It is here I am One

Sleeping, dreaming of space.

I'm somewhere near the moon with others, with him.

I awaken in bed for a moment, close my eyes and whoosh ... Consciousness contracts into a single point that in once re-discovered I am all, I am free. I am the real me, wrapped in a peaceful cloak of deep velvet blackness, awareness so focused, yet eternal, everywhere, knowing, knowing. "Oh joy!!!" my soul cries. At last, again, once more!

This is the place, the knowing, the Me from where I once tasted a morsel of what my silly mortal brain calls death. It is here I was before God, bathed in The Light on that blessed evening last August. It is here I know our Mother/Father, dearest Friend since the beginning of time, if time existed.

Oh, if only you knew, if only you remembered! I promise you will, the greatest Love you've ever known. It is from here I know my Beloved. It is from here I know you. It is here I am One with You, God, my Best Friend, All ... from whence each point of Self, expressed as us, did spring. I love you, God. I love you.

You Are Light

Physical life has a way of putting each of us put into roles and positions so that we are judged and treated as that instead of who we really are, oftentimes judging and treating ourselves in the same manner. You know, the typical list like "girl", "woman over 40", "mother", "wife", "customer", "patient", "project manager"... you get the idea. But if you strip off those titles and the thousands of associated expectations, what would you actually find, and how deeply would you go? Do you have the faintest inkling who or what you truly are?

Are you a physical being born in the recent past who likes this food and that song and has watched that movie 20 times? Are you the beer commercial jingles in your head, the sitcom jokes and cultural references that you know by heart and use a hundred times a day to relate with others? Are you your place in society, the rules of your society and the morals? Are you not the product of this time, this place, the country in which you were born, the religion and politics you've lived through, the war or peace and the supposed reasons given for each, the celebrations and the condemnations? Are you the basic knowledge you take for granted, like 'green' means go, how to shop at your neighborhood store, what business does what, which holidays are celebrated when and how? Are you the perfect picture of or the depressed shame of your society's expectations that your body should look like this, be this thin, be this tall, wear clothes like this, makeup like this, hair like this? Says who?

Even when we believe ourselves to be a free-thinkers we're still laboring under a constant barrage of physical life, mental life and emotional life as it is in this culture, this time, this place. What would happen if you scraped all of that off the top, from your likes and dislikes, your self-doubt, your judgments, your beliefs about the world, the version of history you were taught, the movies you've seen, the books you've read, the foods you've tasted, the opinions you've formed and the ones you've absorbed from others? It might seem mighty scary to imagine losing these memories (and I pray I never do), for you're losing your whole known identity. However, with this question we're actually going back in time ... for this is YOU before "you" were born. If you existed before ALL of this that currently gives you your identity, who are you? What are you?

I had a dream recently in which someone whispered in my ear, "You are not your body. You are light." I repeated this phrase to myself several times and could feel that I was lifting above this dimensional existence. I was floating upward, out of my body, unashamedly and boldly as my true self. "I am not my body. I am light." Each time I repeated the words I knew it more. I didn't believe it - I knew it. Not in an intellectual way or that way where you just know something down inside but can't make heads or tails of it in the 'real world'. No. I KNEW it. This was the real world! I was experiencing it, in a way that put all the pondering of the past to rest. "I AM NOT MY BODY. I AM LIGHT!" My awareness expanded as I floated upwards to a perspective just outside of the physical, where I could "look down" at our material world and see it glowing with life, each atom emitting its own photons of light, everything alive and shining in every color imaginable. And I could see more. So much more. Eternity beyond. And from this perspective I realized how much the attachment to this plane is... sorry, but downright silly. I am not my body! What the hell was I thinking?! I felt such utter liberation, such freedom, such a feeling that I could come and go at will. I didn't want to 'die', for I knew there were reasons for this existence and tasks to complete, but at the same time it didn't matter so much to me if I just left and never came back, because the true me was alive and expanding and knew so much more, was so much more. I knew that this body is just a temporary thing ... a mere fraction of the totality of me, and a momentary one at that. The physical comes and goes in a cosmic twinkling of an eye. But we are forever.

