he is the one who untangles her, which is really significant.
Many of us in today's culture, find ourselves in similar situations, and our impulse is to run, but with all her faults and drawbacks, he loves Skeleton Woman, and this enables her to become whole and alive again, which brings us back to Life/Death/Life. We cannot outrun death. None of us can. This is the beauty of it.
The fact that the man cries is deep, because of his own compassion for his wounds and hers as well.
I would add another component, which is that Skeleton Woman has skeletons, you know like skeletons in the closet, the things we are afraid to be known, lest losing love. I know this all too well.
His love for her overrides it all, and this man and woman are together.
We do not have to run when the first thing goes wrong in love. If the person you love is not who you thought, just stop for a moment, and wait and see. Do not be so quick to succumb to the slightest red flag, because in order for love to sustain, then one must see through the ugliness. No one is beautiful every moment and every second of every day. If they have to be, it is not real love. Love is loving faults and all. This gives men permission in a sense to commit, and yes even to Skeleton Woman, because with the nourishment of his love and nurturing, she thrives and grows back muscle and skin and hair, once more again whole, just as the Handless Maiden who through great love, her hands grow back.
I hate my story, because it is so much easier than my real life. In my real life the younger son had severe asthma, and the older boy was blind as well, as a neurological problem. In the real story, Lizzy was actually legally blind. You see, Lizzy is me.
In the real story Lizzy's father is deceased and her mother and she have had relationship problems for a long time which forbid her from seeing her mother often. And, in reality, the prosperity and bourgeoisie of the parents is bullshit.
In reality, her parents got a divorce before her father died. In reality, she is half blind.
In reality, the guy who likes her represented by Charlie, is actually her boyfriend Alan who died of pancreatic cancer, was married to a woman in Germany with kids. There really is no Jim. Lizzy will never have a Jim.
In reality, Lizzy is not a bartender. She likes to go to the bar, and wishes she was sighted enough to be a bartender, even though she taught school, worked in retail and waitressed when she was very young. In reality, she was only married to one man, the father of both boys, who she tried to be the perfect wife for. She gave the perfect birthday party, kept a perfect figure, kept a perfect house, and had dinner served by 6:00 each night by the time, if not before, he arrived home from work.
In reality, Lizzy had to find herself with no man, she became a Reiki Master and treated her dying married boyfriend, Alan Ferguson when he was in agony, dying of stage 4 cancer.
It goes on and on, but American Boys, my own novel, is lame in its portrayal of reality, and what really is. I lied in this novel, to make it palpable, digestible, acceptable, but I denied myself and children, the truth. I lied to make it swallowable for the average. This was my mistake, and for that reason, I ditch this book, and someday I will write the truth.
There are similarities, I admit. For God's sake, I wrote it, but in reality Daniel going to Berkeley School of Music, is totally unrealistic financially. Believe me, reality is okay, and truthfully I am more than happy to be me, and have the family that I really have, and not be Lizzy. If I ever write again, I will write my own real truth, not the candy coated version.
Also, part of me no longer wants to write or sing. I want to paint, paint women and wolves. I did not have enough encouragement for my music or writing, truthfully, and I cannot continue. When I say I was not encouraged, I do not mean my parents or family, but mostly the Baba people in general. I was not wanted. If you say Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai, or Jai Meher Baba, I will most certainly unfriend you, so as Leonard Cohen said in Hallelulah, "all I ever learned of love, is how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya..." Truthfully, that is all I know. If you want to preach to me, please spare me. Thanks for reading.
I know that they did not want me, because it threatened their own egos, and I could handle it, but they could not. They were not ready. When the ego is ready to die, then one is truly ready to find God, so do not fool yourselves in India, Myrtle Beach or Australia, spiritual careers are as false as advertising in illusion, just one more ego boost you will fall from. I am sorry, but it is true. Good luck on your journey, but when you finally see the false, perhaps lifetimes away, perhaps you will remember me. I know what is true.
A large part of the book Women Who Run With the Wolves has to do with women losing touch with their own wild nature, not bad, but free. I also read a book a couple of years ago called The Nice Girl Syndrome, which I read on talking books for the blind.
You see, I suffered from not only the nice girl, but the good girl syndrome. I finally broke completely, in my late thirties, when I was painfully and simultaneously involved with two men, which drove me and my guilt into a complete nervous breakdown, all the while taking care of kids and being back in college.
My problem was, I had a complex. I had always been good and virtuous, while all around me the men in my life, my husband, my companion after my marriage, did what they wanted, disregarding me, but I always had to be good. The Baba thing did not help, with all the purity around it.
Once, my brother said, "why do you try to be so good? Why are you so afraid?" You see, I was already turning bad in society's standards, because I was torn between two lovers, and not feeling like a fool, but acting like an idiot. I was all over the map, trying to escape abandonment. Looking back, I have a little compassion for myself, because I realize in many ways I was still a girl. I suppose there is something to be said to having children late, since I had my first child pretty young and my second relatively young, twenty-seven, a very average and common age for childbirth, although my own mother having had me, the fourth of four, at thirty-five, told me she was too old by the time I was born, whatever that means. The funny part is my mother's friends are always young enough to be her daughters, and she even tells me sometimes that they are her daughters, so it is kind of ridiculous, one more thing to say, "okay, whatever, about."
Although, Freud is somewhat discredited in saying that it all is caused by the mother, because mental illness such as schizophrenia is caused by an organic brain disease and many theories, even an intrauterine virus may be the cause, and he is quoted as saying, "I do not like these patients," some mental illness such as borderline personality disorder is believed to have to do with a lack of bonding between mother and child, a fear of abandonment, as well as annihilation, causing the individual suffering from this diagnosis to experience rage, risky behavior, frantic efforts to escape real or imagined abandonment, for example partners in love relationships, as well as drama. In this illness, Freud is right.
I still prefer Jung, (and I find him more in line with The New Humanity than Freud, who contributed a lot, such as psychoanalysis), because of his contributions such as the shadow.
The shadow is our dark side, our side that is not perfect, that wants to sneak, like the girl in The Red Shoes, but like in the story, the woman may want to sneak what is really unhealthy, such as excessive drinking, promiscuity, anorexia-nervosa, etc., but if women were given a healthy foundation to begin with through parenting and good guidance as well as a less conforming and forbidding society, then she would be less likely to burst like a damn, when the inevitable shadow must emerge, she might deal with it in healthier ways.
