Tag: Friendship

The Universe

When I searched Universe on dictionary.com, this is what came back.
*NOUN
(the universe)
  1. all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. The universe is believed to be at least 10 billion light years in diameter and contains a vast number of galaxies; it has been expanding since its creation in the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago.

When you break the word into it’s corresponding parts you get the following:

*Uni- one; having or consisting of one.

*Verse- denoting an area of activity or interest or a section of society distinguished by a particular characteristic. <there are many definitions of verse relating to poetry and writing, but they simply don’t apply to what I’m trying to discuss in this post.>

What does Uni- Verse really mean though? One place. One activity. Singular. The only one. There are some theories about multi-verses, but honestly I just don’t know enough about that sort of stuff to posit an educated response to them. So for the purpose of this entry, I am going to focus on One-Ness.

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As a spiritual being, I call our Source, or what other people refer to as God, The Universe. It is the place from which we all came. The startdust, the energy, the “matter” from which we are all part of and connected to, was found in the cosmos before we were created. If you believe in Intelligent Design, or the Big Bang… we were all born out of “nothingness” and created into “somethingness”. What we do with this precious life we’ve been granted, is entirely up to us to create.

What do you spend your time creating? I choose to create a life filled with love, harmony, gratitude, respect, dignity, protection, service, honesty, tenacity, diligence, and so many more things. All of them are positive and focused on being the best person I can be, and doing everything in my human power to teach and guide and love those around me. I am constantly left in awe of the human spirit and tenacious ability to overcome adversity. We are such marvelous creatures and we can do anything. We simply have to believe it, and stop at nothing to do it.

The singularity, the one-ness that we all share is often called the collective conscious or humanity. But I believe that it is so much deeper than that. I genuinely believe that we are all interconnected. By the stardust and the energy that flows through us, we are connected with everyone and everything that has ever been created. We are part of the earth, the trees, the fish, the streams, the air, the cosmos. We are quite literally interconnected with all things, seen and unseen in the universe. It’s until we recognize this, that we feel separate, alone, and isolated. Until we realize that we could not be more wrong about being “individuals”, we will never truly reach our potential.

The potential for us to reach enlightenment, heaven, salvation… it’s the infinite, ultimate achievement. Or is it? Obviously, these questions are unanswerable by just a regular person like me. But it’s something to consider, without dogma attached. We need to consider how we behave on this plane of existence, and not concern ourselves with only the after-life, though. Because what we do here is what determines after-life in many faith traditions. You’re not guaranteed salvation if you’re a dick to people on earth, sorry to say. You will never reach the pinnacle of consciousness if you suck as a person. You cannot buy your way into heaven, not by tithing, not by playing lip service to the whatever. You have to be a good person to gain access to the good things we are promised by religion. If you don’t subscribe to a religion, that’s cool too. You’re still not allowed to be a dirtbag, a jerk, or any other sort of jackass. What you do on this planet affects us all. We are all interconnected. We are in this together, forever and ever. Remember this, and take it to heart. Everyone will be better for it, yourself included.

Thank you for reading.

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Long Division

How does one separate something that has taken years to build? It could have taken 2 years, or 20, but each day you added bricks and build a foundation, walls, windows… it develops into a fortress to protect you from the world. This fortress is supposed to be impenetrable. It shields all the inhabitants inside. So how, and where, does one even start to take it down? Do you burn the drawbridge? Trebuchet the shit out of the exterior? It’s hard to know, I guess. Circumstances often dictate the destruction of your fort.

But what do you do if you’re not mad, but have simply decided that this fort is shit, and you don’t want to live there anymore? Do you attempt to keep the status quo until arrangements change? Do you still burn the drawbridge and trebuchet the exterior? What about a volatile situation? What then? When inside the fortress is nothing but pure chaos, and there’s fires everywhere? How does one process getting everyone to safety? What does safety even look like, when you’re bed is in flames? Are there really any survivors? Nobody escapes totally unscathed, right?

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And there’s the long division. Strangely enough, if you never unpack, it’s easier to move. But now, we must sift through every. single. thing. to determine what belongs to whom, or who gets it in the dividing process. Then, there’s the others in the fortress… what becomes of them? The friends? You know everyone chooses sides, whether or not they consciously chose a side. Even family chooses sides, despite best efforts. It’s like we drew a line, and everyone decides which side they’ll forever stand on.