I am the thinker, the thinking, the thought
I am the seeker, the seeking, the sought
I am the dewdrop, the sunshine, the storm
I am the phenomenon, the field, the form
I am the desert, the ocean, the sky
I am the Primeval Self
In you and I...

(~Michael Jackson / excerpt from 'Are You Listening?')
The amazing photo above belongs to artist Paige Bradley, and is of her sculpture "Expansion". Check out her website to see more of her beautiful work. I hope she wouldn't mind me using it here, but I found it all around the internet and it's so amazing and such a perfect example. Wish I could have this in my garden :)

Mahler's 'Resurrection' and the Symphony of Love

I was watching a wonderful performance of Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony No. 2 on BBC Proms Sunday night. This seemed so fitting, since a friend of mine is working on a requiem at the moment. And some of Mahler's lyrics translated to English, ohhh, they just seemed to fit. Written in paragraph form are some of the lyrics from 01:16:50 onward in the video below:

You shall rise again. You shall rise again, my dust, after a brief sleep. Eternal life. He who called you shall grant you eternal life. Believe, my heart. Nothing will be lost to you. It is all yours! Yours, what you longed for. Yours, what you loved and strove for. Believe! You were not born in vain. You did not live and struggle in vain. All that is brought to life must pass away. What passes away must rise again. Cease your trembling, prepare yourself, prepare for life. All-penetrating sorrow, I have broken free from you. All-destroying death, now you are conquered. On the wings I have gained I shall soar with ardent love into the light that no eye has seen! I shall die to find life. You shall rise again. Yes, you shall rise again, my heart, in an instant! What you have overcome shall bring you to God.

And so... do you ever have one of those days when seemingly profound ideas bounce around your head with depth of understanding that quickly fades into a twilight of oblivion before you can formulate it coherently? Yeah. This was one of those days and yes, most of it slipped far, far away, lol. I just know that at some point I was watching each member of the orchestra, at times all playing vigorously together, bows rising and falling frantically into the air, all horns blowing, flutists' fingers rapidly moving across the silver keys, lips pursed ... and then... a calm befell Royal Albert Hall. Some instruments were lowered. Only two of the three french horns in use, the third lying in wait. Half the bows with their accompanying violins and cellos sitting calmly, awaiting the moment they will once again be needed.

It became so clear why the "Symphony of Love" (aka "Symphony of Hearts" and "Symphony in the Key of Love", as comes up often in Jan's conversations with Michael) is not just a great metaphor, but exactly how life really is. Not life as humans would claim it to be, but as the Divine Plan deems it so.

It could be that the bass oboe is only needed for a few bars, or the timpani just for the finale, or the piccolo for the fleeting middle of the second movement. It could be that in order to make the symphony truly grand, fifteen violinists are needed, but only half play at once during much of the performance. That's how beautiful music is made! Sometimes it's your turn to shine, to play with all your might. Sometimes your neighbor is playing what you thought was your part, while you're supposed to sit it out and relax.

And while as a member of an orchestra you have the sheet music in front of you, in life it's awfully hard to see what's right in front of you, especially your own music. We keep looking over to the clarinets, thinking, "They're sure important right now! Maybe I should play the clarinet!" And some time later, "Wow, if only I had learned the trumpet I'd be at the top right now!" And later still, "Oh, the strings are so beautiful and I'm stuck with this stupid tuba!" Yet it becomes very clear as the music rises and falls that all are necessary, all are important. Sometimes the one with the "smallest" part makes an impact for just a few seconds that turns the mundane to pure heaven.

