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.

Instagram me

Ford Fiesta Movement 

Thanks for reading,

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


My life in pictures: http://instagram.com/deena_marie/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDeenaShow
Video: http://www.youtube.com/beanerlarue

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The Meteor

Right now a meteor is passing above us.
Above you, above me.
Above the blue planet everyone you have ever known or heard of dwells.

Can you feel it? 
Can you feel the stir of the cosmos?

I long to see past the sky beyond the blue and into the infinite
I try to imagine the rush, the sound, the look, the spinning, even the smell

Ancestor in motion,
I wish I could meet you.

Sun pierced

When the sun peeks through and lasts the day
When it's finally too warm for my mittens
And I feel the slightest bit of sweat under my coat on the back of my neck
It begins to feel as though spring really will come,
And I will once again believe even though
I forget the miracle each and every year

Two oppositions being to stir in me.
I feel both claustrophobia, trapped by my physicality and yet
I remember I am limitless

I long to shapeshift, to leave my human form

In spring I can reset myself
My youth encompasses me
And I am freed

When you are meant to be everyone
and do everything,

nothing is ever enough

Short Hair don't care.

I did a NAHA shoot last month.

Yup, this means I changed my hair AGAIN.  I have some great behind the scenes photos I can't post.  The sneak peeks I got of the actual shoot are outta this world.  I can't wait for the reveal.  I wanted to show the new hair transition so I made the shots from the day of the shoot black & white and didn't show too much so you can't see the color my hair was, or the makeup, or any other details.

In my aim to have no attachment to my hair, I decided to go with the flow of what comes.

You know what? I really like having short hair and especially having some part of it shaved.  It feels rebellious against the standard of beauty we have had in our society for so long,  but that standard is definitely changing.  It's such an exciting time for women with what's becoming the norm for our hair (that sounds much more archaic than I hoped, but you know what I mean :) ).

I LOVE the current short hair trends.

Here's the latest transformation to pixie on the top, party in the back :)

Follow me on INSTAGRAM :)

At the beginning, there was...

Have you ever felt like your life was just about to begin?

I am standing at the precipice of a great beyond.  I am not scared.  I have been led by everything I've ever done, every experience I've ever had, and everyone I've ever known to get to this very spot.

I had no idea how many times we can be reborn in the course of one physical life.  Sometimes it is involuntary.  Sometimes it is a conscious decision.  Sometimes one leads to the other.

I am buzzing from head to toe.  I am a flutter.  Something is happening in me and around me and I knew this was the year for it to be so.

I want to shout from the rooftops all of my plans and all of the new directions I'm about to take.

I craved these changes for the last few years but didn't recognize what it was I needed, and often found the wrong thing.

Everything in its time.  When things align, when we learn the right lessons, when we begin to awake...only then we know what is calling us and what direction to take.

I will be a new person.

The old skin is shed.

I don't think I've been this excited for what is next.  I can't believe what lifting your limits, tuning in, and truly following your heart can do.

When things don't feel right, they simply aren't big enough for you.  Keep seeking.  Let the universe be your guide.  You wont go wrong.

I could never have guessed I'd be who I am and wanting what I want right now.  But I couldn't feel a stronger sense of right.

There is so much more to life that I'm supposed to explore.  When the world opens for you, you want to laugh and cry and tell everyone you know just how limitless we are.

I don't know if this is coming off vague, maybe.

Obviously I've been talking about really big life changes a lot.  I can't wait to dive in.  I can't wait for all of them to be official.

I get a lump in my throat thinking of all the new possibilities...

Near-death experiences occur when the soul leaves the nervous system and enters the universe, claim two quantum physics experts

What used to be "enough" for me before, simply isn't anymore.  :)

More later.

Everything in its time.