Pride and The New Norm: Equal Rights

I grew up IN JAMAICA in an African/British influenced household run by two lawyers; one, an atheist and the other, a practicing Catholic. We had a constant influx of visitors from around the world, many of whom hosted us in their homes when we traveled.  Among our guests were committed gay couples who are together to this day. 

Because of how my parents socialized me - it frankly never occurred to me that there was anything different or untoward about "Auntie and Auntie" or "Uncle and Uncle" compared with "Auntie and Uncle".
(Note: In my culture - out of respect we address our elders as "Auntie" and "Uncle"  even when they are not blood relatives.) 
They were our family of friends and THAT was THAT.

In all the years that followed when living out in the World and encountering other view points - I was constantly shocked that anyone saw my Aunties and Uncles any differently because they were gay.  Being a total ham and hag - I amassed my own gay friends, and many, and frankly felt no need to explain this to the few confused objectors in my life - except to point out that their philosophy of love was flawed if they missed the beauty of a soul based on righteous principle. 

Without realizing that I had inherited a wide emotional girth of activism from my parents, this issue almost immediately spilled onto the pages of the first college papers I wrote with indignant vehemence. (Along with issues of global acceptance of multiculturalism and the legalization of weed.)  I argued that couples in the #LGBTIQ community had the right not only to marry, but to adopt children.  I smile at this now, as adoption was at issue for gay couples in the late 90s; just this year I attended the baptism of two beautiful natural children of a gay friend…just to illustrate our growth since then. 

Every #pridemarch I've gone to in different cities, or to conferences I've been lucky enough to attend, I strongly believed of course in the fight for #equalrights and supported it with a clear heart, but I must admit that I wondered how this would work in a World so bent on the isms and religions which pronounce what is right or wrong.  In the last year especially, I confess to an unusual phase of quiet that came over me from the numbing shocking wave of fear-induced violence and hate in every sphere across this globe.  And no doubt there is a lot of work still to be done. But I am sucker for reinforcements.  We all are.  I weep ecstatically that I am now old enough to speak like my parents have in saying -
"I never thought I would live to see the day that the World could shift this significantly while I am energetic enough to participate in the new norm." 

The New Norm. 

The fact that THIS in ways unseen opens further rights and protections to the full extent of the law for people, for families... is what was at stake here!! Families!! The  fact that this shall become so ordinary a truth and way of life that the Labels we separate each other and ourselves with can, must, and will fall away. That our differences will only be details of delightful interest to be celebrated.

Yes.

WE are on our way.
On our way back.
To the beginning.
To ourselves.

I congratulate and celebrate EVERY HUMAN BEING. 
What we see evidenced before us, WE can manifest again and again if we just reMember to Love.

#LOVEWINS along with mutual #RESPECT.

#enlightmentisabigbang #offwego  #tippingpoint #criticalmass #letskeepthisgoing #loverevolution #theonlyway
#excusemewhileIlightmyspliff

Life is quite sweet sometimes isn't it...?

An adorable dance company named Under One Dances (founded by Kyla Ernst-Alper) proposed folks send in choreographic ideas for 1 minute #TweetDances to be performed at this year's #Figment Festival on Governors Island in New York. 

I thought...what the hey...I'll play.

They ended up using the idea and here's what they did...performed by Meladonna.  
So sweet.




#TweetDance: Meladonna dances "giving in to love..."
from Kygwen on Vimeo. Meladonna
Figment, Governors Island, New York, NY

@SeBiArt:
'giving in to love...again'

At the start, every 15 seconds, and at the end of the 1 min dance - cup one hand in the other (gesture of offering) and then
cup it over your heart. (so the gesture would happen 5x)
For the whole piece - Improv a movement story of heart break followed by a heart riZe to love in between each gesture.
-To learn more about Meladonna visit http://www.underonedances.com/#!meladonna/c1zp

Naked in the Shadow

The Shadow came and covered my place, my doorway, my face.  It was like having a solid steel block placed over my heart-space while I lay flat on a cold ground gasping for air.  

That damn persistent Shadow...

I have never stopped myself so consciously from writing before.  I never experienced so physically the effects of such mindful resistance.  I feel it now as I write.  