I was once told in counseling, that there were experiments done with babies, where a cloth was put over their face only for a few seconds. Some babies cried, but stopped crying almost immediately, when the cloth was removed, but others kept crying long after the cloth was removed, as though it had really upset them. He said I was the category of babies who kept on crying. I think this is because of what is referred to in Women Who Run With the Wolves as the collapsed mother. Perhaps her own mother was the same, but one way or the other this is who she is. I suppose, in a sense, this is quite Freudian, because some things do stem from one's mother.
I am healing the past, my past mistakes and suffering, some not of my own making, but reading Return to Love by Marianne Williamson again, but for the first time really understanding because of my study for years now of A Course in Miracles.
I know now what I would have done in retrospect, yet I know why I felt the way I did.
I am talking about the summer of 1996, one of the most difficult times in my life, not to mention '99 - 2000 and 2003. As I have said before, there in Boulder Colorado, this was the only book in my possession, and all I owned was in my car. I was crashing at a friend's. As I study this book more closely now, I regret that although I was trying to read it there, I was just too sick, too depressed, grieving really.
One notable thing that occurred that year, among many, was that finally I went to India, and I went for the wrong reasons. In many ways, I wish I had not gone, but at least I managed to keep my job through all these changes and going from here to there and back again. Unfortunately, I let my ex have the kids for awhile, and that was especially hard for me with my younger boy, because he was still quite little at the time, six going on seven until he was almost nine. This is my greatest regret in life, but I realize other women have had similar scenarios. This is another thing, which I really want to heal, and a huge part of my reading Return to Love again, with my heart wide open, for once seeing through the Holy Spirit, seeing differently with God's help, seeing clearly. I am healthy now, so much more healthy, and I am getting healthier each day with the grace of God. I am learning to forgive myself.
The following Autumn in India, Arnavas, being very enlightened, said one thing to me that was very Course in Miracles, although neither she or I knew that. I wanted, or thought I wanted, to marry this real jerk. I told her. She said, "go to Baba's bed and say," "I want to marry... do Your will." And I did. I ended up spending a lot more time with that man, but fortunately I never legally married him. I have only been married once by law, and that was to the father of my children.
Sometimes, I wish my ex-husband's wife was not so threatened by me. I am not a threat. I cannot have anything to do with him, not even conversations about our kids, because she feels it is inappropriate. He would, but I am respecting her wishes. Marianne Williamson says that when you are this jealous, you are preventing the healing between a man and a woman. I agree with this. My boyfriend Alan, who died last fall, was friends with his ex-wife. It bothered me, I suppose, but in retrospect of him dying, and for his children's sake, and their healing, his and his wife's, I am glad for them. It was a good thing. Perhaps my ego did not like it, and perhaps I was threatened, but God has helped me to see things differently, and even while Alan was alive, I learned to deal with that.
Getting back to Boulder in '96, when I was thirty-four years old, I could have let go of a bad relationship and moved on, I could have avoided a lot of suffering, but I did not. Still, now I feel I can let the past go, and am thankful that I am finally ready to heal, and see through the Holy Spirit rather than my ego. I must have known that ACIM would be my path some day, because I had that one precious book, Return to Love.
When I was in junior high, a long long time ago, the early seventies to be specific, what they now call middle school, we had a creative writing class for English. My second to oldest sister, Betsy, my brother Chris and I took Mrs. Southern's class here in Myrtle Beach at different times, me last, because I am the youngest.
Mrs. Southern was a born again Christian who was very sweet, but she preached to us all the time, told us rock music was the devil, kind of like Dana Carvy's character Church Lady on SNL years ago.
Mrs. Southern censored what we read. We had to read and write book reports, but she had to approve the book first. For example, she did not approve of Evenor, because it was fantasy. I read that, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien outside, and since my father was blind, my brother and I read him the Tolkien trilogy, taking turns reading, the three of us in a room together. I would get hungry... and Dad would say, "what's she eating now?" The writing about food made me hungry.
In Mrs. Southern's non separation of church and state class, which was against the law (it was public school) and I actually knew two boys who were Jewish, Frankie and Michael, she preferred we read books off of her bookshelf like The Cross and the Switchblade or The Hiding Place, about Corrie ten Boone in Amsterdam, the Christian family who went to concentration camp for courageously and heroically hiding Jews, actually a very good book, and something to learn about.
Anyway, she would show us a brief film, and we had to write on it, and then read out loud to the class. It was interesting what kids wrote. For example: after watching this film called High on Life, with sunsets and a couple kissing on the beach, one kid wrote: "life is not just about kissing on the beach..."
Wow, jaded so early.
There was an African American girl named Quana who was an amazing poetess. She would write real heavy stuff and read it fast, (way before the time of rap) like "you're just a broken doll... shattered on the wall..."
Anyway, finally in tenth grade, where as well as diagramming sentences, we wrote an essay on the movie, David and Lisa. I recall writing it at my grandmother's condo. My parents were out of town. My English teacher, Mr. Corbett wrote, "boy, can you write..." on my paper. That was the first of anyone believing in me, Mr. Corbett, that is in terms of school teachers (I did have some music teachers who believed in me and then some later in college, especially Art and a Choir teacher who wanted to feature me on tour singing Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez, my 'signature song' so to speak, then, even got a standing ovation at a school function for it.) He also had us who played guitar come and do a concert. When I told him my uncle by marriage was Norman Mailer, he was super impressed.
Later in my adult life, I was a substitute teacher. Once I was subbing for in school suspension, a disciplinary class. The boys had dunked another boy's head in a toilet. I guess they had seen it on a cop show or Stephen Segal or something. They had to write apology letters to him. I told them to be sincere. One asked what sincere meant, and I told him to look it up in the dictionary. It was amusing that they used the word itself in their letters, for example, "I am sincerely sorry..." or "I am sincere, asking your forgiveness..." To tell the truth, I was a bit impressed and proud that they had learned something, and from me. I know what they did was pretty bad. But then, that is what ISS was for, because it was pretty boring in there. They also had to eat lunch with me at a separate table, etc. and it lasted about a week or so.
Well, so much for junior high essays.
