2013 Year in Review

Theatre
"LOVE: A Mixed Media Cabaret Unlocking the Science of Love"
I got to co create this beautiful piece (along with some of my very favorite artists in the theatre community) which meant using my own writing and selecting my songs.
Performed with PopUp at The Leonardo click here for footage 
"The Twelve Dates of Christmas"
The closest thing I've done to a one woman show! However I couldn't have done it without the wonderful women in the cast, and at the helm of the production.
Performed with Pygmalion at Rose Wagner
"The Persian Quarter"
After appearing in the reading, I was in the world premiere of this stunning play at Salt Lake Acting Company in 2011.  Later that summer I found myself at a callback in NYC for another production of the show.  My journey with this one was long, and deeply personal.  The play was published early this year and I was sent my copy.  There I was on the cover, and within the first few pages there was my name listed under the original production.  What a moment.
"Earth Jam"
I organized a reunion of sorts for our cast of HAIR from 2010.  Most of the tribe was able to get together for a couple of rehearsals and perform a concert version in the park this spring for Earth Jam.

Social Media
The Ford Fiesta Movement
I did this in 2009 and they reached out to me for 2013.  After nearly a year away from YouTube, I remembered how much fun it is to film and upload adventures! I was busy with Ford from April to December with not only a monthly assignment and adventure, but with mega missions (more in the travel section), print ads, commercials, and more.  Not to mention gas was covered this entire time.  My favorite month was travel month.  I got a day of flying lessons followed by a day of aerobatics.  By far the coolest thing I've ever done.  

Travel
I counted going out of town eight times this year.  For me, that's quite a bit.  Some trips were for fun, but most of the time it was thanks to Ford.  I started by traveling to LA where they sent me to interview the final six contestants of American Idol for my first mega mission.  The next month it was back to LA for training and to pick up the car.  I was able to see one of my best friends and have her help driving back home where she could see SLC on this trip, and we stopped for a night in Vegas on the way.  Soon after it was off to Chicago to interview band Pacific Air at the Entertainment Weekly Music Lounge to kick off Lollapalooza.  I was able to take another of my dearest friends on this amazing adventure.  Just when I was beginning to get antsy for my yearly NYC getaway, I found out I'd be going to NYC Comic Con, again with Ford.  The last Ford trip was back to LA for the wrap party where I stayed in one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever stayed in.  As far as just for fun, I was lucky enough to get two trips to Vegas and another to LA to spend time on the beach.

The car
But the most noticeable part of the Ford Fiesta Movement was of course, the car itself.  My car had a custom wrap with a unicorn, a cartoon of my face and my name on it.  It was a dream come true to drive this around town and I loved watching the reactions of people on the road, at the drive through, or on social media when I'd be sent pictures of my car after someone had spotted it around town.  It was a hit!

In Print & Press
The Salt Lake Tribune did a big feature on me.  I was on the cover and in The Mix.  It was so exciting for me and my family.  Although I've worked for years to build exactly this, I'm always surprised and humbled when people are still interested and still want to give me exposure and opportunity.  Almost exactly five years after my first Trib feature, I'm still going strong! Click to read.  
I was in a print ad for the Ford Fiesta Movement than ran in Mens Health, Mental Floss, ESPN the Magazine and more!
A shoot I did for Ford ended up as a commercial for Gawker
I was a guest on the Paul Duane Show, it was his second show at The Metro.
My agency TMG used me as an example at a big panel for the agency, I'm so bummed I wasn't able to attend in person! But hearing about this from others in the industry meant so much to me.
Click here for my actor page 
Click here for my model page
I did a shoot for Awkward Years Project and it ended up in the December issue of O Magazine!
I got to be a guest for Bill Allred's podcast, The Let's Go Eat Show! Click to listen 

Modeling & Hosting 
I got to be in a spring spread for the Salt Lake Tribune.  Posing with vespas, bicycles, bags, etc.
I was on the cover of Pets in the City Magazine, with my chihuahua baby Noodles
I appeared on The Daily Dish for Persona Swimwear
I modeled in the Urban Arts Gallery Runway event this summer
I was made up as The Bride of Frankenstein for the Taylor Andrews Next Dimension Hair Show
I had photo shoots with Kate Johnson Photography, Keith Bryce and Cat Palmer.
I modeled designs this year by McKell Maddox, Mary Rino, Keith Bryce, Nathan Adair, Pretty Macabre, and Bettie Page Clothing
I Emceed the Cameron the Public concert at The State Room
I Emceed the SLC Tedx after party, After Glow

What's Next
I'm playing Hedda in "Hedda Gabler" with The Sting & Honey Company
I'm going to be involved in yet another huge social media project this year.  Brace yourselves.
Here's your first sneak peek!!! 

Thank goodness for poets.

I've posted this before.  It's been in my head again the last few days.

This is why I love to read, why I love poetry, and words.  Bits and pieces stick with me and pop up when I need them, reminding me I'm never alone, never the first (nor the last) person to feel a certain way.  I can't think of anything more comforting.

Thank goodness for poets.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” - Rainer Maria Rilke  

I've also recently been reminded,

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't" - Bill Nye

And maybe more importantly, I've been reminded that every person we ever encounter has something to teach us.  Every one of them.

Thanks for reading.


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Goodbye.

Ever since my uncle Chuck left this earth, I've thought a lot about goodbyes.  I often think about what an end means.  Temporary or permanent.  I think about ends that we know are coming, and ends that are abrupt.  If you've followed me here then you know "Life of Pi" is something I reference often.  You might be sick of it, but it's always playing in me.  Still teaching me.

“What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.”

I want closure with things.  With experiences.  With people.  But not just closure, a beautiful closure.  I want to give everything in my life a meaningful shape.  

I've been thinking about something for days.  I am so full of emotion over it.  "Former love surprises artist at her MoMa retrospective after decades apart."   While the video portion is quite something to see (the way he shakes his head is everything) there is something in the very brief explanation that's stuck with me: "When their relationship had come to an end, they went to the Great Wall of China to walk it together.  Both started walking from the opposite end until they met in the middle for one last big hug before disappearing from each other's lives." My visceral reaction to that is so intense, I can't think about it without wanting to sob.  Without feeling a heaviness that threatens to take me over.  Could you imagine? Could you even imagine?!

I want this.  I want it with everyone who's ever been in my life that isn't any more.  Friends, former lovers, Chuck, my Grandpa.  

