Memorial Day Meanderings

When did Memorial day get started and why? Nowadays you can google that question and get a pretty good answer, this reminds me of the time when I would search through the encyclopedia or dictionary to learn about something. I miss the days of paper search, I remembering those rectangular odd shaped library catalog cards, the one's you had to pluck through to uncover where the book you were looking might be. Its in the remembering that I come to realize that this day is more than just the morning of soldiers in federally mandated combat but this has to be a day about all to the casualties of war and about all of the wars named and unnamed.

I'm thinking about all the slaves who died during slavery, all the senseless victims of jim crow and all the science experiments on black people. These are the victims of a race war, we don't call it that but that's what it is. It it equally as important to remember our heroes, the people who against all odds fought for the dignity of humanity, folk like Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass and others.

I was listening to a book on CD about spirituality and I love it when the voice spoke about identity, self identity and empowering one's self to define themselves. It's one of the most challenging things to do in this culture, define the self and celebrity and popularity is more important than character. I began to think about Harriet Tubman and how despite her status as a slave, she claimed an identity that not only led her to believe she deserved better but to actually put herself in a situation where she was able to live with dignity, equality and pride. She didn't let American slave owners define her, she didn't let American racism brand her with an identity, she must have had the type of relationship with spirit that provoked and inspired her to know her own personal truth and this can only come from a deeply profound and internal spiritual underpinning.

I'm realizing that stepping into an identity self proclaimed means that I am now having to mourn, I'm having to remember the old me, the me that is now laid to rest, the me that fought the good fight but the me that really wasn't the me that I wanted or desired or envisioned. I keep sensing this stand still with myself, I'm not sure where to go and what to do but it's clear that I'm not going back to the way I used to be. And it feels strange to move into this unknown territory of self actualization, to finally get to know myself. It is a wonderful feeling to finally honor what I've always wanted to do with my life to step into the active behavior of my heart's longing. It is also ripe with the unknown, I've never been fearful of the unknown and somehow the combination has me at a stand still and in a state of semi-shock. Actually it's like waking up to see the sun after a long, long, long winter or it's a kin to being reunited with someone you haven't seen in years or someone you thought you'd never see again.

I'm here, right where I want to be and it is a memorial to the Charlotte that with as much courage and strength brought me to this point. It is the Charlotte that attempted to please everyone else, do what others wanted her to do and be what others wanted her to be. She played the social game of life, she made lots of mistakes and contributed honorable things but in the midst I tamped down into a corner some of the things I wanted for me because I thought that was best at the time. I left small dreams by the side of the road because life needed me to do something else and I people pleased until I was depleted emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, socially, psychologically and anything else I might have had. I gave in and gave up on me and replaced that with trying to make others happy, trying to be what people thought I should be.

The truth is that I failed miserably at allowing my external reality to define who I was. I failed because I knew deep down inside that's not who I was. I failed because there has been and will continue to be a part of me, the Harriett Tubman part of me that wants to fight for the truth. and today I wonder how many soldiers, in their last hours wondered how they got to where they were. How they allowed the world to define their life and how much of themselves did they forego to serve a country that didn't have the decency to allow them to be themselves. I'm not mourning death, I'm mourning the inability of people to manifest their souls passion. I'm mourning all the spirits lost in a war that wasn't about anything really when you look back at it. It has been and will continue to be a war with the self, the war of self acceptance because if we really got in touch with who we are, loved our own selves, we would not feel the need for war. The war is an internal war with outer consequences. Sometimes people are mean, sometimes people are cruel, sometimes people are simply violent but this is not the true nature of the human spirit, this is the agitation that lingers within the human mind and instead of doing self reflection or creating a moment for contemplation, humanity thinks it's easier to lash out at those nearest to them and some humans are lucky enough to lash out at those far away.

Today I step away from the need to hurt others because of my own internal struggles. I pray that I act in compassion to all that I encounter including myself. My memorial, the death of the old me is sad and magnificent at the same time. I look at the tomb stone I create in my mind to indicate this moment in my human evolution. It's really just the girl-child in me, she's all grown up now. She's at rest, reincarnating into something else and I appreciate her because she carried me for way too long. I won't miss her, just like I won't miss any of the soldiers because the truth is that they are always and ever present in spirit. Happy Memorial Day Humanity and Happy Memorial Day to me.

I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Okay, I'm in a great mood this morning because I had a dream that I was in my ideal relationship and it felt just as good as I thought it would feel. And this light I see at the end of the tunnel has me recognizing the beauty of living. Living long enough to fulfill some dreams I had for myself. Dreams that some how got dropped off on the sidelines of life. As if I put them in the storage area of my attic and totally forgot about them. But you know how it is, that stuff in the attic we never really forget about. When you least expect it a memory flows into plain view and triggers a thought about something you put up in the attic. Something that is near and dear to your heart but for some reason you can't muster up the courage or strength to give it the attention it needs. I'm old enough to not have needs or so I say or so I think. The light breaks through the inevitability of today's morning clouds and I can't help but feel nostalgic about some old wants, some old needs and some very, very old dreams.