Sometimes I wonder, "don't they see the illusion in the illusion? It's so damn obvious."
But, they don't. They won't, because they are at a place where the threat of the ego is too great.
When the threat of the ego is no longer such a challenge, then and only then, can one find the true spiritual path.
Many of us have suffered, suffered greatly. Some want to identify and make their suffering their reason to be. I don't. I do not want my story to be equated with me, who and what I am.
Our story is not who we are. If you make your story - you, this is not the truth. You are more than your story, and your story only defines you as much as you want it to.
We have a choice. We all do. We can choose the Holy Spirit thought system over self-judgment and that of others. We can choose peace over suffering.
The past does not define a person. A person is not defined by their experience, and they cannot be defined, period. They can just be, as I just am.
Jesus, our brother, is our example. In the Course in Miracles, Jesus is our brother. We can take our brother's hand and walk the walk with Him. We don't have to do it alone, but if we feel alone, it is OK.
I am not my story, not my divorce, not my children, my lost home, my mistakes. I just am. Jesus, my brother, takes me through the ruins, but there is no remorse, no sadness. I need no rescuer, lest Jesus. Those that rescue are sick too. They cannot save us. It can appear as a facade and the rescue-er may seem the hero, and yes he or she may mean well, but the only true rescue is God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit.
My training is based on the Course in Miracles, where I am only illusion as far as my body, just as in Meher Baba's teachings, but I am a mind, a soul. In the sense that I am a part of God and the Holy Spirit thought system, I am real. In that sense, yes I am real, but in my ego self, no, I am not, only in oneness, do I truly exist.
Well, actually I should call this blog, What RP is Like for Me, because although symptoms are some the same for everyone with retinitis pigmentosa, each case is unique.
For example: the eyesight is always deteriorating due to the diseased retinas containing bone spicules and atrophy, pigment which the doctor can see with a light through a dilated pupil, and the person with RP will always have loss of peripheral vision and usually one degree or another of myopia, in my case extreme. Most people will eventually lose macular vision as well, but now with 15,000 IU of vitamin A palmitate daily, some adults have found less rapid vision loss, over a one-hundred year study. Cataracts are a bi product and often the doctors say it will not help to remove. This is too complicated for me to explain, except that the retina has already had so much death of cells, and also in my case, being totally blind except light in my right eye, it may be too risky to do surgery when a person only has one eye. All I know is the doctor told me it would not help, that it was just part of RP.
When I was a child, I was legally blind in the right eye, even corrected and legally blind in both eyes without glasses. When I was in my early thirties, the doctor said I could not drive at night anymore. When I was forty-seven contact lenses could no longer correct my vision, and I stopped driving. Also, my eyes started to get infected a lot, so I had to stop wearing eye make-up for a long time.
I qualified to go to the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, which I did for a total of about five and a half months. It was a good experience and I learned a lot, and I made friends with clients and instructors.
RP is very misunderstood, because the person may have some residual central vision and not seem blind. It is too complicated to describe the way I see, so I won't, because it would exhaust me. I have had rude things said to me for tripping on things, but also rude things said to me because I was getting around so well in a well lit room.
If I go out at night, I use a mobility cane. Sometimes if I am with someone who does not mind me holding their arm, like a date or a close friend, I will not bring my cane. In the daytime, I often do not need it, but have regretted not bringing it, when I have run into things or people. Still, I do not like to look blind. I am not blind, just visually impaired. I can see to a degree. On rainy days like today, it is hard to see, especially indoors. However, ironically, bright light and bright sun, both in and out of doors requires me to wear dark glasses given to me by the CfB, because the eyes of a person with RP are very light sensitive. We usually would rather watch television than go to a movie theater, because it is hard to see the entire screen and you end up turning your head from side to side. Also, the light of the TV helps to clarify it, because movies tend to be dark. When I went to see those crazy Saw movies with my kids, it was so dark I could not see well, but that is a good thing, lol.
Someone said to me, "I'm not blind, but I have other problems."
I said, "what are you talking about? Being blind is the least of my problems." In another article I might tell you ways in which this has been a blessing, but that will take some deep thought, which I am not in the mood for now. Love to all.
Note: I used the sexy cleavage picture just to show that visually impaired people can still be sexy...
Sometimes the karma ends, but until then it is as intense as it is meant to be. I wish it were otherwise. I really do. I wish we could all just be perfect, but we are not and never were.
I have been in a long term relationship in my past that was hard to end. It could not end until our karma was finished, but I did not know this. I spoke to a psychic who told me everything, but I just kept on playing out the karma until the karma was over.
For me, the karma ended when I truly fell in love with someone else, and by then I had a seven year history with the person I needed to end all ties to. Even now I wish I could ask for the money back I loaned.
Now, in poverty I have only appealed to those I thought may listen. They don't.
When Alan (a totally different man years later) died a few months ago, it was different. I think we would have gone year after year struggling with our differences, longing for each other in some ways and hating each other in other ways, like politics. That is part of why he reminds me of 'Charlie' in my novel. I think the thought of Charlie and Alan intertwined came when one of my son's friends came over and met Alan, asking him if he was Charlie's father, Charlie being one of David's friends. From then on I thought Alan looked like a fifty year old Charlie.
I was empowered the day I told the man I had had a cruel but long term relationship with, (his name I would rather not reveal, but is a big shot in certain circles as far as the Baba world is concerned), to never call again, ever. That was when I was finally free.
With Alan, it was different. Alan was never cruel to me. I think that, had Alan not died of cancer, perhaps we would have gone on forever off and on. Perhaps Alan's divorce would have finally been final. Perhaps I'd have gained the courage to move in with him or vice versa. I will never know. I do know, however, that our karma is done for this life, and the passion between us, made him dying the only way it would have ended in this lifetime.
In terms of some relationships with jerks like I described earlier though, it is when we as women ourselves truly do not want this anymore, that we empower ourselves. Until then it is very very hard. Since then people have marveled at my detachment and ability to walk away. We walk away when we have had enough, all that we could take. It is then that we walk away, when we have truly hit bottom.
In this 'out for oneself' world, there is still a place for kindness. As Jewel says in her song Hands, 'in the end, only kindness matters'...refrain.