To all of those who's souls are no longer in line with mine, but once were, I want that walk with you.  I want to reflect as I walk, and gain sacred clarity.  How private.  How intense.  I want to take the time, moving forward in my thoughts and in time until we meet and all that is unsaid is only felt, and exchanged through that embrace.  Oh, it must be long.  And when the end (though I can't imagine how you know it's time) reveals itself and it's time to let go, you both continue with forward momentum and a heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye.  A meaningful shape.  

I want it.  Every time.  

You from my past, you from my future.  

I want to meet you all there.  

Unsettled soul at rest...

I've never been at such a loss for words.  I have tried several times now to sit down and begin to write all that is in my heart.  Filling it up to the brim so that it feels it will burst.  To release what's swirling around so intensely in my soul.  To put language to the newfound happiness that is so strong, it is nearly distracting to me.

I have tried, I have failed.  I do not know these words.

I've never felt so much, so strongly.
These feelings are so new I must still be catching up.

How do I begin to tell you what is? How do I translate this?

I will try.  I will still fail.

I found the other.  Part.  Half.  Soul.  Soul mate.  That belongs with me.  There is only one, and it cannot be denied.  It is nothing like any before.  Or any could be.  Nothing else could be.  Nothing.  It is palpable.  It is nearly visible.  It is a full completion of what wasn't before.  I've never been so internally...right.

I've never had my searching, my yearning, my unsettled soul feel rest like this.

I've never felt that I'm home like this.  I no longer desire to be away.  I think of him first.  The way it should be is now automatically there.  I never knew what I was missing before, only that something was.  He reveals to me only what is essential.  I see clearly the facades of who we think we are, what we do, versus our sweet reality.  I now know the meaning of being grounded.  I see the value.  All that's there is easy.  It would be no other way.  No confusion.  No wondering or questioning of what I could want, what will be.  It's everything.  It's all.  Because it's him.  Because it's me with him.  For the first time in my life, I long for nothing.  I lack for nothing.  I understand what it is to feel strengthened by a love.  So strong.  It should be no other way.

I can't go on in my own words…


* * * * * * * * * *


Earlier this year I found my favorite words.  Ever.  I sent it to him.  I did not post it anywhere.  It was so beautiful it hurt.  I still can't read it without a wave of emotion, and tears rushing up to my eyes.  It is the most stunning thing I've ever read.  I don't know where it's from, I've searched and keep coming up empty.  I wasn't ready to share it yet, but I knew I would eventually.  This.  This is it.  Let this tell you better than I can...

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Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

October, this year.

October last year I was in New York City.  In just a few days my grandpa would pass away.  It would be the second death that year.  It would round out the "year of loss" in the biggest way we never saw coming.  I would return to Southern Utah.  I would return to the graveyard.  I would not say one word the whole drive to the cemetery from the funeral home.

Later, I would remember the strange run-in on the subway with a woman who sang to me one of my grandpas favorite songs.  A warning? A premonition? Collective consciousness? A message?

Last October I could not pinpoint the what's or the why's.  I kept trying.  I dug deep.

I buried.  I dug.  I buried.  I dug.  

In the months to follow the metamorphosis was continuing, yet I was still running.
I was always running.  Running to.  Running from.

October this year I have no desire to run to, or run from.  I am home.  My world is in place.  It took a long time to get here.  It took a lot of work.  A lot of patience.  A lot of hearts shattered along the way.

But I am here.
I am whole.
I am calm.
No more running.


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The Truth

I'm committed to my truth.  To discovering, to following, and to living my truth.  This hasn't always been the case.  Simply because I didn't know any better.  I didn't know how many layers my truth was under, or how to find it.  I knew I wanted it.  I knew I was unsettled.  I was searching.  But for what? A current of dissatisfaction always running through me.   At times the volume was up and at times it was barely audible. But it was always there.  

The truth cannot be forced.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes the truth looks different than others want it to.  In the beginning, it might even look different than what you want it to.  But guess what? Your truth is yours and yours alone.  What is true for you is what matters.  Your personal life is yours.  And guess what? It affects nobody else.  And if it "does"? That's because you no longer fit into the role/view/image they've assigned to you, and that's their issue to deal with.  It's not about you.  

You owe it to yourself to be the best, most authentic version of yourself.  I cannot stress that enough.  I.  Promise.  You.  Everything will fall into place around that.  Relationships change around you and so do your reactions.  For the better. 

Again, the truth cannot be forced.  Sometimes it takes years, or the majority of a lifetime (or maybe it never happens) to peel back your layers.  To rid yourself of "what should be".  You can trick yourself.  You can be in denial and not be aware of it.  You can let fear hold you back.  You can stay in a life that's stagnant, small, because your not sure that if you jump that the universe will be there to catch you.

I promise you it will.  A wise friend of mine told me, "the universe will rise up to meet you every time", and it's the honest to god truth.  

Leap.  Just leap.  

Tune in.  Be still.  Be quiet.  When you sense something is off, it's because it is.  When you sense something is right, it's because it is.  No matter how small.  No matter how many times you shrug it off, or explain it away.  This is where we trip up.  This is where we convolute the simplicity of life.  Because we tell ourselves we are a certain way, with a certain role to play, and life must go accordingly.  When things don't "fit" we try to dismiss them.  

Don't.  That's your truth knocking. 

No one can tell you your truth.  They can only tell you their opinion based on the role they've assigned you to their own life / world view.  You owe no one an explanation.  Who is anyone else to tell you what's right or wrong for you? Who is anyone to stop you from growing? From living? From escaping restraints, and falsehoods? 

Finding your truth is a messy, destructive process.  It is not without ramifications.  It is not without hurt.  You will hurt loved ones along the way.  You will break your own heart.  

"You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens" - Rumi

Open it. 

Thanks for reading, 

Deena Marie

Instagram: @deena_marie

twitter: @DeenaMarie

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 * * * 

I left my world...

Poetry is the most magical, comforting, teacher I have.  Through words that bleed emotion I learn who I am, and that even when I am positive I am the only person to go through such trials and tribulations and that no one else could possibly have a life like mine, I learn that I'm not.  And that is everything.  I can crack open, and let my emotions bleed along with the words when I'm not yet ready or able to use my own. 


I left my world
to be with you
I had to escape
without telling anyone.

I know I left broken hearts
and I suffered for that
but nothing compares
with the suffering of being away
from you.

Today everything is happiness.

Being with you
in different cities
where nobody knows us
and forget our
boring
locked
past.

Walk in the woods
enjoying the sun
the rain
the wind
and the snow.