My whole life I've been told to write, or that I would inevitably be a writer.  I never wanted to accept such prophecy because it meant so many things that I somehow concluded would make my life a misery.  It meant I would be alone.  It meant I would never dance.  It meant I couldn't act. It meant I wasn't pretty enough.  I could never be a popular or fun person who attracted the company of other popular or fun people if I spent my whole day writing about all the crap that ran around in my head.  Funny - as nowadays none of these conditions hold my interest.  Well that's not entirely true.  But the recluse I feared I would be as a writer, is now actually how I choose to exist.  It's how I feel safe.  And now my head is full of thoughts that must come out - UNinterrupted.  Ha!  Isn't that it?  Writing is speaking your mind UNinterrupted?  

Anyway despite my resistance, -a lifetime of active resistance through a number of other activities and professions- I would still write.  Since the age of 6 I started writing...copiously.  And when the rush of thoughts would barrel through me, nothing could stop me from recording it.  Added to mounds of journals, I have so many napkins, internal book sleeves, and scrap papers with sentences, phrases, or whole passages scribbled on them.  I can't count how many draft documents I've typed, never written for public consumption mind you, just for the release I uncontrollably needed. 

In fact the only public consumption of my writing have been assignments in college, a mere handful of published essays and articles, and this blog.  I never tried to take it beyond that you see.  But in each of these instances, I was frightened when my work was well received.  The fright was that I made possible the prophecy of being a 'writer', and thus the Shadow that could rob me of the otherwise active life I thought I wanted.  

But this last month I felt suffocated in a way I never expected or experienced.  I would be sitting on my outside stoop or on the train, or doing some other activity when suddenly a rush of thoughts and words would come over me and through me.  I know this feeling so well and precisely how I've always reacted to it. But this time I would literally, consciously decide to let it slip away.  I would plant myself, sit it out,  STOP myself from grabbing a pen or running to the computer to write.  And that freaked me out.  It is freaking me out.  It's freaking my friends out too.  So much so that as I verbally explained this to one of them, my dear Vernice made me sit down immediately to write this in her presence to release myself...

So here I am, ...naked.

And here I will stay...embracing this prophecy.  Many thoughts have bubbled in this winter of introspection.  I was so still that if I wrote anything, it would be the only action and so...resistance. 
It seems awfully obvious now, and reveals me as a bit mad and slow on the uptake...but, of course I can do everything I've done before, just now it's time to openly embrace 'writing' as one of...  But on the way here, maybe it's okay, as Saul Williams said: "to throw away the pad and pen, and simply be the poem." Perhaps all this exploration has been to gather tales and living poetry to share; dispatches from a mad lab of endless searching for wholeness. 

Indeed.  And this search shall take me home, the reports of which will be shared through my lens and my pen.

Sierra Leone.  

It is time.

Appeals for the Life of a Friend

Dear friends and family,

This is a very sober and unfortunate reason for an appeal for help.  But hope is strong.

An old friend of mine Neesha Cameron (from my Sandals days in Jamaica) was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer last fall.  Unfortunately she has taken a turn for the worst in the last days and her family, friends, acquaintances and
beyond are pulling together resources in every way possible to raise funds for her treatment. 

I know a lot of emails like this float around - often about people we don't know
but I am personally asking you to assist any way you can for someone I do know. 

She is a warm and beautiful person with a young daughter who needs her to beat this thing.
And seriously - no amount is too small and you can donate anonymously.  Anything you can give will help - it adds up!

She has been flown Mexico to receive specialized treatment from a highly reputed

practitioner of holistic care for cancer treatment, Dr. Castillo at his clinic in Tijuana*

Contact Info for more info on how to help:

The Cameron family - and primarily Neesha's sisters Orianna and Nekoda can be reached at the
email addresses below:
 
Oriana Cameron:
orianajam@yahoo.com

Nekoda Cameron:
empressnekoda@yahoo.com

Friends are also working on fundraising events in Jamaica and New York for Neesha.

For fundraiser details
• to get involved • offer sponsorship • goods for auction • direct donations • etc  :)

Raxanne Chin

(who is physically with Neesha in Jamaica now assisting in her care)
[of Femheka Design/SaveOurJamaicaFoundation]:
raxannchin@gmail.com

Linda Virtue  

[from KayUnger]: 
Ljasvirtue@gmail.com

We are also brainstorming a fundraising fashion event to raise funds for 2nd and 3rd treatment sessions for Neesha
later in the summer.  

News to follow...

