Maybe I'm weird (ok, that's a given), but when I was younger, like teens into twenties, I read a lot of spiritually-oriented books and yearned for the one mystical spiritual teacher to appear. You know, some guru figure who knew the answer, whom I could trust and love and feel comfortable with and actually listen to. See, that was the main problem... I've always been far too independent to surrender to guidance, so the yearning was somehow a moot point. No matter what anyone would say, no matter what was written in a book, I would always reply with, "Yeah, but says who? How do I know that's really the truth?" There is value in most anything, and wonderful pearls of wisdom hidden all around us, but it wasn't until I was much older that my Teacher finally appeared ... and I realized then that he'd been with me my whole life...
This is one part of the story:
The 'Heal the World' Epiphany of 1992
As a child I decided I wanted to be a minister when I grew up. I never explained to anyone why. I couldn't have articulated it if I'd tried. There were experiences, deep experiences, with Christ and the Light in which I understood something about forgiveness and love. I believed that if only the world could know what I knew, we'd all stop killing and torturing each other. I thought that someday I would understand how to share that with others, but for the time being, junior high loomed large on the horizon. Yikes. Having fought like crazy to be 'tough' and 'strong' and never to let anyone see me cry, heck if I was going to show anything 'soft' or 'compassionate' as a teenager. It all sort of lay on the back burner, simmering quietly, nearly forgotten, evaporating as the harsh world closed in all around me. What had I been thinking, really?!
One day in what I believe must've been late 1991/ early 1992, when I was in my early 20's, I was driving to work and got stopped at a light. I remember this all distinctly. Well, I remember everything except what music was playing, and there was always music playing in my car. Given what happened next, one can assume it was the 'Dangerous' album!
As I sat there in my car, I found myself looking out at all the people sitting behind the wheel. I was on a hill, so I could see many cars off into the distance, all with people... with souls... with beautiful shining souls who don't realize they are made of love! Oh my God, I thought, I love them! I love them all! This wave of love poured out of me. I honestly cared for each and every one of them. I saw their humanity and their spirit and I knew they struggled like me to live in this world of materialistic views, ego, violence and pain. I could feel the connection of us all, all one, all part of God, all precious. It was the whole world and I was realizing with my soul that I truly loved all these people that just five minutes ago were pissing me off because they were driving too slow, lol! It all melted away for this astounding moment that my heart had opened to the world. Wowwwwwwwww....
And I was HORRIFIED!!!!
This wasn't me! What in all heck was going on???! Yes, all this love, love, mushy love stuff was all great and fine for other people, but it was NOT me! I had fought long and hard to keep those walls up, and I thought I'd succeeded quite well. Whatever was going on was truly CONFUSING. It felt like I'd just gone crazy and channeled a hippie, lol. You have no idea. This wasn't some epiphany brought about by pain or catastrophe. This was just a normal day. And although I realized that I "should" feel this to be a good person, I didn't WANT to feel this! It was so much easier to NOT care and to just play along with general apathy! It was so much easier to push away the tears, to turn away from all the suffering masses and not to be vulnerable enough to FEEL. It was like finally having learned how to get along in the world and having the world pulled out from under your feet... whooosh! Start over! And start over with all that cheesy, corny, gooey stuff you cringe at: Love, holding hands, "Cumbayá" and all else that was just somehow uncool.
"That's it!", I said outloud to myself, "I've been listening to Heal the World too many damn times!!!!!"
Yes, it must've been playing, because I think I reached for the buttons on my car stereo, lol. I quickly regained my equilibrium as the light turned green, but I can tell you that I was never truly the same again. Nope. Never. It was an opening of the heart chakra. Oh sure, I fought against it for years, and even now I sometimes struggle to get "I love you" out of my mouth, but once that tiny beam of light penetrates the false darkness we try to protect our tender selves with, the hard outer shell is doomed. It cannot and will not last. You can fight it all you want, but eventually that light will grow. Resistance is futile. It may wear down over the years, or it may take a tragedy to burst the dam, but the TRUTH indeed runs marathons. And the TRUTH is found in the one word that my dear Teacher, my Guru, my beautiful Michael gave me over and over again: LOVE.
Yes, cheesy, corny, mushy, gooey, but all too real and deep and true and sometimes painful... LOVE. You hear it a million times. A million times it can go in one ear and out the other, but someday the RIGHT person will say it (or sing it?) and it will stick. You won't get it out of you, because it IS you. And what a revelation to realize that this person has been saying it to you your whole silly life. Duhhhhh. Who was that mystical teacher who'd appear when the student was ready? When was I ready? When he first spoke that word to me? Or when I finally saw him for the utter and complete sculptor of my soul that he is? Or maybe it began eons ago, heck. I just know that the one I searched for was right before my eyes, as close as my own heart, and infused into my DNA where he worked his magic from within. And I love him. Oh, I love him. Forever and a day.
