Keeping the Dream

I love this site. Gratefulness.org is a beautiful and inspirational site that is not only wonderful to browse, but to experience.

This is their stated purpose:

“To create a global network of people
whose spiritual practice – grateful living –
fosters personal fulfillment, ecological concern,
and action on behalf of peace and justice.”

My favorite part of their website is Lighting a Candle. It is incredibly peaceful, a sacred space in cyberspace.

You have The Right to Think your own thoughts, to have your own ideas, to hold your own beliefs – spiritual or otherwise and The Responsibility to Discern the truth, to research and analyze, to question and consider all possibilities, to recognize signs of deceit and manipulation, and take a stand against them in others and in yourself.

You have The Responsibility to Think, to use the mind you were given, to develop your ability to create new thoughts, hold new possibilities and envision new dreams and The Right to Discern, to empower yourself, to be responsible for what you believe, to decide what is right, to judge with wisdom, to know when to trust and when not to trust.

You have The Right to Speak your own mind using your own voice, to articulate your beliefs, express your opinions and convey your emotions, and The Responsibility to Be Accountable for your words, to speak the truth; to acknowledge your power, the impact you have through your words and to listen to ascertain what that impact is, to speak from as clean a place as possible.

You have The Responsibility to Speak to let others know how you feel, to be unambiguous, to speak out and take a stand against injustice, to speak out and take a stand for what’s right and The Right to Be Accountable, to own your own power, to refuse to let anyone make or keep you a victim; to utilize the power of choice and the empowerment of determining the meaning of your experiences; to learn and grow, to change and effect change in your world.

You have The Right to Live your dreams, to develop your potential in a way that blesses you and the world; to live creatively, successfully, to experience love and laughter and to receive the fullness and abundance of life and The Responsibility to Love the Earth and all her children – the elements, the plants, animals and people, including yourself; to care about the world you are a part of, giving of yourself and letting others give to you.ÂÂ

You have The Responsibility to Live your dreams, to live as if you mattered, because you do; to leave your mark, to express your spirit in such a way as to make this world – whether the world of one person or the world of many – a better place for you having been here and The Right to Love, to belong, to have a sense of community, family, to experience intimacy and tenderness, to know the joy of loving and being loved, to be a part of something greater.

You have the right and the responsibility, along with every other human being.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

I went to my first house concert last Saturday evening, and what a treat. Jody Kessler has been someone I’ve admired for quite a while, and I was thrilled to be able to not only hear her weave her magic through song, but to meet her in such an intimate setting.

Jody is like the four elements. She is definite earth energy. When you look at her there’s a sense of strong foundation. Her spirituality and love for humanity reaches out in her smooth and powerful voice, and you feel the presence of solid ground under your feet.

She is fire. Her passion for life, for truth and justice burns brightly. Her lyrics bring to our awareness through irony, a tad bit of sarcasm and no small amount of tenderness what we may not always want to see or consider.

Emotions flow like water as her fingers skip over strings of guitar, plucking and strumming away at your own heart.

And then there’s the wide expanse of sky, the places she can take you and your spirit soars with her or hovers gently with new perspectives each song offers you.

The next day, I went to a church service, and had the pleasure of hearing Rev. Jody Kessler, sing and talk and pray the wonderful teaching of interconnectedness of Thich Nhat Hanh.

People who follow their dreams, who live their dreams are an inspiration.

Jody is an inspiration to me.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

Good morning everybody. It’s cold outside, the feel of autumn turning its face to winter is in the air, and everything around me is crystal clear, and for some reason I feel the same inside…yet warm, too.

On some days I feel so alive. It’s a wonderment for someone who has spent most of her life numbed out.

So today, my prayer is that the numbness within goes away, sweeps away in a gentle flood of love. And it’s okay, if as life rushes in, I feel the initial pain like blood returning to fingers deprived of circulation.

I welcome it, because I know that as it does, I will be able to feel some of life’s almost imperceptible joys…like the soft skin of my child as I gently brush the hair from her face or the soft counterpoint melody line within a heavenly chorus. Those gifts of subtle moments, whispered moments , compassionate moments will be mine.

And today, I let my tears flow down my face, and give thanks for the sweet sorrow in my heart mixed with gratitude for what I am receiving and for what I have lost.

And today I wish for all my brothers and sisters to know in that sacred moment that comes when least expected, that they are loved…

Demian,
~DreamSinger

Twenty years ago, I had a dream. I dreamt of a person who hated me and I had returned that hate with my own animosity.

In my dream, she was standing there in front of me, facing me. As I looked at her, I realized I could see through her. Her abdomen was somehow transparent.

As I looked closer, I could see a child inside her. It kicked and screamed in a tantrum, but could not catch the attention of this woman. As I watched, I noticed there were other people standing around this woman, each one of them with transparent bellies, each one oblvious to the child within them.

A child whimpered in one. Another was bawling. Some children were angry and violent, others ghostly and still.