Even in the worst, most dramatic situations of my life, there have always been at least one or two or three kind people who made a difference. There are also people with agendas, control freaks, power hungry people, people who just enjoy the suffering of others... There are all kinds of people in the world, but the kind ones are the ones I like to remember.
A Course in Miracles has shown me that I am not my story, even now. That is why I am not interested in telling my story anymore. I have told enough in articles. Perhaps someday, if someone sponsors me in terms of editing and so forth, I will write an autobiography, but it may come out too much like Rachel Brown's book, When All the Fishes Come Home to Roost, which I read and most Baba people condemn, as though they do not want to hear the story of a little girl. What is the harm in knowing someone else's inside experience? Will it make your illusions fall and that is too scary? I saw that girl when her name was Mani when she lived in India with her Mom, when I was there in '96. Even Baba's beloved Mehera, defended and cared for her. She was sad and lonely.
So many people are so caught in their own falsehood, that they will not look at the big picture or anyone else's experience. I know what it is like to grow up behind the scenes of a spiritual cult. I am not saying that Baba is not who he said he was, but technically in a textbook sense, it is a cult. In fact it is listed as a cult, but so is Jehovah Whiteness, Course in Miracles and Seventh Day Adventist for that matter. It is just a word.
Kindness makes a difference. In school, most people had some mean teachers and some kind or mean parent or sibling who could be kind sometimes. Are not the kind things the things to remember?
As long as I am alive there is no hope for redemption. Not the Christian kind, of which I have no interest, but not any, even for happiness or life, real life.
I have lost almost everyone I ever loved one way or another. Do not pity me. That is not what I want. I have the strength of mountains and oceans. I can see through the lies and into minds. I know the truth within me, but no one will listen, because they do not want to know, do not want to hear. And, so I stay alone.
But, on my death day or soon after, my ghazels will be found, my laments to God, to love, to life. And, then that day, someone will say, "she did love God. Leslie Sage was more than we thought. We thought she was a drunkard who danced in the street and sang in the tavern. We thought she was an enigma, who had no rules and no religion, who could not conform."
And, all will be true, for, she did not have rules, except not to break the law or harm anyone, but no one had any rules to not harm her, so she became frustrated and doubted. Still yet, she would not harm them, and she had no desire to.
She tried to take care of others, to give them their heart's desire, her husband, her mother, her children, but no one could she satisfy, and so she gave up finally, and let go.
Now, all that is left of Leslie, is her ghazels, in heaps and mounds, someday to be found.
If I could live anywhere, any time, it would be Paris, the left bank in the twenties. I would love to discuss art, music, acting dance and writing with those such as Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Hemingway, etc..
My parents were artists. My father went to R.I.S.D.. I think writing songs and books and movie scripts may be more powerful than painting. I realize my father captured Meher Baba, and was an amazing artist.
I see the beauty of ballet and modern dance which I studied in college. Still, when I see a film like The Green Mile, I am so astounded by the talent of the actors, as well as my favorite author Stephen King. Also, the film making is quite spectacular, an art in and of itself.
Having a brother who went to U.S.C. in Southern California film school, he may also appreciate this.
As much as I love Vincent van Gogh and other amazing painters and dancers like Isadora Duncan, I feel, looking over the words to songs I have written in my mind, such as 'Alan's Song', that people can hide, but when you write a song from the heart, there really is no hiding. The honesty of the heart comes out so strong and true. Can anyone really paint that? Dance that? Act that? Yes, act that, maybe, write that, for sure. I feel that writing songs, poetry, which also can be hidden behind as well as novels not from the heart, that writing, true writing of songs and novels and scripts, may be the strongest of all art forms. You may beg to differ and I would love to hear you.
As a musician and mother of a musician, I know the power of music itself. Still, how can writing be hidden behind? True painting and true acting and dance, as well as music probably cannot be hidden behind either.
I apologize, because as much as I wanted to write a book that was true and real in every sense of what life is for the average American who is not privileged, like my own family, me, my kids, my brother, his daughter, and some of my children's friends and their hardships, I ended American Boys on an unrealistically happy note. The reality of life would not even have been that good, even though there were still problems.
Being an avid reader and a patron of the state library for the blind, I was tired of reading about rich people with unrealistically happy lives. This is what led me to Stephen King, and historical fiction on things such as Auschwitz survivors and lynchings of black people in the twenties, while Theodore Roosevelt was president, although he of course was not responsible but according to my readings portrayed as a racist.
I named my first son Theodore, not really after the president, but the Greek meaning, 'gift of God.'
I think in reality things are worse than my book, American Boys. The saddest thing in my book besides Daniel and Nicolas's illnesses, and Lizzy's struggles to make ends meet and find the right man, was the death of Daniel's best friend Adrien in Iraq. My kids have had friends die too. They have also had friends join armed services.
There are other causes for dying. Lizzy's parents both being still alive and both as nice, to me is unrealistic, having had a father die in my youth and a mother very cold and in some ways heartless.
I wanted things to be happy and normal, but normal does not exist, unfortunately.
Many people in this world are really mean, hiding the meanness behind pretentious niceness, which sometimes leads to out and out rudeness. This is passive aggressive behavior.
People who practice this type of communication usually have low opinions of themselves, pretending they are someone important in some way or another.
They want others to feel less than, to make themselves feel better than. They cannot accept another, another's achievements, because everything is about them.
How do I know this? I encounter people like this in my life from time to time, and I know from the type of people who do this, that these people are extremely insecure, afraid and full of self-doubt.
My son wrote a song called, 'Lesser Me You Gain.' I asked him what it was about, and he said it was about "people putting you down, pretending to give advice, only to elevate themselves and make you feel inferior." I know both sides, like the Joni Mitchell song, Both Sides Now, "I've looked at life from both sides now..."
I have been accused of making someone feel bad to elevate myself, but at the time, I had no idea what this person was talking about, and I think if I did say something to hurt someone's feelings, it was innocent and never my intention in any way.
So many people are on ego trips of one kind or another. I realize perhaps I want to be an intellectual 'giant,' lol, but whether or not that would ever be, I know I am a writer and a musician, with no reservation. Ego does not exist in true art, confidence, not self consciousness.