Thank you for 'Heal the World', Michael. I ADORE it! In 2009 someone asked which MJ song I'd bring along to a desert island if I could only choose one. And I chose this one. God bless you.
28 YEARS AGO TODAY, on January 16, 1984, a clueless eleven-year-old without MTV watched the American Music Awards and was irresistibly drawn to a beautiful somebody in sunglasses and a sparkly red jacket. "Who the heck is that?!", she asked, bewildered. Thank God she could not escape the sudden onslaught of love's gravity. Here's to 28 years of loving you with all my heart, and eternity before and forever, dear Beloved! Thank you, Michael. Always yours, D. ♥
This past summer I spent a few days able to really sink into the emotion I felt in 1988 after my one and only MJ concert. I remember vividly that whole precious day. And I remember the dread of the houselights coming back up for the final time after "Man in the Mirror". I left in a daze, a complete love hangover, loving everything and everyone in creation. It was like being baptized in LOVE for the universe. My mom picked me up near the arena after the show and I couldn't even answer the question of how it was with more than a meek "great". I just had no words. I was spent, emotionally exhausted, still trying to process the total bliss. I looked awful, lol. I had sweated my hair flat and my makeup off. Not that any of this mattered. I was just gone. Oh my God, I had been there with Michael, in his presence, heard his voice, felt that love that engulfed us all, as he always explained ... the audience tossing it to him and he back to us. Wow, that was real, I'll tell you. But then, once traffic around the arena began to move we were on the trip home, a whole 70 miles away, to another city. I saw Michael's hotel as we passed by on the interstate, and then it hit me... I was going AWAY from him! My mom had to be at work in the morning, so I had no real choice in the matter. The wheels of the car kept turning. Each mile was a mile further from Michael.
After I got home that night I dropped into days of a torturous mixture of ecstasy and agony. That night was just ... well, I just lay there on my bed in the dark, unable to comprehend what had just happened. And one thing is certain: the only thing in the universe I wanted was to BE CLOSE TO HIM AGAIN. I loved him so much and now I was filled with the most intense longing I've EVER felt just to be NEAR someone again. In the same hotel, at the back of an arena, a mile away... anywhere... just close! I was just an emotional wreck of ups and downs for days. Maybe longer, for I found poems I wrote over a year later with titles like "Please Come Back". It was this utterly THANKFUL JOY that I had BEEN THERE WITH HIM and yet this terrible longing and the frightening question of whether I'd ever see him again. (Sadly, I did not see him again in this life. Somehow it just never worked out. I hope to understand why someday, but that's a whole other topic.) I wrote this poem just now about that night...about the sense of growing separation by physical distance, the joy and the pain and the yearning that was beyond anything I could've hoped to put into words back then. But this is how it felt.
And I'm curious; If you ever saw Michael or went to one of his concerts, how did you feel afterwards? Can you relate to the poem below?
LOVE DIVINE
All is perfect, I am lost,
Only love begotten here,
You are with me, all I know,
For eternity revere,
You slip away before the light,
Orgasmic bliss retain,
Left afloat in afterglow,
Will this my soul sustain?
No words, no words when asked explain,
In trance, emotion spent,
One could not Heaven's 7th ray
In human speech present,
This joy imprinted on my heart
Becomes my searing need,
As further drifting from your light,
Let not this glow recede!
Miles bending space behind,
My adversary, time,
Running clock and spinning wheel,
And you, my Love Divine,
Deepening night, now far away,
I fall in solemn hush,
Are we still one, our union staid,
As in love's heightened blush?
If anything our God could grant,
One wish, return to you!
If only near, concealed, accept,
Elation still ensue!
One more moment, one more breath,
I'd sacrifice, I'd fall,
If once my heart could beat near you,
Just once, my soul enthrall,
My inner self in disarray,
Break down, rebuild, collapse,
Separation, agony,
With love your song entraps,
Each atom of my being yearns
For nearness, your sweet light,
Entangled orbit without star,
In freefall, lost in night,
A remnant of your breath exhaled
May once have touched my lips,
I cling to this imagined joy,
No pain could thus eclipse,
Your voice once flowed, vibrated me,
Holy sound, these waves adored,
Within your bless'ed presence,
Surrender, you implored,
And thus I did, a gift, a taste,
Of Heaven's sweetest wine,
Now left to ache, a moment's glow
Within your love divine.