Today everything is happiness.

-Axel Marazzi


Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
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A bit of beauty

I want to give you a bit of beauty.
I can't yet give you words.
So I'd like for you to hold out your hands, and close your eyes.
I'd like you to take this from me.  It will not make me have less.
I want you to share with me this in between,
caught in the middle of the end of summer and the start of fall.
I want you to feel how heavy it is.  How tangible.

Feel how full I am? I want you to feel full, too.

This spring startled me into my existence.
My truth came for me in an unexpected hour.
I don't know how to say goodbye to you, summer.
I am greedy.  I can't get enough to store up, to savor.

Do you feel this? Love? 

I am so full of it it hurts.  I am so filled I want to cry.
It is the most beautiful kind of pain.
I want to give you a bit of beauty.
Starstuff, heartache, melancholia, nostalgia, gratitude, love.
Magnified, imortalized.
Take this bit of beauty.
I'll have words another day.

 

Write as if you were dying.

This article from the New York Times was sent to me yesterday by a fellow writer, poet, and all around fabulous lady.  I'm so glad she thought to send this to me.  My brain has been spinning ever since.

Read the full article here: Write Til You Drop by Annie Dillard.  While many sentences and paragraphs jumped out at me, what hit me most were these: 

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

It's funny (although it's actually perfect) that I just read this because my brain had just bee trying to form a little snippet of poetry similar to this idea.  Something along the lines of, "I want to give you everything.  I want to show you everything I have, and everything I know.  But I'm afraid that if I do, I'll have nothing left for me."

I'm wondering about all of this.  John P. Shanley says, "what you leave out is the story."  And boy, if that's true do I have a story for you.  And boy, if I found out I was dying it would be yours.  Now.  Today.  It would be urgent and it would be out.  But I'm not dying, and I'm afraid to reveal.  I'm also afraid that I'll never reveal.  Is that the fear? That I could die without my story being told?

I have more story.  All that I leave out.  My most personal trials and tribulations.

I also have what I find interesting for reasons hard to explain because I've never read it on any page.  Do I try to explain it? I thought of that last night, actually as I watched the moon for a very long time.  Why the cosmos stir me the way they do.  Why cosmology, astronomy, and science seem the most crucial and important way a human could spend a life.  What I am so inherently sure of when I'm watching the moon without knowing as fact, other than I just know.  Why I have a strong pull to leave the earth.  To see it from the outside.  Why it feels familiar.  Why I know I've been there before.  

So where do I start? 

And what do I do?

How much of myself should I give to you?

Deena Marie

10 Things I want to know about Deena Marie

Today I asked for blog ideas.  10 questions were submitted.  Here you go:

1.) Why in the world would a talented equity actress make SLC her home?
I took my equity card at the end of 2007.  My goal was to become equity, and to work.  I have managed to do at least two shows a year ever since.  I have gotten great roles.  I have crossed many of my personal dream roles and acting challenges off my bucket list.  I am able to work at the theatres I want to work at.  I work at the theatres that I prefer to see shows at when I want to go to the theatre.  For me, I prefer quality over quantity.  Before I took my card I put in my time with school shows, community theatre, and then shows in what might be called semi-professional theatres for a stipend, for no pay, or for one sum at the very end of the run.  Sustaining that kind of life and work was not what I ever intended for myself.  I have no desire to go back to that.  I am able to be known here and have put in a lot of time building a name, image, and reputation for myself.  If I never got cast, if having a card was a problem for me here, if I wasn't getting the roles I was desiring, well then I'm sure it would be a different story.  But I feel blessed to be here, to be doing the work I want to be doing . Just in a years time I had a great leading role in a Shakespearean production, got to co-create and bring my own writing and ideas to an original show, and now I'm embarking on a one woman play.  I am so grateful.  I can't complain.  I don't believe there is only one place or city to work.  I don't believe NYC is the only place.  I've been there, done that.  I trained there.  I've been back to train since graduating.  I've worked there.  I've lived there.  I'm so glad I did.  I'm so glad it's over.  I prefer life here. 

2.) What makes a home?
Not the walls.  Not the things.  Not the furniture.  Not the objects.  Not the size.  A home to me has everything to do with the people in it, or not.  And the place.  And I mean the place as far as wherever it is you feel "okay".  Wherever you internally feel best.

3.) How is 2013 Deena different than 2012 Deena?
In 2012 I died.  I was reduced to the barest of bones and the darkest of hours.  I experienced and survived more losses than I ever could have dreamed possible.  For the first time, I knew what it felt like to want to leave earth.  Somehow, I came back.  I amazed myself at my ability to recover.  I was bigger than before.  I became in touch with my spiritual path on a deeper level.  Now I am open.  I am far more in tune with my truth.  I am braver than ever.  I'm not afraid to make bold moves and change my life.  I embrace change.  I rely on it, the fact that nothing can last.  Not one thing.  I am better at living in the moment because I know understand that the past and future do not exist.  I no longer live where I lived before.  Literally.  I am no longer with the person I was with before.  I have a new love in my life.  My shaved head has grown back.  My hair is red again.  I am learning to let myself be happy.  To tell myself it's okay.  To let myself experience it, entire.  My life is full of new people, too.  Things are exciting again.  I'm no longer existing, but I'm now living.  I'm learning the power of gratitude.  I'm learning I'm never done learning.  We're all a work in progress and always will be.  I have a new sense that I can trust the universe.  That I belong, that you belong, that we are here at the perfect time in the perfect vessel, perfectly matched and part of a grand design we can't begin to imagine. 

4.) 2008
2008 Deena had long, dyed black hair.  Was making a name for herself in local theatre and all over the place from the YouTube channel she'd just started at the end of 2007.  The press and local features started.  The press and not so local features started.  Things were exciting.  There were new opportunities everywhere I turned.  I tried them all.  They were fresh.  Nothing like the first time. 

5.) 2003
NYC was still part of my story.  So was living downtown in SLC.  So was the wrong boy, although nothing is wrong because everything is a lesson.  I was a baby.  Oh, what a journey there was in store for me!

6.) What would Deena like for 2014?
I have plans.  I can't tell you.  Planning is tricky.  You can have an idea, you can have the intentions but you have to be flexible.  Adaptable.  I know what I'd like, we'll see what 2014 would like for me. 

7.) 2018
I've never been someone who can predict this far out.  I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow.  It doesn't exist yet.  I can't know the answer to this. 

8.) 2023
No way. 