Be brave, be strong, 'toot your own horn' and do not let anyone keep you down. Take heed from mentors like President Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Emily Dickinson, Gandhi, Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Vincent van Gogh, Ann Frank, Winston Churchill, Stephen Biko, Nelson Mandela, William Wallace, Lyn Ott, Jesus Christ, Meher Baba, Dalai Lama and/or anyone who inspires you.
Lately, I feel like 'what next? What should I endeavor to do now?' My music is stagnating. I do not like the songs I write. I have been told they are too sad. I was just trying to deal with a tragedy by writing a country song, which I thought was a good way to deal with it.
Everything is in the air. The election is coming. It worries me. I will vote, and everyone knows who I am voting for because I blog about it all the time.
The weather has been weird. I have been a little down, and trying to fight it, fight a downward spiral. I think about trying to do this or that, but my eyesight puts so many restraints on me and limitations. Sometimes I feel I am almost suffocating from lack of real purpose.
Perhaps it will change. I hope, and I will figure out what I am doing in this life. I think of being a visual artist and then I remember I cannot see. I think of writing poetry, but I have no inspiration. And, the list goes on.
I think I felt most fulfilled when I was a teacher. I miss my old house. I wish I had found a way to keep it, and that way I could have given my children a better life.
My younger son was on the swim team, his senior year of high school. We got honored at the homecoming game. It was a real highlight.
I did the finding myself, female midlife thing, yoga and meditation, etc.. Although I still burn rose incense, meditate, do yoga and Reiki, I am now lost again. I am somehow unable once again to really know who I am. I know it does not make a lot of sense, I guess.
The only books I can really relate to now, are about people suffering immensely. Perhaps that is how I feel, and I do not think it is about Alan anymore, because truthfully I am a bit bitter that Alan never got divorced. Even though his wife was in Germany, it drove a wedge. His mother did not approve of me. I think she thought I was a deadbeat, because she said, "what do you do all day?"
Alan said, "Leslie is legally blind," explaining I suppose the fact that I do not work.
I said, "I am a writer and a musician."
Later I conveyed this story to a confidant, as well as another remark someone made at a dinner I was at, where I was discussing my novel, American Boys. This woman who owns a gallery selling only her own work, said, "where do you find time to do all this?"
My confidant said, "you should say, 'I have the same number of hours in a day as everyone else' " That made a lot of sense.
When someone made a rude comment about my eyesight, saying I seemed to be getting around just fine, at some pot luck dinner, I also told my confidant, and he said, "you should have said, 'thank you for showing your ignorance.' " My friend is a mobility instructor for the blind. In fact I met him while he was doing his internship under my mobility instructor.
Well, I better go now. I have a lot more of nothing to do.
I and other Obama supporters, are a bit concerned now that Romney is ahead and it is very tied, except with Hispanics and I am not certain of the percentage with African Americans.
All I know is I cannot stand to see a guy elected who just weeks ago called half of America, victims and freeloaders who feel entitled to housing and food and won't take personal responsibility, off the record, recorded by Jimmy Carter's grandson, who was a server at a banquet of Romney's rich fat cat peers he felt comfortable enough to say what he really thinks to.
Paul Ryan is a complete fascist and totally scary with his extreme pro-life stand and talking on CSPAN about obliterating Medicaid, a program that provides health care to America's poorest, children, disabled and elderly.
The Republican party failed to mention veterans at their convention, and when confronted, Mitt Romney said he was not going to bring up a 'laundry list.' Mr. Romney, veterans are not a laundry list.
Here is a candidate who wants to increase military spending by billions and declaring now he is for peace. Do not believe him.
They want to cut planned parenthood, contradicting not wanting abortions. They want to cut PBS. Now he says he will keep Medicaid, but give it to the states. I was a bit confused by this, because I thought Medicaid was already handled by the individual states.
Also, he wants to turn Medicare, Medicaid and the V.A. into voucher programs. They would give a certain amount to the state, and have them handle it I suppose.
If he were to 'undo' Obamacare, would that not cost millions and billions more in court costs, and be a waste of a lot of well thought, well needed plans?
Alan, my friend, worked two jobs and had no health insurance. I admit Alan was a conservative, and he probably believed in the 'tea party', although Alan believed in a safety net, something the new Republicans are doing away with it sounds like. Alan was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and worked til the bitter end almost. He could not get Medicaid or disability, because he was working. They even told him hospice was not available unless you had insurance, Medicaid or Medicare. If Alan had had insurance, perhaps he could have seen a doctor sooner for a check up, and known how high his white blood cell count was. Instead he was only given pain management and in the end his rent was payed by a charity at work for emergency cases. He was sent home to die.
Mitt Romney showed in the last debate that he has no foreign policy other than Obama's. If Obama's foreign policy is so good, why should we risk a different president, one who is known to lie?
Lastly there is the college financial aid program which would also be cut by the R/R plan. Public schools would be ignored, and we would have a nation of uneducated people, a direction we are already going in.
Romney has no regard or understanding for the poor, the middle class, the single mother, the disabled. All he knows is riches, prestige and privilege and that is not the kind of president I want. Do you?
I am awake early this morning, which I have not been for years. I hated the morning. Suddenly my consciousness is different.
Alan, my companion of six years, passed away a month ago. I could not grieve, did not have closure until last night. I was able to begin to grieve before that, when he came to me in a dream and kissed me and it felt so real.
I wonder if I am free to love again or free to not love again. I never loved Alan as much as I should have. He was difficult, but I took him for granted, treated him in ways I do not know why he tolerated, and yet made him seem like the bad guy to my girlfriends. No, he was far from perfect, snobby, high strung, a clean freak where it came to food, which is good I suppose, an ultra conservative, being Scottish, preferred the BBC, and his favorite TV show was Valley Kiss Angel.
My mother once said straight to his face, "I don't like Republicans," but he won her over because 1) he was handsome, 2) he was polite and 3) they shared the same favorite television shows, except news of course. Alan read the Drudge Report of course and listened to Rush Limbaugh. This is one election year we did not get to fight.
In 2008 we were in Columbia, South Carolina on family business and he had a t-shirt that said "Obama keep the change." I made him cover up the keep the part so it only said Obama and change.
He took me to the Commission for the Blind, where I soon became a student for five months. He gave me a cell phone so he could call me, and we saw each other on weekends when I was delivered home. I was enjoying my friends in Columbia and shopping with them, going to yoga. Alan was still married technically, although he had been separated for years and had kids of his own in Germany. He offered to buy me a ring, but at that point I did not want one.