I love Boondocks, I love the satirical nature of Huey who speaks his mind or more so speaks what's on the minds of most sensible, consciously thinking black folk. The picture is reminiscent of the expectations of black people, as if we don't aspire to be more. I remember as a child, more like I was teenager and I wanted a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, they were all the rage back then but my single parent, single income mother could not and would not buy them for me. Also, at the same time I was venturing into developing new friendships with people that lived life on the edge. We smoked cigarettes in the school bathroom, junior high school bathroom to be more specific and we looted local stores. Looting was their primary activity and something I wasn't really familiar with nor was it something I actually wanted to do but I wanted to be a part of this group of vagabonds, I wanted the rush of being a bad girl because for the bulk of my life I had been a good girl-scout-going and good church-going girl who didn't really have any interest in boys or at least not yet. The goodyness of my behavior meant that I would receive ocassional taunts and people would look at me as if being good was some type of disease. In my desire to cure myself of this ailment, I began to cultivate a friendship with the "bad" kids which was easy because back then kids weren't so picky about who they hung out with, as long as you were with the program, you were allowed to be a part of the crowd.

My first act of looting, okay let's call a spade a spade, my first act of theft went extremely awful. I couldn't really think of anything that I wanted except these jeans but in my heart of hearts, I knew I could live without them. They were like so many of the other things that I wanted, things I would list on pieces of paper after looking through the latest Sears, JCPenney and Spiegel's catalog. I would make these list knowing full well that I would never get 99% of the stuff but it was the list making that was enjoyable. But membership in my new gang of friends required either booze stolen from a parent's stash. This couldn't happen because my mother was a non-drinking high holy roller sanctified filled with the precious holy ghost and that with fire she had a mind to go on with the lord Pentecostal God fearing and God loving woman. Or you could bring cigarettes and it didn't matter where they came from. I delivered newspapers after school and even at the ripe age of 13, I understood enough about money to know that cigarettes were expensive which meant I shared my cigarettes on an as needed basis, I wasn't interested in dispensing cigarettes like water, I love my money too much. Or you could loot. Now most kids stole things for other kids in the group, I on the other hand was too selfish for that. If I were to steal something and get caught, it better be for something I wanted, thus the brilliant idea for me to steal some jeans from T.J. Maxx.

The short on the long is this, I got caught and I had to stay in this interrogation room for hours because I refused to tell them my name. I knew that the punishment that the system would dole out on me was less severe than the punishment with which I would receive from my mother. I was far more afraid of her than any jail cell, that is until I arrived in the jail cell which freaked me out and I yelled at the top of my lungs my name, address, social security number, girl scout troop leader and of course my mother's name and work phone number. I also remember what the officer said to me that day. He said he hoped he wouldn't see me again but he paused, he looked me dead in the eyes and he said but chances are I would see him again but the next time he would gladly haul me off to my new permanent home because people like me never learn their lessons, people like me will never amount to anything and this is just who I am.

My aunt came to visit me shortly after I came home from all of this and jokingly called me a "thief." As if it was my new name or as if it was my plight in life or as if it was what I was destined to do for the rest of my life. Between the officer and my aunt, the thought of growing up a criminal made me sick to my stomach, it raged in me something so fierce I vowed to never steal again. It unearthed the small but important dreams that I had for myself. Dreams that entailed a life outside of the criminal justice system. Now I'd be remiss to say that I did land in jail again but under different circumstances. I stole my children and because I was directly violating the custody order, I was put into jail over night. This is a long story one full of contradictory details but before and after I have defied the aspirations placed on me by that officer and by my aunt. I realize that I was lucky and I recognize that some aren't so lucky like my brother and I realize more than anything that I can have as many dreams as I want about my life.

Growing up is not the goal, growing into understanding the self is more the direction one wants with their life. Growing new is when you change careers, create new aspirations for yourself and the manifestation of those visions one has is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. I had a vision of wearing Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and the vision did finally come true, after months of tolling and months of saving money from my paper route but when I arrived at the destination it wasn't as joyful as I thought. This lack of umph when I arrive at goals that I accomplished for the sake of others has caused me to realize that if I'm going to work on attaining something maybe it should be what I want.