9.) You once mentioned going back to school, how's that coming?
I decided not to go.  It wasn't right.  My life is all at once or nothing at all, but the right things seem to come to me to guide me where I'm supposed to go next.  The Ford Fiesta Movement came to me right when I thought I might be going to school.  There I was, at an orientation and hardly able to sit still because I needed to go home to pack and prep to be in LA interviewing the American Idol contestants the next day.  As the hours went by my sense that this wasn't the fit for me grew stronger.  I've always been good at recognizing that feeling.  The sense of something being a yes or a no for me.  I didn't see it happening.  It was feeling forced.  I knew this wasn't for me.  I felt like a square peg trying to force myself into a round hole.  I later realized that wanting to go to school right then wasn't truly what I wanted as much as I needed to fill a void.  Something was unsettled.  Unsatisfied.  I needed something else, something new.  I needed to change something.  That all became clear and worked out this year starting in the spring and taking me through this summer.  I know what it was all about.  All I'll say though in regards to school and if I see it in the future is no, I don't.  I know to never say never, but I don't see it happening.  And it doesn't feel like my truth or heart of hearts now. 

10.) If at some point in your life you had been wise enough to put together a time capsule, and you opened it today, what would you hope to find?
I don't feel old enough to be opening a time capsule filled with treasures.  If I live to be an old woman, ask me then.  Right now youth and childhood don't seem far enough away.  I still have access to very vivid and what feels like recent memories of objects.  And I still own the things that would possibly go into the capsule.  My parents have many in their storage unit.  My precious childhood stuffed animals live there.  So do a pair of pink doc martens from high school.  I have my Nintendo systems from the 80's and the 90's.  So...my time capsule is still too fresh to be amazed and surprised by, if that makes sense. 


Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

Nothing true can be forced

This came to me the other morning when I woke up and I made it my facebook Facebook status.  I wanted to share it here, as well:


"The older I get and the more I experience I see how impossible it is to ever pass judgement on another human being. We can only ever experience life from our point of view. Only we (the individual) will ever know our deepest thoughts, what our inner voice whispers (even when we don't want to hear it), what our heart truly wants. 

Sometimes living your truth looks different than others want it to, or even you want it to. But one thing I know, is that the inner voice doesn't go away. You can listen to it. You can follow it. I promise. Sometimes unexpected events transform you into a new person. There is then a choice. You can stay the same and attempt to adapt, or you can let go and invite new teachers into your life, while thanking the old. Sometimes you stay and try your hardest to adapt, but it isn't meant to be. 

Nothing true can be forced in life. Gratitude, truth and forward momentum is the name of the game. And everything done with love."


I'm constantly learning lessons in Gratitude.  The other night I fell asleep with tears of gratitude in my eyes.  Crying myself to sleep, and I've never been happier.


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Thanks for reading, 

Deena Marie

August to August.

The way we experience time is funny.  I've brought that up a lot here.  Why a a day with the same amount of hours in it as the one before can fly by or never end.  We are in control of how time passes.

I don't like to measure in time, yet dates always get me.  I'm very aware of anniversaries.  I'm not talking birthdays or relationships, but the other life markers.  My life is full of sensitive, beautiful, tragic dates.  Most of which you'll never know about.  You can't, because only I can experience them.  This is my point of view.  It is my story to live...but sometimes to tell.  

Right now it's 10:27 on August 11th.  It's Sunday.  Last year this day was a saturday night.  I remember it clearly.  I remember what I was wearing.  I remember what that night held.  What it meant.  

The next day, August 12, 2012 the universe shifted me once again.  I took photos on that day.  

I love capturing everything in a photo, in a blog entry, in a poem. 

You will never know my sadness in those photos.

Or if you know me well, look closely and maybe I'm not fooling you at all.

What a difference a year makes.  That seems to be a recurring theme in this blog.

On this day last year, or on that Sad Sunday if you would have asked me if I could have imagined my life being what it is now, today, in 2013 I never ever would have believed you.  

I am still speechless.  

I am still somewhat scared I am living in a dream.  

I am still learning that it's okay to let myself experience my truth and my happiness, 

entire.  

I am still seeing examples all around me of synchrodestiny in this tailor made universe, and the sense that we are all not only safe, but just where we are supposed to be in a grand scheme deepens.  

You belong.  I belong.

I feel it.  I feel loved.  I feel wanted.  I am.

That's all for now.  

10:37.  Ten minutes.  

Thank you...

Thank you...

Gratitude.  

""Even if I now saw you only once, I would long for you through worlds, worlds." 
- Izumi Shikibu"

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Deena Marie 

What is an Enlightened Relationship?

Below is a snippet taken from a blog titled - The Moksha Express: What is an Enlightened Relationship?  by Laurie Frazier.  Click to read the whole beautiful entry.

I'm not dependent on my partner's physical presence to feel connected.  Because of the relationship and connection we have recognized and consciously created, we *feel* each other through time and space and sometimes lifetimes.  We realize that separation is an illusion - that time and/or distance apart has no bearing on our connection to each other.  

Under this system, I love who you are and I have no need to attempt to change you.  If we no longer resonate, we simply and joyfully go our separate ways.  I have no need to try to control you or own you.

You and I are both FREE to stay or go...there is no binding contract hand-cuffing us together for better or for worse.  All that keeps us together is pure love, interest, passion, peace, harmony.

I invite you to go deep and do the personal work necessary to create amazing, conscious, enlightened relationships.  A few things to remember: 

1.) You must be that which you seek.

2.) The most important enlightened relationship you can have is with yourSelf

3.) It's ALL worth it.

4.) It's a work in progress.

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Deena Marie

I think, therefore...

I'm on the freeway and I'm taking a minute to think about the magnitude of the universe.  I see it in my minds eye.  I start with my center of awareness and expand from there.  I see the pale blue dot called Earth.  I see how tiny it is.  I try in vain to keep expanding my view.  I know (although I don't really know) it's too big to every honestly comprehend.

I consciously like to remind myself daily of how big the scale is.  How small we are.  I like to remind myself of the fluke that we are.  That we still have a long way to go.  We've only gotten started.  This never fails to reset me.  It calms and comforts me.  I accept my place in time and all is bearable.  Dare I say, good.

I also think about something that's been in my head the last few days, and that's wondering why I experience my consciousness and awareness from the point of view of what those on earth know as Deena Marie.  This body.  This particular time in the history of the world.  This life.  Why this? Is it random? Or is it perfectly matched?