My view expanded like the widening of a camera angle, and I began to see hundreds, then thousands of grown people – a world full of people all transparent with children trapped inside them.

All I could do was watch with a horrid fascination. Then suddenly, I felt a pull to look down. I slowly lowered my eyes, and as I did, I had a sickening feeling that I would see my own child trapped inside. I could not bear to look at her pain…or look at her lookin up at me.

I woke up.

Dreams come and go, are notated in a journal or forgotten…this one has remained with me to this day. It still shakes me up, when I think of it, and it serves as a powerful motivation behind my desire to write and sing.

It has also had a powerful impact on how I see people I have conflict with…when I can get out of myself long enough to remember.

I wonder what happens to the child who gets the attention of the person they have become.

Someone once told me they didn’t want to deal with the stuff from the past, because they didn’t want to dwell on it. But it dwells in us, doesn’t it?

Maybe, we can take the time to draw our gaze down and inward. There might be someone who has something to tell us that we need to hear, and maybe we have something we’ve been waiting our whole life…living our whole life to tell them.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

If the wound is in your emotional self – and all real wounds are – you can’t rationalize it away, because it’s not a thought. It’s an emotion. A thought, a concept doesn’t wound anyone until it’s taken to heart, until its arrowhead finds its mark there and pierces your sense of self. And likewise, a thought, a concept doesn’t free anyone until it becomes an organic part of you, a part of your emotional reality.

While intellectual understanding is a good and necessary first step, it is only a step in the total process – not the end all. Until our emotional reality is in line with our intellectual one we’re still in the same room…perhaps with the door ajar, but still stuck in that same room.

For our thoughts can open doors and we can see what lies beyond those doors, but our emotions are our legs…or wings, and it is through them that we move forward to our freedom or stay put in our prison.

That is our point of healing. Emotional healing, and it occurs through Spirit – our spirit and the Spirit that is the energy and force of life, itself. Intellect can bring us understanding, and that understanding can be emotionally cathartic, but Spirit – in whatever way you perceive it – takes all that, adds itself to it and creates a wonderful synergy, which is the healing.

I believe all healing is spiritual – no matter what the catalyst or form it takes or how you would categorize it. All healing occurs on a spiritual level within the womb of compassion, the center of the heart…your heart.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

Our intellectual reality has wings…it can travel far and wide. Through your mind you can soar through the air viewing wide vistas of all the possibilities.

Our emotional reality is closer to the earth, doesn’t move as fast or as far. You have to contend with mountains and valleys. It’s an organic experience that has roots that go deep into your being.

I think it’s true that you can always see further than where you are capable of being. Perhaps this is what spurs us on in our growth and we eventually get there…to find that we can see even further from that perspective!

But it can also become a trap. Ironically, especially if we are on a healing path, because as we heal we become more aware!

The question is what do we do with that unfolding awareness on the journey of unfolding healing?

How easy it is to recriminate ourselves because we aren’t where we “should be” or don’t do what we understand in our heads we can do, but in our emotional being cannot do.

This really tripped me up for a long time. As the consequences of my labor came into fruition, as I looked back at previous choices, I began to judge myself…no, condemn myself for what I said I knew or should have known but didn’t act upon. I was burdened with heavy feelings of regret and my own sorrow tormented me, until a good friend pointed out the difference between the two realities – intellectual and emotional.

She made me realize that we are multi-dimensional beings, that there are varying levels of reality within our own being that need to be addressed before we can integrate the emotional and intellectual parts of our being, that if we are still wounded within our emotional selves our tendency will be to make choices with rationalizations and justifications to meet the unspoken and yet very strong and present hidden agendas of the unresolved spaces of our being.

I came to realize that my emotional reality had been too wounded, too heavy to follow through on what I knew intellectually. I still have regrets, but I now enfold them with compassion. I think it’s a good first step.

Demian,
~DreamSinger

Well, this past weekend was an interesting experience! I watched my grandson Friday night and then most of Sunday into the night. I wasn’t entirely on my own. His grandfather was there part of Friday and a good part of Sunday, and my eight year old helped out on Sunday as well.

And yes…I did have to recuperate… a bit.

He’s almost four months old and so incredibly alert and observant. He knows his name, and it’s wonderful to see that look of awareness and recognition when he looks at you and realizes you’re someone he knows.

Just because a child doesn’t have the ability to describe his experience doesn’t mean he isn’t aware. This is a reality, my grandson’s reality that is just as much a part of him as the other experiences he will have as he gets older, and will be better able to define and classify.

Right now, he communicates with his whole body. His arms and legs move when he’s excited or when he responds to whatever you’re saying. He leaves nothing out.

I think this is not only a stage in an infant’s life we need to respect, but a part of our mind, our whole experience we need to respect as well. To look at everything…to leave no part of our being out. Not everything is cognitive. In fact, much of healing occurs in those areas for which we have no words. But they are just as much a part of us, nonetheless.

Demian,
~DreamSinger