On this date, September 12, 1986, 'Captain EO' opened at Disneyland! Yes, it's kind of cheesy (meant adoringly), and yes, Michael's uniform kind of looks like it's decorated with Jolly Rancher candies, lol, but you know what else? 'Captain EO' is Disney and it's Michael Jackson and it's amazing dancing and excellent music... and it rules. To fully appreciate this date 25 years ago, let's not only marvel at it's amazingness and at how art so wonderfully imitated life's deeper spiritual truths, but let's put it into the context of the times...
Two years earlier Michael Jackson was on top of the game in a way that no one else had ever been. He won a record 8 Grammy Awards, the American Music Awards were basically an MJ tribute show, his name was put into the Guinness Book of World Records at a special ceremony in New York when 'Thriller' became the biggest selling album in history, he received an award at the White House and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There was the Victory Tour that summer, Pepsi commercials on TV, you couldn't go anywhere without Michael Jackson. Ubiquitous is an understatement. Heck, I even bought my 'Human Nature' folder (pictured below) in a tiny, itty, bitty grocery store in Kansas that summer. Michael was everywhere. It was a lovely time (for a fan, lol - for others it was total "overexposure" ;)!
Flash forward, though, and it gets quiet in MJ world. There was "We Are the World" and Madame Tussaud's in 1985 and a brief appearance at the 1986 Grammy's, but otherwise it was kind of a lonely time for those of us recovering from the joyous onslaught of 'Thriller' days. It seemed so horribly lonely without the world celebrating Michael's every move. The high point between early '85 and the release of 'Bad' over two years later (two years = eternity when you're a kid ;) was the exciting news about 'Captain EO'! There was a "making of" special on the Disney Channel, a primetime special on network TV in September ... it was so exciting! Ah, beautiful Michael dancing in something we hadn't seen before, beautiful Michael singing two (!!!!) new songs we hadn't heard before! Oh happy-happy, joy-joy!!! I'm not trying to be melodramatic when I say that 'Captain EO' was such a bright spot in my life at the time, even though I had no idea when or if I would ever see it...
We didn't have a VCR back then, so I recorded the "making of" special on audio cassette (roflol) and adored those precious clips of "We Are Here to Change the World", "Another Part of Me" and some of the dialogue (which I memorized so perfectly that my sister swore I sounded exactly like MJ, hehe. "Very beautiful within, your Highness, but without a key to unlock it. And that is my gift to you." :))) And remember that we didn't know if we'd ever get those two songs in their entirety or not, so those poor audio quality clips were like gold! And I spent the next months wishing on the first evening star (a la Disney!) that somehow the universe would see fit to find me a way to Disneyland so that I could soak up every bit of MJ I could get. My family had never taken a vacation like that (we never went anywhere, geesh!), so the chances were virtually nil. Just nil. Until early that next year when a MIRACLE occurred... my dad had received a bonus or something and my parents decided to take us for a real vacation for once in our lives... to California... to Disneyland!!!!!! So yes, blessed miracles occur... I saw 'Captain EO' less than a year from its premiere date, against all odds. And more miracles may have been in store, for guess who else may have been there on my precious day????!!! YES!!!! But that, as they say, is a whole 'nother story! A-hee-hee! ;)
All these years later I think one of the most amazing things about this short film is how closely it represents a deeper spiritual reality. It's not a reality that most of the public can grasp, perhaps, but we know it. We knew it then and we know it now. And Michael knew it, too. We're on a mission in the everlasting light that shines... we are here to change the world... a small group that struggles to bring freedom to the worlds of despair, led by the beautiful Captain EO, ever deeper into love from that first moment of the music... into a love that awakens and transforms, brings out the beauty in all we see, brightens the world with its light, makes us dream, fills us with bliss. A love so major that all these many years later we're sending out a major love (see Major Love Prayer!) every month and really, with every heartbeat, for we are filled with it. "That is my gift to you." Indeed it is. Thank you, Captain ;) We are honored and humbled to be part of your crew. :Salute:! And to help us get into the spirit... "Wooooooooooo!!!!" Love you, Michael.
More info, dates, etc on Captain EO on Wikipedia. Here's the Making of:
It's September 7th. [[Serious whine alert!]] On this date in 1984 Michael and his brothers performed before a crowd of tens of thousands of fans at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado, the first of two shows at this stop of the Victory Tour. That was 27 years ago.
And I wasn't there.