I think about how a man and a woman can create a human life, and how that means suddenly a new consciousness comes spinning into being.  Bam.  Just like that.  This leads me to struggle to remember the exact Rumi quote, "we come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."  

I then realize it's not even 10 am and this is what I've spent my first few hours thinking about on a monday morning.  Then I think about the Frida Kahlo quote, "I used to think I was the strangest person in the world.  But then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed int he same ways I do.  I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.  Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you."

I'm suddenly inspired to keep track of my thoughts through the day and decide to ask my friend JayC to do the same, and put it in a blog that we could both post tomorrow.  I think he'll dig the idea, I think it'll make a great joint post and I guess that he's probably already had a million ideas, deep thoughts, or profound moments this morning as well.

It's been coming and going for the last few days.  My suddenly remembering I'm driving a personalized car with not only my name on it, but three cartoon faces of me, and a unicorn.  I'm struck with the words, "this is my lot in life."  I find this so funny.  My life has always thrown me unexpected and strange turns.  Who gets to do these kinds of things? I do.  Why? Who knows.  But I'll take it.  It fits.

I get into the building where I've been headed and it's cold.  I start thinking about how soon it will be fall.  How last summer was the worst of my life and while this one has certainly come with it's share of surprises and transitions, it's also been the best in many ways.  A dream come true.  How I only have August now and that's it.  Done.  I'm already starting to mourn the sun and this summer and prepare for the nostalgia and melancholia that only fall can bring me.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to rush it.  I don't mean to rush.

This reminds me of being a little girl and discovering for myself the concept that as soon as we're born we start to die.  Sure I'm growing up, growing older, but I'm dying every day.  This didn't make me sad, it just made sense, and I didn't understand why people didn't like to teach this or to think of life that way.

Despite the dying and the rushing, I never have nor will I ever consider myself a pessimist.  It's just that I want more of everything, always.  I am better at being in the moment nowadays more often than not, but I just want more...time.  That's what it is.  More time to savor.  I want to savor.

I'm aware I'm thinking poetically again and I like that.  I'm getting back to the me that I am at the core, when I'm not covered up by too much of the goings on around me.  I'm settling in once again after another storm of change that kept me swept up over the last few months.

I think about how open I am now.  How if last year hadn't cracked me open and rebuilt me, I wouldn't be who I am today to receive what I'm being given and know how to deal with it.  The dark and light.  I've been braver than I ever thought possible and I feel the difference in what I'm doing now.  It's living.

I'm not existing, I am living.

Manifestation.  That word keeps bubbling up.  I'm contemplating.  Thinking that the old cliche, "be careful what you wish for" is absolutely true.  It may look different.  It may not come at the moment you think it should, but if you manifest it, get ready to live it.

I also think about manifestation in another way.  How holding too much in for too long, and never letting it out manifests itself physically.  Months of anxiety attacks, dizzy spells and feeling at times like I was losing my mind are finally behind me.  Be careful.  It's okay to let it out.  And follow your heart.  Listen, listen, listen.  Hear that voice? You can follow it.  I swear to god.  You can.

An F. Scott Fitzgerald quote comes up, "there are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice."  Each love I've experienced brings out a different version of me.  It molds me ever so gently.  It is a delicate difference.  It turns me up in some areas, and turns me down in others.  I love differently each time.  I am so different as I awaken.  I am better at love as time goes on.  At loving.  At being loved.  At recognizing the right, or best, love for me.

That evening I find myself at a read through.  How strange it seems to me that I get to do this.  That this is what fuels me in this life.  That when I leave, I leave happier, having been surrounded by creative folk I very much admire in this community.  How smart they are, I think.  How lucky I am, I think.

Later, it hits me that the key to my feeling happier overall has to do with the word yes.  Over the last few months the yeses have replaced the nos.  It's been so slight it took a minute for me to see it.

Delicate differences.  Molding me ever so gently.  I tune into my truth a little more each day.  I am getting better at this life thing as time goes on.

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Deena Marie

One Year. May 27th.

One year ago yesterday I went to work.  I called them ahead of time to give them a heads up I might need to leave, should I get a call from my mom.  If I got the call, the call, I would know it was serious.  Serious enough to go.  A couple hours in I thought I was in the clear.  Then the phone rang.

I remember what I was wearing.  A black tank top, black blazer, black tights, black flat slip on shoes and a stretchy pink skirt.  I had a gold owl necklace and my long red hair was in curls, parted down the middle.

What was unusual was the winter parka.  My biggest and warmest, and needed this May 26th.  I ran to my car, or tried.  The weather made it hard.  The wind.  The gloom.  Was it raining? And the slipping.  Slipping all down a sidewalk the length of one long city block.  Berries had fallen off the trees overhead and it was so slippery.  I shuffled and slipped and surprisingly didn't fall the whole way to the parking garage.

I think the sun was out at times during my drive on the freeway.  I kept talking to him, out loud even, telling him to hang on.

What I remember most is the sound of his breathing.  Labored and loud and unlike anything I'd ever heard.  I remember the circle of family around his bed.  It was strong and safe and sacred unlike anything I'd ever felt.  The wind was getting louder.  The universe was howling and orchestrating for our story.  It was crying for us.  It was taking him.

"Seven Spanish Angels" was played over and over.  I don't know if I will ever listen to that song again.  When my family began to tell him to "Go to God" I don't know if it was the fact they were releasing him, or the thought of not knowing what was meant by talk of this God that bothered me more.

I slept, the wind screamed, and the circle around him was the eye of the storm.  I've never felt so solid as in that space and so aware of the elements out of control around us.  We would not budge.

I went home.  I woke up in peace the morning of May 27th, in sunshine, the earth had stopped spinning wildly and it was silent.  Purple pajama pants.  A flannel shirt.  My hair was still long, still in curls.  I was on my way back.  Back to the same, I was sure.  But this time it was different.  I would never go back to the same.  What had been was no more, and just like that, it was over.

I'm stopping here for now, as I've exhausted this story for one year.  One year today.  I don't know what I expected to feel, what I should feel, or even how I feel.  I am here, you are here, he is not.  It feels like yesterday.  It feels like this morning.  Yet a lifetime passed me, taught me, broke me, and healed me in this year.  The year of firsts.

The year of firsts is now complete.

Maybe that's all there is to say today.

Thumbs Up

This is the month.  On the 27th it will be the one year mark.  One year since Chuck left.  There's one story I've had and haven't been able to share.  I've wanted to, I just couldn't write it.  I wanted it documented and out in the word but could never find my own words to tell it.  So, I asked my mom.  It took her awhile to be able to do it, but over the weekend, she did.  Here is a very special story in her beautiful words.  May is definitely going to be about honoring our Chuck.