I admit we broke up quite a few times, and then I would have another boyfriend, usually a recycled one, and when it blew up, Alan was always there to get drunk as a skunk with.
I saw a tarot card reader, friend of a friend, a guy from North Carolina. He had me pull my own card for Alan. It was the lover card. He did a spread, and told me nothing was bad in it, except an intensity to be aware of, and that was the spark that led to our fights or made them more intense. I was the jealous one, even though Alan was the one who had a right to be jealous.
He did the things I wanted him to do, like renting an apartment on the ocean, but the divorce which he was working on never fully went through. Perhaps it was good for the wife and kids that he was still married when he died.
I feel bad for his daughters. I feel bad for me in a way. I thought I was OK with this, but really I am not. I did so much wrong. I realize it was a two way street and we kept drifting together and apart. Near the end he came over a lot, and I gave him Reiki, because the pain was very severe. He had pancreatic cancer. When the pain medication kicked in, he was OK.
He would sleep over sometimes on the futon, because we were not technically together, but I would lie down with him if he invited me to, and he was comforting me. I was crying. When he gathered up the strength he took us to pick up Thai take out.
So many fun and funny things happened over the years. Once his neighbor from upstairs invited us up for drinks. Alan said, "don't talk about politics or anything personal, and only have one drink." We had already had a few at my son's gig. I said "OK."
However I ended up saying, "Are you guys married? Alan is married too, but not to me," and "Alan is a right wing Republican." Also, when he went downstairs for something, I accepted another drink. I ended up throwing up when we went back down.
Another thing I loved about Alan was that he loved the shirts I bought him, and he wore them. I gave him a green one last Christmas, a button down. He looked so nice in it and his black jeans and black sports jacket on Christmas day when he came to my mother's for Christmas dinner. I was going to complain that he was late, when he announced his father had just died. He was OK with it, though.
I miss Alan. I really do. If I had it to do over, I would have made a true commitment.
Maybe I did in my own way. I do not know. He was not perfect, I know, and him being married still bothered me, but still so many things I said and did, I would take back if I could.
No one has a perfect life like the 'Clevers', and personally I never complain about my parents or my childhood. My childhood was good enough I guess.
I did not love growing up at the center because I was too cut off from kids and did not really get to socialize until high school, and even then it was a sketchy social life. I did have my brother and one friend who was a BL kid too, but went to a different school and lived in a different part of town.
I just was not really given any positive reinforcement. I suppose they liked my music OK, but I was never given much and had to obtain thing like my first car through working, which it should be anyway. I went to music camp once, but I had to pay for that too out of an accident settlement.
I guess I say damaging, because although my father died a long time ago, I have been very shadowed by my mother. I have really been disregarded by people, and have had to deal with my mother's ego.
Some people think she is this really impressive person. They think I am nothing and no one, because I am poor and blind.
I think like attracts like, and the people who are so fond of my mother are similar to her. I know I sound jealous. It is not that. It is just that my mother told me one of her fans is her daughter. I figure what does she need me for.
There are so many hindering emotions that can drag one down into a lower consciousness causing unhappiness. Resentment, anger, jealously, feeling less than, left out, sick, depressed, anxious, and the list goes on. All these negative emotions can be transcended, though sometimes not easy I know. It is OK to feel these things.
However, when I know that my ego is running the show, and my higher self that is Godly and angelic is pushed aside, I catch myself. I make mistakes, big ones all the time, but I make amends when it will not do more harm than good to anyone involved including myself. I contact God through nature and wait for inner guidance.
Everyone I know has feelings of jealousy, rage, despair, frustration, health problems. If one thinks of oneself as feeling well, it helps. I have a visual impairment, a disability, but if I think of myself as whole rather than impaired, I feel better about myself rather than less than. I used to get all into self pity, like "oh I"m just a poor little blind girl, no one loves me, no one ever will, I have less..."
I was doing myself no good at all with this low self-esteem and negative ideas of myself. I am a strong woman, a smart woman, and a good woman. I no longer need to self-deprecate.
Most people my age have some health problems, minor or serious and some of us even need to take medications. I think if we dwell on our sickness rather than the ways in which we are healthy, then we are lingering in negativity. I want to feel grateful for the ways in which I am healthy.
Like many people I have had a difficult life, and I have when I was younger made the wrong choices still not understanding my own
difficulties at the time, because I know that the choices were clear, like staying in an abusive relationship too long in the '90's even though my friends were warning me, and how attached I was to that person, and at the same time how desperately I wanted to disentangle myself from him, really did not want to be with him anymore. Still, my emotional involvement and attachment were unhealthy.
I did not get involved with the healing movement until around 2007 when I began doing yoga and three years prior had begun to feel better about myself after getting out of another unhealthy relationship that had nearly been the end of me. I healed, and sometimes it seems like it would be nice to rewrite the past, but what was has already happened and we do not need to be stuck in our story, including me.
I suppose my healing began with yoga, then a Course in Miracles, becoming a Reiki Master, twelve steps, meditation and a lot of self help books. I do have a mentor of sorts, and she helps me a lot, although I only call her once in a while. She is also my friend.
I am not saying that all my anger and other deadly emotions are gone and I am perfect. That would be a long way from the truth. I still get jealous, left out, angry and all that, but I am not going to be ruled by these thoughts. I have decided as the Course in Miracles says in the workbook, "I choose peace over this." Another is "I am never upset for the reason I think." Another is "in my defenselessness, my safety lies." In other words, I do not need to defend myself against attack. Attacks are a cry for love, and if I attack someone I am crying for love and hurting myself. Namaste, shanti, shanti. Oh, and lastly, "I am the light of the world." ACIM.
I have found in my life that guilt is one my most prevalent emotions. But why? Why should that be? I have been miserable at times when I should have been celebrating, but not only have I done it, I have seen others waste their time on it as well. I saw someone get married, all the while harping that she felt bad for her ex. She was marrying someone close to me, and I felt this just was not right, but of course that is me judging, and who am I to judge? This was long ago.