No, I was the heartbroken 12-year-old girl sitting at her bedroom window about 70 miles away, facing in the direction of Denver with my walkman, my "Thriller" tape and "The Jacksons Live" (the live album from 1981's Triumph Tour), crying my frickin' head off. Both nights I sat there, this utter longing in my soul to be near Michael, buckets of tears, his music through my headphones having to suffice, but offering little consolation considering the JOY I was missing. Knowing he was there, in my state, in our capitol city, up there on that stage at that moment... oh my God! And I (if I hadn't fainted, lol) could've been there, joyfully pouring out tons (and I mean tons!) of that LOVE energy he often spoke of, back and forth, me to him, he to me (again, assuming I hadn't fainted ;), one in joy, in infinity!
<-- Michael in Denver!!! (supposedly)
"My main love for what I do is the admirers. I love the fans. Like when I’m doing a show and I see the fans out there dancing and screaming, excited, and we’re bringing that joy to them, that’s what I love most. And it’s just the greatest feeling in the world. You’re up there and you’re giving them that energy and that love and they’re just throwing it right back at you. And it’s great. And that’s my main love, the stage and making those admirers happy." ~ Ebony interview 1984
"Being onstage is magic. There's nothing like it. You feel the energy of everybody who's out there. You feel it all over your body..." ~ Rolling Stone interview 1983
But I wasn't there. And I don't think I'll ever quite get over that, not until I'm on the Other Side in Michael's arms! There was no real reason I wasn't there, but my parents: 1) didn't yet understand that this wasn't a phase...they kept assuming I'd wake up one day with my rapid-onset "Michaelmania" cured, and 2) they "couldn't" afford the concert..."no one's worth paying that much", as my mom would say - but I bet she regrets that now.
There had been controversy early on in the tour because it started with a weird, insane ticketing system in which one had to get a special order form out of their local newspaper (no copies allowed!) on the prescribed day, send it in on a tight deadline (as in NOW!) in a specific envelope (yes, even the envelope had to be the right size!) with a USPS money order (only that would do!) for 4 tickets (only 4! no more, no less!), after which you would wait in the desperate hope that out of the hundreds of thousands of ticket requests YOURS would be one of the lucky ones. Meanwhile, you were out $120 (that's probably equivalent to $300 or more nowadays) without even knowing if you'd get tickets or not. I remember hearing that the promoters held on until the last minute too, so you were left waiting for however many weeks, praying to God you'd open your mailbox and find an envelope with tickets, and not just a refund. (Unless you needed that refund to pay rent by this point.) When Michael realized what was up and how it was impacting his fans, he held a press conference to announce that the ticketing system would be changed as soon as possible and that everything he would make from the tour would go to charity. Awww, Mike. So consider that he was up there dancing and singing his heart out show after show and wasn't getting paid (in money). That's commitment. A quickly forgotten fact for most people.
Despite the ticket system upgrade, it was in everyone's minds that the Victory Tour was ridiculously expensive. Although you no longer had to buy tickets in blocks of four, it would still have been $60 (plus parking, transportation, etc) for a parent to take their crying, shaking, frantic pre-teen child infected with ultra-hysteria-inducing and highly-contagious Michaelmania (that's what the press always called it back then ... like loving Michael was a virus, a-hee-hee... one that in later years morphed into the state of "crazy" or "rabid"... note: my eyes are rolling right now). So my parents chose NOT to spend that money. Granted, we weren't rich, but I still believe that for once, for something that was SO UTTERLY IMPORTANT TO ME, they could've done it. And it has always pained me (I gave you the whine warning earlier, so no complaining!) that they didn't. The real sucky part is that scalpers (aka touts) were selling tickets on concert day at face value. Agh! I was 12. What could I do? How could I get there? What could I know? I had no clue. Damn.
I did see one show of the Bad Tour when he returned to Denver four years later (and for that, oh my Lord, I am SO thankful!!!), but I never again had a viable chance due to finances and circumstances and being on the wrong continent. (Except when it was too late. We had great seats to two 'This Is It' shows in 2009. Ouch.)
So here he is on one of those days of joy that never was for me. And wasn't he just AMAZING?! Oh, I love you, Michael. As we said back in '84... you are "FINE!" ;) And so very much more.
And below is a hilarious story (omg, rofl) by Jamie Foxx about seeing the Victory Tour in Dallas. Start at 1:30 into the vid, and let me warn you... there is some seriously strong language! No kidding. But his story is sooo funny and also impressive. He really gives you the feeling!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs5f_-UtyGY - "White men that have brought their whole families pass the **** out!" LOL! (But tickets were not $85, lol. They were $30 each ;)