Thumbs Up

I want to share with you a small moment in my family’s life, that made a huge impact! Maybe I should say a moment between my daughter and my brother.  My handsome, humorous, brother Chuck, left us last May. So here we are at almost a year, still contending with shooting pains in our hearts.

What a unique guy my brother was, and I mean that in a most loving way.  Chuck was the prankster of the family, how he came up with some of the jokes he pulled on us is still a mystery.  We were his personal guinea pigs! This teasing also extended to his nieces and nephews.

I’ve told Deena she takes after her uncle Chuck that way.  The have the same humor, and they shared an invisible, mighty bond. 

Chuck was so proud of Deena, from the day she was born, until his last minutes on this earth.

As I ride that hideous roller coaster of sadness, certain memories linger.  One of my favorites happened while he was in the hospital for the last time.

Chuck was rushed by ambulance to the emergency on May 10^th, 2012.  He would be in the hospital for the next two weeks, all but one of those days in the ICU.  There the medical staff hovered over him and did their difficult jobs, and there were many.

Now my Chuck, this bigger than life guy, was on the brink of death.  He lay in his hospital bed, intubated and unconscious.  He was our sleeping giant.  This was a hard part for my family, we hugged and cried and dealt with our crumbling hearts. 

I existed in my stupor, wearing boots made of lead, seeing through gray lenses, and carrying an internal ball of fear.

That was how I functioned last May. 

Around the fourth or fifth day, the doctors decided it was time to wean him off his medications.  This would help determine how sick he really was.  This is the time the silent worry began, if he did wake up, would he be our same Chuck? Had he been oxygen deprived?

The nurses encouraged us to talk to Chuck and touch him during this time.  He began to turn his head toward the sounds of voices.  Or any loud noise.  He became restless, letting a leg hang off his bed.  But we needed more! Please Chuck, just open your eyes! Please give us a sign!

This process lasted maybe two days, it felt like years. 

Deena was on her way to the hospital when I suddenly had this feeling or premonition.  There was going to be a connection between Deena and Chuck! I JUST KNEW! Deena knew it too, she felt it as she walked down the hospital corridor. 

Deena walked into the room, stood at the foot of his bed, and said, “Hi Chuck”.  He raised his arm in the air and gave a big Thumbs Up! Oh my god! Did he just give us our sign?! He had reacted to her after all! I KNEW IT! That darn thumb caused so much emotion and elation at the same time!

Deena and Chuck were truly connected!

My mom burst out crying, which caused a slight domino effect.  But they were tears of joy!

Later mom would say it reminded her of a fairy tale, when the Prince awakens the Princess.  In our case, it was the niece, that woke her uncle!

I can only tell you, that in my minds eye, I relive this miracle moment, over and over. 

And so, to my daughter and big brother, I give you both, a Thumbs Up!

- Lauren Manzanares 

April, 2013

Jacque Fresco

"I make more mistakes than anybody I know, 'cause I try more things.  There's nothing wrong with building something and finding out that it doesn't work.  This is where you get your experience.  There's nothing wrong with criticism...

...all of us stand on the shoulders of one another.  And we shape the future."

Jacque Fresco
creator of The Venus Project

I discovered him today and have been watching clips of his talks and interviews on YouTube.  I strongly suggest you do the same.

Listen with an open mind to his thoughts on government, money, religion, god, science, democracy, socialism, communism, depression, language, why a utopian society is impossible, invention, groups of people around the world, land, our history, and our future.

I know this post is a little general, but there really is just too much I'd like to say.  Much more than I can write.  It's just so comforting to find what aligns with your soul, isn't it? While watching I've teared up, clapped, and cheered.

Here's a good place to start: US Has Never Been a Democracy 

Made of Stars

When I'm asked about my religious beliefs, it's hard for me to answer.  Simply because I don't know that there's an existing label that fits, nor do I find the vague answer of "I'm spiritual", satisfying or informative.  I can claim New Age more than anything, as I don't dig dogma.  I can tell you I lean toward Eastern Philosophy.  That I find a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism both beautiful and sensical. That maybe a part of me deep down feels like we can't be anything other than agnostic.  That I believe all religions are true, because they are all someone's truth, meaning it's their reality and their right to believe what they need to believe to guide and comfort them through their human experience.  That "if there is only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" That "we are all just walking each other home".

But maybe the pairing of words that ring truest for me are a combination I came up with myself back when I was writing my speech for the funeral for my uncle Chuck, last May.  I called myself a Spiritual Scientist.  I feel the most comfort and the deepest sense of truth in my Scientific Spirituality leanings and learnings.

Funny enough, my deepest sense of home, truth, soul, magic, absolute wonder, view of humanity, and comfort have come from science.

Some people come to Earth with minds so ahead of their time.  We are so lucky that sometimes they not only choose to share their thoughts and knowledge, but find themselves with a vocation or status to do so.  Like Carl Sagan.  Nothing has opened me up quite like his influence of understanding the universe, or of finding and trying to endlessly understand our origins.

So much so, I recently tattooed "star stuff" on my arm to serve as a reminder that we are so much more than these physical bodies and will be so much more again when they expire.  Literally.  As much as I'd love to think our consciousness goes on, and I'll wake up time and time again as something else (and even feel as if that's what I've always done) right now the literal is comfort enough.  The thought of recycling.  Reincarnation in the most literal sense.

It's enough that I can look into the sky and know I'm looking into my origins.
Ancestors.
My future.

Nothing else has ever brought me a deeper feeling of complete and total spirituality.

We are Literally Made from Stars

by Gerald Grow

---

I was moved by an editorial about how the Hubble telescope is showing us the immensity of the universe. With our sun one among 50 billion stars in our galaxy, among more than 50 billion galaxies, it is easy to think of ourselves as lost on a speck in space. 

Indeed, one common outcome of modern education is the widespread feeling that we humans are forever separated from the rest of the universe by unimaginable distances, and that the forces operating in the universe are utterly alien to us. 

Spiritual traditions give us ways of feeling connected with the universe. I want to remind you of another, scientific, way of feeling connected to the stars. 

The same science that reveals to us the vastness of the universe also tells us another story: Astronomers explain that all the elements heavier than hydrogen originated inside stars. The carbon in the ink on a page, and the silicon in glass and microchips, were created in the heart of a star, long ago, as that star shined by fusing hydrogen. The iron that carries the oxygen in your blood as you read this, was created when a star, in its dying phase, exploded. 