There is no longer a need for white people to feel guilty for slavery in America, to remember it with reverence, yes, but not feel guilty for what people who may or not have been their own ancestors were doing as Chris Rock says all the way to the sixties, and he is right. However, at the same time, Germans should not feel guilty yet be reverent for the holocaust along with the rest of European countries where this persecution happened. In the same breath I say, why do we have to feel guilty that Jesus was crucified two-thousand years ago? I realize I may lose some Christian friends, and I love Jesus and I have much reverence for His suffering. Still it does not make logical sense to me that He died for my or our sins. Why would God sacrifice His only begotten son? I love Jesus, and I cried since I was a child over His crucifixion, but it is it appropriate for us to drag this out Mel Gibson style? Yes I know Bhau said "go see Passion of the Christ" when he spoke in America, and it was very touching I agree and sad. Still, I do not think seeing graphic pictures of Christ on the cross with blood all over is going to do anyone any good. It is worse than scenes from Criminal minds or Law and Order, Special Victims Unit. Is it necessary for us to see the gore and blood, in order to love Jesus?
Keep in mind though, I have nothing against Christians. I only have a problem with Republicans, lol, not how Republicans used to be but how they are today. Totally without compassion. If you really love Jesus and humanity, then get out and vote for justice and love! I think it is obvious the Democrats are where the love is.
It has been a while since I blogged about anything. I think it has been a difficult time for some Americans, a time of uncertainty about finances and the future. Now with the Republican agenda glooming over our heads, (at least that is how us Democrats feel), I am probably losing my conservative readers, but the idea of kids not being able to go to college and kids not having health care is disturbing. If I were a foreigner in India, Australia, Germany, etc, I would think that the Republican party was heartless, but I suppose I should not even go there. I went to college on financial aid. My brother did. My older son did. Even the Commisssion for the Blind only pays what a Pele grant would not, and still there is a cap on that. I tried to get them to pay for my yoga teacher training, and believe it or not my case manager tried to get them to, but it was to no avail. They only were willing to pay for something like tech. and I then considered going to massage school, but instead I became a Reiki Master.
I have been lying in bed awake at night, wondering how I will pay the bills. I have been wondering, "will we have enough money to eat?"
The words most music to my ears this morning were, "the check is in the mail."
I have been thinking about gratitude as well as deprivation. I got out of my depression and started counting my blessings, a loving family, grown kids, owning my own home (mobile home to be honest but nonetheless a home), food in the cupboard, a few friends, the gifts of music and writing, my washing machine, kindness, the United States government as we know it today, my talking books for the blind, fellowship, the few that really care, a hug, a birthday card from my brother that he obviously chose with a lot of thought.
I think we as a nation will go on and we will remain the greatest country on earth as far as I am concerned. I was inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama's powerful speech and the idea of America truly being a land of opportunity and a melting pot of all ethnic groups, and this diversity warms my heart and gives me great hope.
Anyone who is so elite and privileged as to say, "just borrow from your parents," does not know anything. Mitt Romney said this to college age students. Not everyone has parents with money. I feel like some of the Republicans, not all, are like the French royalty before the revolution, totally out of touch with what people actually endure.
I understand the working and middle class who are upset with the foreclosures, the lack of health care, but Obama will make health care affordable for everyone if they really want and need it.
Also, if you don't like 'the spending,' just remember that sometimes a little stimulus is a huge help to the economy. I know as anyone that this can be true as an individual as well. Obama is not a socialist. He really is not, but in order to be a great country we need some degree of socialism, and I think he is brilliant and a genius. I really do.
A civilized society has a certain amount of assistance for the disabled, elderly, children, pregnant women and newborns if they cannot afford medical treatment. I see people saying the poor have it made. This is a lie. It is very hard to live on disability. Even if poor people get food stamps, it is usually only a very small supplement. Poor kids should have Medicaid. What would happen to these people, especially children, old people and people with disabilities requiring medical assistance, if they were to lose Medicaid? And, Medicare must stay secure and not privatized or a voucher system as well as the V.A..
I realize some people have different reasons for being a Democrat. I think for the middle class, it would be better under President Obama than Mitt Romney. To think of a few, taxes would be lower and higher for the rich, so that some of your tax money might actually help the poor more than the rich. And, the middle class and poor would be able to get pele grants to go to college or for their kids to go to college. Then there is health care for everyone at a low cost and being able to insure kids til they are twenty-five on your policy.
Also, President Obama is very pro-Israel, more so than some Democrats and I love that. I sympathize with Palestine, I truly do, but Israel is our ally. Still, we would be at peace, whereas the Republicans would just keep spending on wars we do not need to be in anymore. He also brings God into it, and although some people like complete separation in Church and State, I like some God in the government. I really do. President Obama is more conservative than people realize. I like that. I mean, I am basically a liberal, but as you know I have some conservative views.
I know that choice is important for women. I do want women to have choice, but truthfully I find this irrelevant in my own philosophy, having never confronted that in any way. Having kids was always priority for me, and I had to fight to keep a baby, because of complications of my own body. Sometimes, when you have had to fight for a baby, you cannot relate to someone not wanting one, but truthfully women have a choice, and it is their business I guess. I realize I waver on this one issue, and some of my readers may think I have had as many different views on this as Mitt Romney. Joke. But, seriously I do not like the 'a' word, if you know what I mean. Still I will support President Obama one-hundred percent. And, I will support all women as sisters and whatever their choice is.
When I acted crazy on fb one night, and hysterical, I guess I was upset because birth control has always been free to women, but I will not get into my own issues again. I already took a fearless and searching moral inventory of myself and why I got so upset. So, I will just leave it at that.
I had an Australian guy tell me if I were to marry an Australian and move to Australia that the government would take care of me being legally blind and all. It was not a proposal. He is already married. It was a suggestion. However, I want to stay in America, the greatest nation on earth. I am so not interested in going to Australia.
I am not a socialist, but every great nation needs some socialism. What do they think libraries are? And the list goes on. I just do not believe that putting the poor in jeopardy and trickle down economics is ever going to work. It is good to help the poor who can work get back to work. That is what we all want. But, realistically poverty cannot be erased and not caring is not the answer.
If the U.S. makes it impossible for citizens to live, they will have two choices, leave the country or protest the government. And, who wants to leave one's own country? Who can afford a plane ticket, a passport? I sure cannot. No one wants to protest either. That would not be much fun at all, getting maced in the face like the peaceful Wall Street protesters. I am not suggesting anything, just pointing it out. I am very patriotic. I love this country as we know it.
Just read Naomi Wolf's book: Warning to a Young Patriot; the End of America. If anyone watched the shocking youtube video I posted of Paul Ryan at a town hall meeting, allowing an ex-marine to make offensive comments towards Mexicans, nodding his head in agreement all the while and even taking notes, then shuts down a woman who not out of line at all, tries to say that this is racist talk, and she gets removed from the room by police. Is this freedom? No, it is not. Is this the kind of regime America is headed for? No, it is not. I am a patriot. Vote for Barack Obama.
My blog is called The New Humanity because eventually through our wonderful youth and those who truly care for the well being of others besides their own selves, there will emerge a Golden Age when the lion will lie down with the lamb. Human beings will stop seeing one another divided into race, religion, creed or sect, and all human beings shall live as brothers and sisters in a utopia of love and kindness.
Some people have taken the phrase 'cruel to be kind' out of context in order to more comfortably justify the annihilation of the poor weak or disabled. They have even tried throwing Meher Baba quotes at me, but I will not accept that, to justify their fear of losing their wealth. They are not in danger of losing their wealth.
As for me, I have been praying and crying for others and how I do not want any of us to suffer, but when you have experienced poverty for real and not just as some poetic metaphor, you know that yes there is great suffering in loss of what you have, but you have already suffered greatly, and if becoming an activist on behalf of the poor including women, infants, children and men who are sick and or disabled, is in order, than so be it. Maria Antoinette said, "let them eat cake" when a man stopped her in the streets of Paris to say, "my family has no bread to eat." She and Louis XVI were beheaded.
This lack of compassion breeds from ignorance. It is even repugnant to me, to hear people talk of illusion philosophically, to explain human suffering when they are not the ones experiencing it. I have studied Meher Baba my whole life along with maya which means illusion, as well as A Course in Miracles for over four years now and I still find this offensive. I feel that one ought not speak of the suffering of humanity or the Avatar Himself in these terms, not in my book anyway. I disagree with some interpretations of A Course in Miracles when it comes to two things as far as I am concerned: (1) since it is all illusion, there is not much need to concern oneself with the world's injustices because everything happened and nothing happened at once, although in a sense true, and (2) I feel that when Jesus Christ was on the cross, He really did say, "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?" and yes this was His humanness and not a "belief system" as some ACIM people might say. It may not have been part of the writing in which Helen channeled Jesus for Bill to take dictation of in the 1960's in New York City, but is no doubt one of the most beautiful things Jesus gave to humanity as a whole.
I feel that the phrase 'cruel to be kind' is about tough love, ex: you are married to an abusive alcoholic who asks you to go out to get more booze and you say "no", or you have a teenager who begs you to let them hang out with a crowd that is doing drugs, and you say "no."
[Insert: This is unrelated, but I
thought that I should add it.]
Of course I must add that if you are with an abusive alcoholic and you are a woman, it would also be wise to take yourself and your children (if you have any) to a shelter if you are in danger, call a trusted friend, and go to Alanon, a support group for spouses, parents, children or loved ones of alcoholics (all of this may apply if you are a man as well, except that women are usually in more danger due to being the physically less strong and therefore more vulnerable sex).
If you, yourself, think you may have a problem with alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped many to stay sober, although it is not for everyone, and is not the only way. Twelve step programs are very spiritual, and I think that the twelve steps are something everyone would benefit from, especially the fourth step, taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of oneself and step five, admitted to God, oneself and another human being the nature of our wrongs, six and seven, asking God humbly to remove character defects and short comings, nine, making amends if appropriate and if it would not cause more harm and ten, "when we were wrong promptly admitted it," and continued to make amends, as well as eleven, maintained conscious contact with God as we understood Him through prayer and meditation. Like all other dealings with people, the twelfth tradition of AA is "principles before personalities." Many alcoholics are sick people, and there are clashes which are discouraging and cause members to give up and go back out, finding less support on returning, because egos get in the way of helping others, which is the twelfth step. But, for some people a drinking problem may be a passing phase, and not necessarily indicative of being an alcoholic forever if one's drinking can stay moderate and under control. Believe it or not, many people go through passing phases in their lives related to circumstances. For instance, a person who has a break down, does not necessarily have a mental illness. Stress and strain can cause all kinds of changes in people, and these changes do not necessarily last, which is an uplifting thought. In fact some people have camelion like qualities, that enable them to phase from one thing to another, and sometimes the very people who act the most sane, may really have more problems than one would know. For instance, many psychologists and psychiatrists have problems themselves, which is what may have triggered their interest in the field of psychology to begin with, and I am not generalizing when I say this, because I am sure that this is often not the case whatsoever.
Back on point, the concept of tough love has nothing what so ever to do with taking away from the poor what little they have.
To be thorough I would like to add the other four steps I left out: 1) admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable, 2) that only a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, 3) made a conscious contact with God as we understood Him, and 8) made a list of all those we had harmed and were willing to make amends to them all. We find who these individuals are by doing a fourth and fifth step with the help of a sponsor, someone we fully trust and know would never gossip. I realize that looking at all of this work ahead, it can be easy to have "stood at the turning point, we balked... What an order, how can I go through with it?" It is hard sometimes not to balk. It goes on to say "we wanted an easier softer way, but the result was nil until we let go absolutely..." excerpt from How it Works from the book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
As the book The Road Less Traveled begins: "Life is hard." I wish that it was not. Perhaps by listening to philosophers like Eckhart Tolle, a personal favorite of mine and my son's as well, one can find some ease.
I was once having a meal with a guy who took me on my first Harley Davidson ride, which was really fun. We were talking, while I was eating my reuben sandwich. I was talking about some experience and how it was resolved. I said, "and so then I felt better, because... this girl told me the same thing happened to her." As I recall I was talking about feeling humiliated and ridiculed in a situation.
He said, "why ya gotta feel better?" I write it like that because he spoke that way for real.
I said "I don't know."
When I thought back on our conversation, I thought, "Hmm, he is a philosopher of sorts. Why do I have to feel better? Feelings are not facts anyway, and this too shall pass." But I admit sometimes the heart can use some comfort.
I hope you enjoyed this lengthy essay. Love to all. Namaste.