What I’ve determined is the worst of all, is the feeling of sudden emptiness. Loneliness. You once had a sounding board to share in your trials and triumphs with. Now, there’s friends or family, but it’s not the same. I want to share my joys and sorrows with someone who is in the fortress WITH me. We are fighting on the same side, in the same battles. People outside the fort, they just can’t appreciate the inner workings of your brain and heart, without first having to explain yourself. That is fucking exhausting. Constantly going over the same stuff, all the time. I just want to have my heart safely in the hands of someone I don’t have to “preface” with. New is positively exciting. Electric. But old, it’s comforting, familiar. That’s not to say I want a damn thing to do with this decaying rubble, but there’s something to be said for the familiar.

My heart aches for what it doesn’t have. My mind longs for a simple life. My intuition knows that this has expired and that it’s no longer home for me. Now what do I do with myself?

 

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Day 30- Gratitude Project 

I’m grateful for the time I get to spend with my bestie. We’ve got plans tonight for her birthday that was earlier this week. She’s a super busy single mom, working and going to school. 

But I’m grateful that she makes time for me, and that we are generally on the same wavelength. We are so much alike, but also so different. We make a great team and I’m so thankful for her and her influence on my life. She’s been with me through thick and thin for several years, we even have a side business together. 

She travels a lot for her day job, so we see each other pretty infrequently, but when we do, it’s like no time has elapsed. I’m incredibly fortunate and look forward to being crazy old ladies together. 

Happy birthday Hellvis. The best is yet to come!

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Ben Franklin was a wise guy, not to be confused with a wiseguy

From Ben Franklin’s Moral Chart- “SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”

From Ben Franklin’s Action-Inducing Lessons- “Energy and persistence conquer all things.”

So, what can we say about the amazing Ben Franklin? Aside from his affinity of making lists and inventing some amazing stuff, he was also very wise. While it’s rumored that he didn’t exactly follow his own advice, particularly when it came to women and booze, he worked towards ambitious and wholesome goals. Now you ask, how could this possibly have anything to do with my goals pertaining to “Right Speech“? Well, it’s funny you should ask… :)

Basically I went to my good friend’s graduation ceremony today (way to go Danielle!) it occurred to me that people are rude. Get a bunch of people in a very large room together and you’ll notice this more often than not. But the above quotes pertain directly to what I witnessed in that large room. People were chatting idly while the graduates, whom they didn’t know, were gracing the stage. When they did know a particular person, they were screaming and clapping wildly. I even saw people walking out after their grad walked the stage. Not only that, cell phones and inappropriate attire were EVERYWHERE. Now, I’m certainly no saint when it comes to dressing up at occasions or using my phone at the wrong time… I guess when it’s in public, I’m typically on my best behavior. While this pertains exactly to the portion of my list of goals that “people are not perfect”, people seem to just not give a crap unless it affects them directly. That, to me, is rude as hell. I want to believe that other people are not jerks. Constantly, I’m being proved incredibly wrong.

What I learned from today’s adventure in mixed company is that 1) Rude people are everywhere and it’s best to just ignore them before I blow a gasket, 2) You often don’t get a choice in life as to the kinds of people you are forced to be near, like at graduations, and families are included in this. Occasions such as weddings, birthdays and graduations are not necessarily for THAT person, it’s mainly for the friends and families of THAT person to celebrate the occasion. Which is often why people who suck are invited to those things and you and every other guest are forced to be in the same room with those people. 3) I am often one of the more sensibly dressed at special occasions. (Point in case: my grandfather’s funeral. My brother and I were among the best dressed and he was wearing tennis shoes. You can imagine the rest of the clan.) Today was an onslaught of flip-flops, white tank tops, shorts and dresses that were WAY TOO revealing, short, tight or all 3. I was embarrassed for them. And finally the 4th thing I realized from this experience: my graduation in December will be no different and my family is likely to be a participant in something others find objectionable. More than likely, it’ll be my brother F-bombing or insulting someone. :)

Then it dawned on me… As annoying as those people were as I was in the audience, people are people and we just have to not be so critical and keep our judging to ourselves. I regret commenting to my friend’s family about how some other audience members were dressed or behaving. It’s not my place to say anything about them. So for that test, I fail. But now I know… and in the words of GI Joe, “knowing is half the battle”.

(Above picture from: http://voiceseducation.org/category/tag/benjamin-franklin)

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