You and I are not merely separated from the galaxies by unimaginable immensities of space; we are also connected to them by unimaginable immensities of time. We are literally made from stars. We are their descendants. The only difference between us and stars is time. 

I don't know how this way of looking at things strikes you, but it raises in me an absurdly wonderful sense of celebration, and I look at the night sky not with a sense of hopeless separateness, but with a feeling of kinship: There shine the origins of every element in our bodies. Because stars exist, I exist. The processes that created those billions of unimaginably distant galaxies also created us. 

We human beings are not separate from the universe. Those galaxies are not merely distant--they are distant cousins. 

With this in mind, I urge you not to miss the nightly wintertime rising of Orion in the Southeastern sky, followed by the star, Sirius, flashing red, blue, and golden light. Or the summer rising of Scorpio across the Southern sky, with red Antares burning at its heart. 

That is a kinship worth celebrating. 

John P. Shanley

John P. Shanley the playwright has the best Facebook updates of anyone.  Ever.

I didn't know when I saw you that you were engraved in me forever. Before they built the house where we first embraced, the land there waited for our arrival like a mother. I watch white clouds fall from the sky. The sea hesitates between tides. The sun itself seems uncertain. There is a gathering up of the powers. What is this finite silence that fills me with dread? It's not the future I fear. It is Now. Bring me Tomorrow.

The energies that govern us, come from us. The greater energies that we witness from our own obscurity, confirm an overarching Spirit.

When the prison is invisible, the escape may also be invisible.

On my way to you, I walked through a rare perfume. It conjured a night undone by days. What makes us too weak to forge a destiny? Why did you let me go? Why did I set you free?

What you leave out is the story.

The first daffodils escape the earth. A prison opens up its gates. Spring breaks free. That heavy heart rushes out towards the sun. You are forgiven.

What do you want? Love? You have it. Oh, you want to give it? Then do. But give it to those who want it. Don't impose your love., for love imposed is not love at all; it's pain you'd like to shed. But what should you do with your pain that's not an imposition? Jump into the sea and worship life.

7:04

At 7:04 on March 27th, Mars sent down his child to occupy earth.
Spun into solid in the form of daughter she would temporarily belong
to one Lauren and Claude.
Bursting into being, she took her first breath between screams
louder than the average baby.
This 8 lb 8 ounce space traveling freedom fighter had not one moment to spare.

What she knew instantly, was that her bones were made of poetry
and her soul of the fire from her home planet.
She was also old.  This she knew best.  She was weary and worn.
The journey had been long.

She saw children as children and recognized herself only as the wise sage
who had just been sent back, now housed inside this tiny five year old body.
As for the scar on her cheek, she wondered how it would look as she grew.
It faded and vanished and as she got older, and her old age faded too.

She began to adapt and blend into humanity and forget
that in the beginning she knew all.
Nearly forgotten were the endless summer evenings outside
wondering why she was so old and how everything was so clear,
and the way it felt as the end of the last was reconciling itself with the start of the new.

Decades passed and her youth caught up to her
with a tap on the shoulder and a seep into her skin.
She would now temporarily belong.

Her way would be lost, but she would always find it a year or two later in the same orbit
when the time was right, for nothing had ever really gone away at all.

It had only moved.
Out of reach.
For a time.

She would take the form of wife.  And in the future she knew, mother.
And along the way, the alchemy inside the vessel would match
the movement of the cosmos
and whisper with her soul to follow the omens.

And this is where the story stops.
For a minute.  Because this is all we know of it.
The journey will be long.
She is weary.  
But she will continue.  Space traveling, freedom fighting child of Mars.
Because she is young now.  And getting closer each round.

There is something here to do.  It pulls her closer a little more each day.
She temporarily belongs.  And when the final round is up,
the poetry and flames can finally dismember,
streaking the sky, moving onward and upward,
and home she goes to rest.

Pieces

I came across a piece of paper with some bits of words and poetry while spring cleaning.  I wanted to hurry and put them here before I lost them for good.  I've been so busy lately with starting a new job, getting ready to go back to school, meeting with advisors, photo shoots, various other appointments, and filming for youtube.  My head is spinning! Nothing is ever spread out.  Life always feels full blast or standing still.

I'm also going to be writing more this year, and sharing it through spoken word on my youtube channel.  I'm very excited about this.  I've already put up my first.  I wanted to just do it and feel it out, with no outside influences.  Now that it's done, I'm ready to delve deep.  I've spent my day off watching some incredible online spoken word performances.  My learning has begun, and I'm off to see some locals next week.

I always have bits of poems and stories in me but I haven't had a chance to get them all out this week.  I managed the beginnings of something the other day and jotted it down before I left for work.

Here are the pieces of all of the above.  I think I'll start giving you pieces here more often.  When they come and I can catch them before they've gone.

You can translate however you like.

When you wonder how they might pertain...well...sometimes they mean nothing.

And sometimes they mean everything.


* * * * *
3.21.2013

Sometimes I am rendered immobile with worry
I will never be capable of loving anything
but the unattainable


* * * * *
2012

I feel in words.
I document as the only way I know how.
In poem.


* * * * *
Spring 2012 (probably April or early May)

So many pairs of eyes fixed upon a monitor of sorts
that none of us can read or speak or translate
to any sort of comfort or explanation
I cannot take my eyes off my mother.
I see her as she must have ben at five.
She is a child.
Right down to the ponytail she wears
at her big brothers bedside.
We wait.
One collective breath.
This room is so full.
So silent and so full.
The air is rich.
Absolutely rich with memories.
It is palpable.

* * * * * *

11:11 Awakening

My mind is blown right now.

If you're a loyal reader of my blog, then you've followed my personal awakening and spiritual journey for the last few years.  You've seen my references to the date my journey began.  I talk about how I knew it one day, how my inner voice said, "mark this date.  Things are about to change.  Here we go."  

The date was April 11, 2011. 

As I've become more immersed with literature and conversation with like minded folks and fellow new age souls, I've recently (and I mean only within the last couple weeks recently) started to see and hear people refer to 11:11 as the code of awakening.  

Wait a minute.  

I just went back through my blogs and not only did I mention the significance of 4/11/11 to me here (as well as other entries) but I found another entry where I wrote about getting a fortune cookie on 4/10/11 that said, "you will be showered with good luck tomorrow."  And I certainly was.  The next day would mark my most important journey.  