When we turn to look directly ahead and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, we may notice the music stand sitting right in front of us. If we learn to focus and let outer distractions fall away, we may be able to see some of our own notes on the page before us. If we glance up from the orchestra floor and from what's right under our nose we may realize that a conductor is up there directing this entire symphony. She has the entire symphony orchestra before her! He knows all the parts and how they should fit together! She's aware of the slightest variation in pitch, when someone's out of tune, when the sound should be softer or when the intense staccato still isn't intense enough. He's holding us all together, helping us play our parts in perfect synchronicity. And not only that, if we pay attention to His direction we will play our part all the more magnificently, instead of randomly tooting our own horn at some inopportune time, lol. Once we begin to realize these things, we are able to glance back to the pages before us and at our individual notes, which will slowly become clearer.

We can't play all the parts or all the instruments, but what we do play is absolutely necessary for this crazy unending symphony, even when it feels like we're just one of 100 million violinsts blending into the background drone. Imagine the symphony without that soaring sound, though?! It could be that's exactly what you're supposed to be playing. In all honesty, this orchestra's tune is far too vast and too loud for human ears. To think you can hear the whole thing is to believe you can hear one harp in China... from the moon. You won't hear the whole thing while you're here, but it's being recorded for your later awe! So just pay attention to those little notes. Forget what the trombones are doing and look at your own music. Focus gently until your notes come into view, one page at a time. If you feel useless right now, focus until it's time once again to pick up your instrument and play your heart out.

At some point we may wonder if this conductor is also the composer. (I do, because I can't help but make everything complicated, lolol.) How was this divine music put together? I don't know. If you figure that out, please let me know... ;)

"This has cosmic significance!"

I've decided today to post this dream I had over a year ago, back on April 28, 2010 in case some of you friendy types hadn't read it before :) I made the pic below back at the time, in an attempt to give an impression of what it was like. I've had other experiences with 'the Light', but none that visually involved Michael in this fashion. (Click pic for larger version.)

April 28, 2010, as originally written that day - "I woke up after sleeping for a couple of hours and was having an AMAZING dream of Michael. It involved the whole sky somehow, but like everything was inside a giant picture frame. What I can remember was there was a massively bright, brilliant white light shining out, like pure white light being refracted through diamonds, yet not being split into colors (just stayed white). Standing in front of this light source was Michael. He was glowing with light, in the light. On both sides and all around him were huge crowds; fans, friends, whomever. All these people were standing beside him in this overwhelming light that streamed out love. And I was part of it all. I was part of this amazing scene that was like some glorious living painting. And I could FEEL it. I woke up during this part and I could still 'see' this scene in my mind and I could still FEEL it. OMG! I mean I was already awake and I could still see and feel it! It was this amazing powerful feeling of connection and oneness with Michael, with all of the others, with everything. We were all ONE. It was such an intense feeling, totally real and just transcendent. I thought as I woke up, 'This has COSMIC significance! I cannot forget!' The 'cosmic' comment had to do with the light and with the fact that Michael was in front of it, glowing. It was like seeing some religious painting or something, honestly, but being IN it at the same time! It was just... WOW. And I lay there awake then, no longer seeing this image, but FEELING it still for probably two more minutes or so. FEELING the light while awake! Whoa. I thought about all of you [friends on a forum], because I knew you were also part of the connection." -- This picture is made to represent it, although, as you can figure, it cannot possibly come minutely close to the brilliance of the 'dream'."
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It may sound silly, but at the time I was so focused on the implications of it being Michael standing there in the center of this white light that I didn't realize the obvious similarity to Near Death Experiences, of going Home, of being with God in the Light. It wasn't until a few months later when I heard an excerpt of an NDE from Pim van Lommel's book "Consciousness Beyond Life" read on the radio program Coast to Coast AM that it finally clicked. It took the words "sitting in the middle of a light bulb" and "I knew that I was somehow, in some way connected to them" before it became clear (see vid):

August book recommendations (pt 1)