So today I'm tapping into the attic of my mind and soul, this time I will pluck from the cob webs, the dust and in the sliver of light still present, I will resurrect what I truly want for myself. I will finally grow up, grow in and grow newly into the thing that radiates passion throughout my being. And what I know now is that until I honor my own desired destiny, I will never know what it means to grow up. But today I put on my sash (the kind you wear in girl scouts), it is full of badges from life but now I work towards the badge I've always wanted. The ultimate badge of life, the one thing that I've always wanted to do from the moment I could think of myself as something.

I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete.

He more things change the more they stay the same

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me!

~~~~Zora Neal Hurston

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to get back to blogging but I woke up this morning and decided to get back to the morning page because I am really missing this part of my life. I thought I would be extremely devoted to writing essays but I see that several weeks ago I started writing an essay and I was struggling with making sure it had the correct statistics which meant I had to do some research which I didn't have time for and considering I have limited time in the morning to write, I just couldn't do it. I became discouraged and the writing stopped. I wasn't necessarily disappointed in myself or discouraged. I didn't feel any angst about the absence of writing and I was confident that I would return to the page. I was giving myself space to do something different. In this time I have gathered interesting fodder for my writing and I have tapped into the world a little bit more and I feel refreshed and inspired to write.

I came across the quote from Zora Neale Hurston and although I had seen it many years ago, this reunion with the words were revelatory. I find that what I confront in the world is not discrimination but impatience and intolerance. I sometimes wonder why people, including myself, we tend to size people up within seconds and then make certain judgments. I want to be more patient, I want to be more open and I want to be more loving. I'm still standing behind my need to distance myself from people and I keep rewinding old hurt as an excuse to be semi-anti-social. If I am so fabulous to be around then I have to allow people to be around me but it seems like the older I get the more I want to be with smaller groups of people. I tend to tire of the energy of complaining and the energy of self deprecation. This loner status thing that I claim is allowing me to neglect improving my social skills and it's providing me the perfect excuse to not make new friends. I love people, I'm just learning to discern the complexity of human behavior and the changes that happen as well as we all transcend in one way or another.

The change I think I've made in my life often feels as if I haven't made any change at all. I feel as if I'm at a standstill but then I'm reminded of my power to change my own life. I'm trying to engage this personal power. I'm endeavoring to put into action the kind of life that I want. Part of me is lingering on an action I took which was in essence a broken promise to myself. I heard that a broken promise strips at your self esteem and all this time I took that information to heart but just in this moment, I recognize the untruth in that analysis. Yeah breaking a promise to one's self is an act of opposition but in some ways I needed the experience to hone in on something that I really needed to understand. I understood the problem with the particular behavior but for some reason I needed to travel down that road again. And the truth, the spiritual truth is that in every new moment I have the ability to create my reality without the weight of the past. I continue to listen to my spirituality tapes which guide me toward self actualization and more importantly toward pure self love.
The writing feels jagged and unfocused but that's okay.
I AM PERFECT AND I AM WHOLE AND I AM COMPLETE.

An Enlightened Mind through Spirituality

I can recall in my youth, when I was about six or seven years old, pleading with the God of my understanding for clarity about life's purpose and begging for ability to experience and actualize LOVE. From what I could tell, the only thing in life that seemed to matter was LOVE and I wanted it, whatever it was, however I could get it, I wanted LOVE . I wanted to be loved, I wanted to share love and I wanted that mystical manifestation of love and I'd be damn if I left this earth without knowing for myself the internalization of love.
Forty years later, I still beg and plead but with a recognition with the journey toward love starts with myself which feels like a punishment more than spiritual liberation. I'm already a loner, so to insist that the answer resides within myself feels like more the same, more of the days of loneliness, more of the disconnect from humanity, more of the victim having to save herself, more of a leaning on oneself when the self has never been reliable and more of living misery. It annoyed me and bothered me that the answer was within myself because if any person could look inside of me they would see a truly damaged and messed up person who couldn't possibly have the capacity or the wherewithal to engage a spiritual enlightened existence.
I haven't completely given up on myself nor am I in doubt about my capacity to know the truth of my existence but the journey has been long. I love that song sung by Donnie McClurklin that states. "We fall down but we get up, because the saint is just the sinner who fell down and got up." I seem to habitually find myself getting up after falling down once again. Falling down doing the some thing I did twenty and some thirty years ago. I fall down because of actions that I turn to knowing full well that those types of decisions don't work in my life. I fall down having done something so stupid, I'm embarrassed, ashamed and down right disappointed with myself. I tell myself, you know better, you have done better and you promised yourself you wouldn't go down those roads ever again but there I am, practicing what Iyanla Vanzant calls INSANITY. She says insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