I'm only now beginning to delve into the meaning behind 11:11.

Even though next month is my three year anniversary, I still have a long way to go. 

I am both shocked, comforted, awestruck, and yet it doesn't surprise me in the least.

One of my favorite things I found tonight is, "...similar to other phenomena like street lights going out when you go by. They just let you know underneath the facade of the physical world, there is magic at work, and it's wanting to play with you." 

Off to learn more...

Deena Marie 

Her name was Athena

There once was a little girl named Athena.
Formed in a star, created in eternity.
She came to live on Earth sometimes, and always found it difficult.
For you see, she simply didn't fit.
She carried too much recycled warrior stardust to pack neatly into human form.
The parts inside were just too big.
Ancestor tapestry of Sylvia Plath, Carl Sagan, Joan of Arc 
seemed at times the perfect, albeit unfortunate, melancholia.
Although lightly pinned together, she is trapped.
A temporary purgatory of constant fighting, forging, blazing,
It is relentless.  She must push through.
Until she returns once more, parts scattering,
releasing, before she becomes something else.
She longs for the day when she'll feel it again,
The freedom of the in between...home.
Where she belongs.
In the sky.
The galaxy's aching poet child can do nothing,
or she can do everything...while she waits.


- Deena Marie  3.11.2013

Wanting the impossible.

I've been thinking about "the impossibilities of judging another" for nearly 24 hours now.  It started with a comment I made on a Facebook post that got my thoughts swirling and my words forming, and now here I am.  With something much bigger than I originally intended to post.

Over the course of life you learn to never say never.  I can't stress how important this mantra has become to me.  And crucial.  Over time, you will find yourself in situations you never in a million years thought you'd be in, or could have ever planned for.  Planning, in fact, is a large part of the problem.  Planning is a trick and often has the reverse effect of what the intentions behind it are.  If you make a plan from which you tell yourself you cannot waver, any unexpected event or roadblock will only cause you grief.

Plans can of course be good.  It means you have an idea of what you want and what you're interested in.  That is, if it's your plan and not someone else's plan for you.  It means you're tuning in.  You're following your instincts and following your heart.

But the most important things of all when planning, are flexibility and adaptability.  That's the secret.  All the things you tell yourself when you're a teenager and in your early twenties (when you are one hundred and fifty percent sure of who you are, what you stand for, and all you'll ever want to be) only belong to a version of you.

You know the time you wait for (that you know one day will magically come) when you're finally a grown up, and you'll know how to be an adult? And what to do, and how to do it just like you see your parents do? It never comes.

It's all one big experiment up until our physical body expires.  An experiment for you, your parents, for anyone you've ever known or will know.

We're all making it up as we go along and doing our best for what is right for the version we are at any given moment in time.

As you grow and gather along the way all the unexpected, transformative, huge, and traumatic experiences that add to the sum of who you are, you realize just how impossible (and not only impossible but completely nonsensical) it is to ever judge another.

See, we never know what we're capable of until we're forced with the thing we swore we'd never have to do, or the situation we knew could never happen to us.

There's that word again.  Never.  Never say never.

If, or more importantly when, these lessons arise, be gentle with yourself.  Forgive.  It will wound you but it doesn't have to ruin you.  It feels for awhile like a betrayal to who we thought we were or who we wanted to be, finding ourselves in that spot that happen to other people but never to us.

Acceptance is crucial.  Accept simply that "we don't know what it is we don't know."  And that the same is true for any human, at any moment.  There is only sympathy.  There is only compassion.  The more you surprise yourself, survive, and age, the clearer this becomes.  That to judge another is impossible.  Everything you know to be true right now, can one day change by events in life that you'd never see coming.

You would want sympathy and understanding, and you certainly wouldn't want to be judged when it's you.  Why wouldn't everyone else want and deserve it, too?

Lately, when I see judgements passed it makes me sad.  A dull, deep, sadness.  I'm not sure why now, or why so sad.

Judging yourself or others is so small.  So incredibly small.  It comes from a small mind, a small world view, a small life, and keeps it small.  I do realize that judgement comes from a place of simply not knowing.  There should be compassion for that concept alone, and I'm trying.  But it hurts.  I'm not even talking about or being spurred on from any recent personal experience.  Just from observation.

Maybe it's because more than ever I am aware and understand that every fiber in me craves the opposite.  I choose big.  I want the biggest mind I'm capable of.  The biggest life with every possible experience.  The answers and opportunities to explore from getting the knowledge I'm seeking.  It's on full force within me.  The volume is up.

I've also been slowly but surely trying to wrap my head around and notice that our thoughts have everything to do with our happiness.  Our reality and how we perceive and experience the world.  Judging is negative.  Even if you don't realize it, the negative energy adds up.  Not only do others sense the negativity and instinctually avoid you, but it drains you.  And you aren't as happy.

The question I  keep coming back to when thinking about this is, "how can you judge what you don't know?" You don't know the decisions someone has had to make that they never wanted to, or planned on.  How can you tell anyone outside of yourself what is right? Or wrong?

It's like the Carl Sagan quote, "If you want to make apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."  For someone to explain "why" they are the way they are to someone judging them for it, they would have to start with the moment of birth, and then every experience they've ever had, and the impact of every person they've ever encountered so you could understand what has shaped them into who they are up until that point.  But actually, then you'd need to go further back.  You'd have to explore the lives of the parents that birthed them.  Then their parents, and their lives, and their parents, their lives, and so on.

But here's the other thing.  No explanation is necessary.  To anyone outside of yourself.

You are enough.  You do what you can, with what you have, where you are, today.

If more people understood that, there would be more sympathy and less judgement.  Sure we all believe what we believe is right.  We may even think we need to spread messages to sway other people in to our beliefs or lifestyles.  But I'd like to suggest another way.  I think there's simply the way of sharing what we know.  I've said it a million times, we are each others teachers.  It's crucial.  What if instead of  preaching what we know is right or true, we just gave? What if we just share who we are, who we've been, and who we're becoming, and let others interpret and take from it what they will? And what if this sharing of the self came from a only a place of love? Of compassion? Of expecting nothing in return? Of a judgement free place.

What I realize is I am seeking the people who are big.  In mind, in heart, and in life.  The teachers.  The lifters.  The inspirations.  I want to surround myself with those who have the most knowledge.  The biggest minds.  The most open of hearts.

Those who will help me in spreading compassion.

There is only compassion.
There is only love.

Compassion and love bring unity.

We are all one.



Thanks for reading


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