Enlightened Moments

I thought this was a strange picture when I took it earlier this year.  It wasn't how the skies appeared to my eyes, and I hadn't put any sort of setting to the camera, but this is the image the camera caught.  Our senses and experiences is how we form our reality, and who is to say who is correct?  Was the camera correct or were my eyes?  Were we both? 

It has been that way for many people throughout the ages as people have tried to make sense of the powers that seem to keep the people at their mercy or is it that the powers that are, are at the mercy of the people?  The problems seem to stem from having to have someone 'in charge'.  This could be on many levels.  We, as people, continuously trust others (not that trust is a bad quality, far from that, it is a needed quality), to take charge of almost every aspect of our lives.  I, myself, have had to learn how to trust all over again.  Yes, I might get hurt.  Yet, I have decided that it is not in my best interest to hurt others. 

Do I still trust my eyes?  To their ability, with help, at times I do and don't.  Do I trust my camera?  At times I wonder if my tools are at fault or if it is a user or if there are happy mistakes I discover along the way. 

So what is the point of anything that I am trying to communicate...right now. 

I am finding that within myself, I wonder why I am going through the various experiences I am having, and realizing something crucial.  Experiences are not necessarily universal.  We pre-judge (prejudices) people all of the time for various reasons.  We either believe what other people (including media) say or we just get brave enough to love people.  Yes, brave. 

Though I could personally feel a certain way about someone or some issue, it's not going to be true for all.  The 'you all' phrase comes to mind, when I have listened to people blurt out their stereotypes, 'Don't they know where they are at; they need to speak the language.'  The anger of a person that observes others who choose not to conform to a group was blazing.

I had a differing view.  That person had no choice but to be as they were.  Having traveled in very diverse places, I learned long ago, to respect the host nation and also the balance of just being myself.  I was a walking taboo in many countries, a woman, divorced, traveling alone and was not trying to emulate the countries.  I had enough to learn within myself.  Trying to be someone who I am not is far from the type of person I want to be.  If I ran into hostility, which I never recalled, but I could only walk in graciousness.

I had also thought about my great-grandparents, who could not speak a word of English.  They survived by running a small Methodist parish in Northern Minnesota.  They weren't persecuted because they didn't speak English.  They had no desire to be anyone else.  They were who they were, as it should be.

Often, we forget our own origins and place our expectations on others to simply conform.  This world is a lot bigger than we are.

B E L I E V E

I have been having a lot of strange dreams, encounters, unrelated events that seem to weave into abstracts.  That has been my life.  I have accepted it.  The theme has been belief.  I have hated the word.  I have always seen the lie in the word.  I have been angered by the word.  Believe is a word I have extremely hated.  I have seen beliefs used against people, and I think that has stirred so much anger within me that I have been blinded by the power of my hatred and blinded to the power of what belief means...the real meaning of belief and that is faith. 

There are many in the arts community that hate the religions people follow, because they see the manipulation of these people.  Often, labels are thrown on people, "blind, delusional, weak...etc."  The negative is that they see that this belief often is used against them, in order to empty them of their resources.  Little old pensioners who sign away their estates to a mega-church that gave them love, when their families abandoned them.  Perhaps a belief, that would buy their way into a life beyond the mortal one. 

That is the abuse, a sample of it, that I have totally hated.

I had a strange dream last night.  A dream about belief.  I would not call it a religious dream, a conversion dream, but there were religious symbols in it.  See, I am an odd one, an odd character that screams in conspiracy with the universe because I laugh when I see the magic of it, but I am careful to profess no belief.  So, as I share this dream, I guess I am inviting you into the spectacle that is my mind.  An invitation to, gasp, believe.

In this dream, an odd collection of imaginary monstrosities were figuratively chasing me.  Some of them were vampiric blood sucking bankers.  In order to vanquish them, a sign of the cross was placed on their forehead when they were pinned down to the ground.  I wasn't afraid of them, but I had no belief in the symbol.  So the beastly creature was still there.  Fangs and all, it laughed at me..."ah...you don't believe."  I was furious. 

Strange dream.  Strange perspective.  There are times for belief.  There are times for faith.  I sat there contemplating this dream, and flipped on the non-thinking box, to not think about dreams...and caught a portion of the movie "Polar Express".  There were children that didn't believe in the North Pole, or Santa on a dream train of sorts to the North Pole.  Let me not bore you with the retelling, but cut to a character that couldn't hear the music, the sleigh bells or even see Santa until he whispered two words, "I believe." 

Do I laugh?  Absolutely at this point, I have to.  A dream about belief.  I flip on the Television...and belief is the theme.  There was a line about the 'unseen being more real than what is visible.' that caught my ears. 

I could blame all of this on my battles with semantics.  The one thing to understand about belief...you have to know where you are.  You have to know where you are going.  You have to BE where you are at.  Those are the anchors.  Are you at the mercy of what you believe?  This is where it gets dicey, because there really isn't anything that is concrete. 

So, this is where love has to take over.  Knowing is really not knowing.  That is how come faith or BELIEF...and I am not talking about anything religious here...but that unknown substance called faith in seeing the whole picture come together...the magic of a unified purpose, really is magic. 

Believe.  Instead of having the stink-eye of seeing the embedded lie, I kind of got it.  By the way, this picture I happened to snap just thinking it was interesting...and somehow there was just something more.  There still is love.  There still is faith.  There is no result without the action in the perfect time. 

Just listen for the thunder.

What dreams may come...

Nothing is impossible, you just have to know what you really are asking for. 

I had written a very long entry for this blog, as I selected to publish, it mysteriously was censored.  It didn't exist.  I laughed because I remembered an important phrase a friend once shared with me.  "Some of the best art in the world is just lost on the world."  It remains in the dark, hidden from view.

This picture, from March 2008, is my reminder of how to jump off of the high dive, even if you don't know how to swim that well.  It's the thrill of doing it, even when others can do it better than you can.  The splash is what we all live for.  That thrill of just being alive.  It's that action in spite of fear.  That quality of courage that so many lost by growing up. 

So I am getting ready for another adventure because I don't want to miss a single second of this life.  I remember how much I just love people and no, I don't want nor need all of the answers anymore.  There is nothing more irksome to others who think they can solve your life, when they don't have the answers for their own.  I don't always love what we do to each other, but I want to see the best I possibly can see.  Through our fears and tears...the greatest desire people have, is to be known.  Love is just the action of what we all can choose to do.  Love is the action we choose to give. 

Life is the smile we can't live without.