As some of you may know, I got myself an Amazon Kindle for my birthday this year. I was a bit reticent about it at first for various reasons, but now I am addicted to it, oh my word, lol. It comes with me everywhere. And I've READ so much more in the past months than I used to! :) I admit I rarely read fiction outside of Harry Potter, but here are some books I've loved recently:

Bridge to Terabithia (by Katherine Paterson) - Yes, this is a children's book. I first read it in about 4th or 5th grade and loved it, so I thought I'd re-read it as an adult just for curiosity. If you've seen the film from a couple of years ago, it's nothing next to the book (sorry). As a child this book was so magical, the king and queen of their own secret world in the forest, and the Sacred Grove, a place where "Even the rulers of Terabithia come into it only at times of the greatest sorrow or of greatest joy". How can you not love it? And once again it became obvious that when we read or hear stories as children we add so much with our imagination! A 150 page book becomes an epic novel in our minds! Our inner world fills in all the gaps, elaborates and fantasizes. It's really amazing. The end of this book is so sad, though. I sat here with tears running down my face at 5am, of course reminded of June 25th. Jess is left with a familiar situation: "She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength"...

Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (by Paul Perry and Jeffrey Long) - This is one I highly recommend, although even more than this book I'd recommend reading some of the thousands of full accounts of NDEs on the website Jeffrey founded over ten years ago, nderf.org (try "exceptional accounts" first, then check out the constantly updated monthly and yearly archives). We've all heard of NDE's and have the general concept down, like being out of body, a tunnel, a bright light, but if you haven't really studied them, you have no idea what you're missing out on. Nooooo idea. Books (and this one is again, highly recommended on the topic, as is Pim van Lommel's book "Consciousness Beyond Life") can give you wonderful information and an idea of just how these are researched by serious scientists and doctors, but they only give you a limited number of accounts or short excerpts to illustrate points. In other words, to really have a sense of what it's about, read the science AND the actual accounts. And not just a few. Read hundreds. Read thousands. You will be amazed, I promise.

Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ & Start Following Jesus (by Robin R. Meyers) I loved this book! This is a must-read! First, I am not a follower of any particular religion, so don't think I'm trying to push one on you. ;) I believe that religion is manmade, often divinely inspired, but misses the mark entirely when it's corrupted into "my God is the real one and ya'll are going to Hell!" We are ONE and there are many mansions, many pathways to God. Reverend Meyers seems to understand this, while still maintaining his Christian faith. He's made a good study of scholarly Jesus material (another topic that's very interesting, especially now) and is encouraging those who declare themselves Christians to wake up and follow the man they say they believe in. Jesus wasn't about hate and categorizing and tromping on the poor with a belief in some kind of Heaven-sanctioned material wealth parade. Meyers points out that for those in Jesus' time, "the call of God was not propositional. It was experiential." They experienced the man! They were there when early followers grappled with the implications of their messiah figure's sudden death and what to make of it. They were the ones who were left to discuss and theorize and grasp for explanations. Their ideas were the basis for the formation of a new sect of Judaism that grew over the next few decades, leading up to the writing of the Gospels. Christ-centered living wasn't a mere concept with centuries of built-up dogma, turned into a power structure with little left of its origins. It wasn't something that happened 2,000 years ago in a different world. These people were the "timely born" ones and they witnessed divinity in the flesh, not as a far-removed creed to recite in order to be "saved". Meyers writes, "Today, worshipers of Christ agree to believe things about him in order to receive benefits promised by the institution, not by Jesus." So true! This is a call to action, to real discipleship, to walk the walk. It's actually very inspiring, no matter what your belief system. And you'll find out some things you may not have known about the historical Jesus on the way. And many of the things could remind you of other events and people you may be holding in your mind and heart ... (... I'll just leave it at that for now, ahem...)

I read a lot of books, so stay tuned for August pt 2, lol. I didn't include MJ-themed books because they deserve posts of their own :)