And the part that hurts me the most is the broken promise to myself, I hate when people break there promises to me and yet I'm more likely to break promises to myself more than anyone around me. The thing about breaking promises to yourself is not only a deep and abiding disappointment but a decrease belief in the self, a decrease reliability on the self and eventually I have begun to not really trust or think I have the capacity to do what I promise myself. It is one of the most hurting things, the pain is continual and nagging and borders on torture while in some instances, it feels like I am torturing myself and that's when I turn to suicidal thoughts because I want relief, although I want the experience of love more, I feel completely exhausted and leaving my physical reality seems like the ultimate answer. But even in those moments of exacting defeat, I know what I know and that is, as much as I want to go, I want to stay, I have this thing in me that wants to know love and this thing in me, too stubborn to leave before that happens, too determined to honor the promise I made to the six year old self, too lazy to give in and just enough hope to believe that love can be mine. It's not a large amount and not enough to be seem with the naked eye but I know this hope is present and it encourages me to live.
The path from life to death is shorter than the blink of an eye. I will leave this physical plane but not of my own doing. I live with a yearning for truth and the envelopment of love. I suspect that this simple desire has led me toward the path of enlightenment and it is has been within text that speak of spirituality where I have found a way to leave with bouts of peace, joy and all encompassing love.
My process of spirituality began with lots of reading but the real change did not come until I embraced and was able to actually meditate. In meditation I discovered my monkey mind, I discovered how many thoughts that run through my mind through out any given moment and there were lots. I was one of those people who stayed away from drugs so as to keep my brain highly functioning but in meditation I realized what I needed more than anything, what I needed was to quite all that intellect and experience some silence. Upon further discovery I learned that I had a quite of bit of negative talk in my mind as well. Language and phrases I used as involuntary as breathing, I listened to the way I talked about myself to others, the way I made fun of myself, the words of doubt, fear and self-loathing. The use of comedy to keep people at bay and to express the worst of me in a way that made people laugh including myself. But as I laughed I could feel equally, a pain so damaging, I could easily cry in the midst of my laughter. When I was successful at keeping my mind silent for even thirty seconds, the benefit to my life were a thousand fold. I would transcend issues that haunted me for years within a few weeks of quite meditation. The icing on this cake was the spiritual teachings I gleaned from Unity church, Science of Mind, Buddhism and many other spiritual philosophies. But the greatest day came when I forgave myself for some things not all but this act of self forgiveness opened up my spirit and more than that it opened up my heart.
Now my heart had been closed up like an abandoned building for many, many years, so the process of opening it up was just that a process over time. I still find areas of my heart full of cob-webs and thick with dirt and grime. There are still parts of my heart that I have yet to get to because in those spaces are experiences of hurt that I don't want to deal with right now but I know if I am to every really live a full and wonderful life, I will need to dust away the lie and bring forth the shiny truth. Spirituality has helped me become patient with myself which has opened me up to all the challenges and rewards of spiritual enlightenment. There are times, almost daily when I get frustrated with myself, I become despondent and untrusting of my self but then I just settle into some silence and let the love of spirit carry me from one moment to the next. I recognize in those moments that while the work of spirituality is individualized, I am not alone, the holy spirit is always there and this is truly comforting but this knowledge has taken many years to unearth. I fall down on this understanding all the time because I'm one of those people who thinks that I control everything or need to be in control of everything. But the joy of living has come when the love of God carries me. I find myself full of peace and joy and in full embodiment of this thing we refer to as love. There are still times when I am unknowing but the luxury I have now is that I stop trying and simply surrender because in those moments, I know full well my capacity to mess things up.
Honestly, I'm at this juncture with respect to my spiritual journey, I get the feeling that I'm on the brink of some profound understanding but I don't want to step forward because as the old folks say, when you know better, you do better. Spiritual enlightenment always requires responsibility not only for the self but humankind as a whole. I know I have the tools, the understanding and the ability to sustain an enlightened life, now is the time for me to make a choice. The beauty of spirit is merciful and undemanding, I wish God would force me to do the right thing but then again, I appreciate the opportunity to make my own choice.
I fell down but I got up. I feel down again but I got up. I have fallen down so many times, it's sometimes hard for me to believe that even after all of those time, I still get back up. I get back up because I want to know love, I get back up because something in me, namely God spirit provides me with the energy and the wherewithal to stand on my own two feet. I get back up because falling down is in my mind, only temporary. I recently fell down in my life on many accounts and I looked in the mirror the other day with tears knowing I had chosen to resurrect once again. I can't say for sure where this ability is within me, I can't say for sure how it manifest itself in my life and I can't put my finger on the one thing that straightens my legs but it happens, over and over again, it happens. I'm no saint but I am a soul who endeavors to be enlightened and to actualize in every fiber of my being the spiritual truth. I am thankful for my life, thankful for falling down as well as getting up but more so I am truly grateful for the chance to know the truth of who I am, to experience the Christ within and I won't stop traveling this journey until I get there.
I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME!