I can finally let the cat out of the bag. The reason I took a brief break from blogging was to complete my first book! I’m happy to report it’s finished and off to the publisher. Whew.
This is a simple little book and exactly as I had envisioned it. Most of the content I’ve posted here on my blog, however much more editing has been done and improvements and additions have been made. What a labor of love and miraculous experience it’s been! There are short stories, poetry, and haiku as well as mindful shorts and meditational thoughts. It’ll be available in both paperback and Kindle versions and is due to be released within the next 10 days.
I’m so excited! And I’m happy to be able to share this experience with you. This has been a lifelong dream finally materialized, but not the last! I’ve got a novel in the works and plans are laid for another collection in 6 months.
When the release is official, be sure I’ll share it here with you. I hope you join me in the celebration! Thanks to each and every one of. You, as readers and commentors, were the wind beneath my wings that gave me that final dose of courage to go for it. We touch each other’s lives, sometimes without even realizing it.
I will be taking a break from blogging to focus on some other things for a few weeks. If anyone out there is still reading me, I’ll return as soon as I can. Thanks!
A few weeks ago I mentioned a film project being undertaken by Alex Fitch called “Messages to Humanity”. You can visit that post here for more information. This touched a need in me to express all that I hold in my heart and the video below is my own message. It’s a little longer than Alex wanted and I’m hoping he’ll accept it for his project. I, unfortunately, am not comfortable in front of a camera and I’m afraid it shows.
If you are interested in making a submission, visit the link above for more information. Alex is accepting submission until the end of August.
The text:
Hello Humanity,
I’m not much of an orator but there’s something I want to say to you, so I’ve written you a letter. To keep it personal and to keep my focus I want to read it to you. Now seems the perfect time. There’s something in the air, like the changing of a season, and it’s becoming harder to ignore. Can you feel it? The world is crying out for change.
Our systems are failing us, Humanity. Governments no longer serve their people but serve instead their own best financial interests. Religions are not uniting us, Humanity. They are dividing and teaching us to judge. While this world has become a global village, machine-minded people are leading us into darkness and in this darkness we have gone to sleep. We’re forgetting who we are. We’ve become blind.
In our blindness we’ve been taught to give away our personal integrity and responsibility. We’ve been taught to seek difference instead of celebrating the uniqueness and unity of life. We’ve been encouraged to build borders and shut others out. We’ve been taught to blame others for the things we are all guilty of. Humanity, we have become our own worst enemy instead of our own best friend.
We no longer consider ourselves Earthlings and part of the ecosystem of this beautiful blue marble we inhabit. We take the position that we’re somehow superior to and separate from Nature. Our technologies, while our greatest triumph, are also becoming our saddest loss. We have become cruel and insensitive to that thing which keeps us all alive, polluting and corrupting the environment and consuming its resources without responsibility or remorse.
But remember: it’s always darkest before the dawn. So let’s take a pause, Humanity, and drink in this moment with honesty. It’s time to stop running the rat race that no one is winning and savour other possibilities.
Mahatma Gandhi once said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Now’s the time. There is no other.
If we, as a whole Humanity, could harness all the power and knowledge we have at this time and use it to build new and better systems, everything would change. But the change has to begin within you. So, if you’re unhappy Humanity, it’s time go within and examine who we are. Let’s figure out what it is we really want and what is really important.
To do that requires clarity. Our minds are too mired in our woes, worries and revenge. Half our mind is rehashing the past and the other is stuck in the future. Both are illusory worlds that don’t exist. What does exist and the only thing that’s real is right NOW. This moment. In this moment you are being exactly who are and in this moment is complete clarity. So still your mind and turn within. Be completely present and all the clarity you need will be available to you in such a proportion you won’t know how lived any other way.
This requires conscious vigilance. And we must be vigilant not to become a member of just another new herd. We must maintain our authenticity to usher in a lasting change. Otherwise we are trading one old habit for a new one and nothing really changes. Without vigilance, in time it too will find its own corruption. The collective can only be truly improved if each individual in their own authentic nature improves.
Celebrate that which makes each of us unique. Support it. Know that each person, although part of a collective, in your own authenticity can make a difference. That’s something to be excited about.
Change is inevitable, but conscious change is a momentum. Wake up and let’s find a direction that works. Let’s refind our own inner peace, our childlike sense of joy and bloom like flowers with grace and love on the face of this Earth and retake our role in harmony. Let’s wake up, Humanity and become the family we really are regardless of our outer appearances. Let’s be One and approach the dawning of the new day with hope, with love and with Unity. Let’s create the world we really want to be in.
I’m delighted and humbled to have been awarded the Inspiring Blog Award by Ganesh of Known is a Drop, Unknown is an Ocean which is an amazing blog. If you haven’t read it, drop in. Thank you, Ganesh I’m really honored. To inspire others is the driving force behind my writing and what keeps me striving every day to improve, so this is very timely.
One of the conditions of this award is to share 7 things about yourself, so my 7 things are:
1. Favorite Color? Lavender
2. Favorite Drink? Mango juice
3. Passion? Self Realization and creativity
4. Facebook or Twitter? WordPress
5. Favorite number? 13
6. Favorite Movies? Pride and Prejudice, Wizard of OZ, anything with Charlie Chaplin
7. Favorite flower? Lavender
Congratulations to those who’ve had this award passed to them. They deserve it. Please do give their blogs a visit. And thank you again, Ganesh, for your thoughtfulness in passing it to me. It’s recognition like this that keeps me going.
Sometimes I struggle writing things for this blog. Not because I don’t have ideas. My head is always full of them. The struggle comes in when I want to convey the Truth. I know I’ve written about this before, but Truth can’t be put into words. Anyone who has experienced it knows words will always fail. They unintentionally mislead.
All I can hope to do is provide the right words to piqué your curiosity; to guide you into the silent space between them. In those spaces, those moments of pause, Truth is waiting for you. It’s in those pauses that you experience it. You may not always be aware of it because thoughts take over, and thoughts are noisy things. It’s in the stillness of the Heart that Truth has its voice. All it requires is your open awareness that it’s there. You will find this is true of anything you’re reading or anything you’re listening to; that sudden feeling of “ah ha!” You suddenly realize you’ve known it all along.
Between the death of my old computer, rectifying internet problems and a nasty case of the flu, the subject of accepting the “Now” has been very much at the forefront of my mind. Because my mind is too flu-clouded to reach any level of creativity, instead of writing I wanted to share this video. I hope you enjoy it and are as inspired by it as I was.
Man claims and prides himself on his free will. However, man also has ideas such as his idea of free will. He follows them mesmerized by their “rightness” like a child a midst a cloud of gem-colored butterflies with a net and a jar. As long as man considers his ideas before his being, he isn’t free. He remains a slave. The only freedom is in being; a butterfly that can’t be jarred.
Man claims and prides himself on his free will. However, man also has ideas such as his idea of free will. He follows them mesmerized by their “rightness” like a child a midst a cloud of gem-colored butterflies with a net and a jar. As long as man considers his ideas before his being, he isn’t free. He remains a slave. The only freedom is in being; a butterfly that can’t be jarred.
MoonLightened Way 