--- 

I have also attached a PDF doc with more extensive information about the clinic in 

Mexico, the costs of treatment and accommodation with applicable links to treatment info, testimonials from past patients, and also more contact info for the Cameron Family.**  

---

 
There are a few ways online to donate:

1)
You can directly donate (and anonymously if preferred) via
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/eKA86?psid=7742d7d00058434193a71ffa2eda8b7c

2)
You can send a donation via Paypal to her sisters using this merchant account email address: empressnekoda@yahoo.com

3)
Ladies you can purchase mascara from the MaryKay Foundation where 50% of proceeds
will go to the Neesha Cameron Fund (see/click flyer attached)

flyer design by kgn6/danae grandison

---

Remember any amount will help.

If you cannot donate at this time, you can emit positive wishes for this goal to be met by sharing this with others.


PLEASE  send this out to anyone you know who can assist in any way.
Blog it, Facebook it, Tweet it, Digg it - however you share information widely. 

We can't take for granted that no one will respond.  If everyone gets one person to donate - that's HUGE.

She is in severe pain. 
This is URGENT. 
It can't be said any other way...

Deep thanks to you and endless gratitude for however you can help.

Love • Light • Gratitude • Life
Berette


*About Dr. Castillo - He was awarded the 2006 GOEH ( Global Organization for Excellence in Health). Dr Castillo combines the best of both worlds. He provides the patient with the benefits attained form both areas of western medicine and holistic treatment. The objective of the therapies that Dr. Castillo administers is to prolong and improve quality of life as much as possible by putting into remission, or stabilizing the patient's condition.I.M.A.Q.

**PDF Info Download with more info

A Year of Collective Paradigm Shifts: Mind, World Body, and Soul...

I am grateful to be ringing in the New Year in a place where I am afforded a couple extra hours to reflect.  As we cross the threshold of 2011 to 2012, there are a few feelings about this shift - the most popular being:  GOOD RIDDANCE!   I will second that; but I also give big thanks.   

This life is a fascinating journey, and as many of you have come to know, is the main focus of this blog.  Though this year marked the end of my 'sabbatical' that I went on about for a couple of years, it ended up being one of the most dense to date.  So personal, painful, joyful, and intense were the paradigm shifts that I often felt too overwhelmed by the experiences to even blog about it - hence the significant lack of soulful and investigative posts this year.   

I met and connected with scores of new souls, each of whom touched and moved and lifted me in ways I can scarcely recall in years past.  I think it had much to do with being more open myself.  When terrifying events in life come to test our characters, or the resilience of our hearts, it's truly the tribes we have formed around us that keep us reaching higher.  And this year was high.  If there was any moment to question the oddity of serendipitous or seemingly coincidentally unlucky events, all one had to do was truly listen to the tale of another, or turn on the BBC news to truly feel connected to something bigger. I can't remember any time of worldwide uproars such as what we witnessed this year - so much so that TIME magazine name The Protestor the person of the year!  To feel this connection is to be charged by it, whatever the circumstances or prior held convictions.  The pulse of our world this year insisted on truth, equality, openness, second chances; it demanded a rebirth of ONE spirit, in friendships, business alliances, communities, and nations.  

As I prepare to look back while stepping forward, I will set my focus on the very long list of things I have to be grateful for this year; my new friendships and the evolution of old ones,  my accomplishments with my creative work, my freedom to travel, and my deeper understanding and connection with my family. And all this despite the very real and frightening challenges I faced regarding all of the above since Jan 1st, 2011.  

Perhaps the thing I am most grateful for is in ending the year in integrity.  I have no hang ups about how I have related to the world - and I can't truly say that about any other year.  I got comfortable enough in my humanity this year to be myself, to stand my ground, and to offer understanding, patience, truth, and love, where ever and whenever I could - and I'm incapable of accounting for the worth of such a gift.     

I've always been one to insist on focusing on gratitude - as it's the only way to see what you have to work with rather than to live in lack.  It's the only way you will feel abundant enough to help someone else. It is the only way you will feel whole enough to forgive others, or to offer true understanding and compassion. True gratitude will keep fear away, and keep you honest.  It's the only way to love your life, to love yourself, and to love your fellow human - who is just as challenged in navigating this journey as you are.  

Happy New Year folks - May you cross into 2012 with an open heart charged with courage to soar ever higher.  Know what you deserve, and dare to manifest it all, and do it with love.   

OWN Your Skin NOW

At last it feels right
No more struggle or fight
Evolving into me
Expanding beyond the deep


The meditation for the past few months, or years, well, my lifetime, is to actualize 'self', which creates such fulfilling connections with others, to keep opening and expanding the heart so as to lead the body with love. 


It is so important to learn how to be ourselves, and not a premeditated, planned out version of this...; and in being who we really are - being the beautiful imperfect beings that we are in every moment of 'now', will inevitably lead to the perfect expression of our essential selves, our inner most beauty, the core light that shines unobstructed and thus brighter from this 'letting'. 


It has taken (and is taking) a lot of time, focus, daring, and fight, ...constant conscious pushing... to grow into me, to grow into myself, to grow into my skin; to stop struggling with the fit as if it belonged to someone else or should belong to someone else, to evolve beyond an old idea that the fit was wrong or would never be a good enough, or worse - that it sometimes felt so itchy that I wanted to rip it off and cast it away. But alas, it is the perfect fit. We settle down don't we (?), and then every crevasse fills in snugly.  

Sweet exhale: Growing into self.  Growing into me. 


Mind the Gap note for today and always...
Be Yourself.  Everyone else is taken.
~Oscar Wilde

Heartscape Reconnaissance of a Lost Little Girl

Condensed Milk

It's been a LONG break since my last post and I'm not even coming back at you with a production of philosophical rantings with fotos right now. I've been back in Jamaica for just under 2  weeks and the blessings have been so delicious that I just had to jot down a condensed sweet n' creamy report of recent fortunes.  

Upon arrival I received my copy of the recently released Jamaica Fi Real: Beauty, Vibes and Culture - a book written about Jamaican history, culture, and contemporary life on the island by Kevin O'Brien Chang.   I submitted a couple shots to Randle Publishers earlier in the year, just a couple images I had lying around really - some of which were taken with my little (now old) Canon Powershot S1000 point + shoot.  Anyway the book features about 200 fotos and illustrations - and they printed two of mine.  SWEET!

Original - cliK for a larger view

One as the first foto page...
(Taken in Port Antonio, 2007) 

Original - cliK for Larger View

...and the other as the Introduction page (which also appears on the back cover)  Yay!!
(Taken @ Hellshire Beach, Kingston, 2010)





For more info on this book or where to buy it check these links:

•CVM TV Interview with writer Kevin O'Brien Chang 
•JA LITERATURE BLOG 

JAMAICA GLEANER ARTICLES: 
•Highlighting The Nation's Positives
•ARTS + LEISURE: Understanding 'Jamaica Fi Real'
•CHAT BOUT Blog

Check these sellers:
•Jamaica Fi Real from AMAZON BookSellers  
•Bookophilia, 92 Hope Road, Kingston
•Fontana, in Savanna-la-mar, Mandeville, and Montego Bay

 ...

Right - Dyllese, Left Steve, and me, freaked with glee!

The co-conspirators - heehee ;)

Then...my best friends Dyllese(UK)and Steve (GLOBAL) threw me a surprise bday party (in JA) at which a good handful of dear friends were in attendance.  Everyone kept the damn secret via email and a FB group page!  I was so shocked I couldn't stop breaking sweats all night.  haha.  And I keep going on about this because I still can't believe they pulled it off.  To be so actively loved is to be truly blessed.  Endless gratitude and creamy yum!!  :)

...

Berette Macaulay Neue Rootz - Marisa Willoughby-Holland Uprising

After partying LITERALLY all night, I dragged my hung-over ass to the opening of the National Biennial @ the National Gallery of Jamaica the next morning.  I kind of waded through the whole show in a condensed mix of extreme nervousness, nausea, and hazy euphoria.  The two works from my Neue Rootz series seemed to be well received, and really, what more can a girl ask for?!  My childhood friend and ridiculously talented painter, Marisa Willoughby-Holland, also had a piece in the show - and it was great to experience doing one of these things with a close gal-pal. 

(Btw I will also have photo books of all the black and white portraits from Neue Rootz on sale at the gallery, and through an online store - more on that in another post.)

See YardEdge Interview I did with Marisa a couple years ago.  Her work is MINT!

 

...

  

And now...B A H A M A S!!!

Photo Source Link

Extra Rich, Sweet n' Creamy 

;)

Fighters Get Scared Too

My mother shared a most insightful passage she wrote on a brief mental respite at her work table, amidst a tsunami of files and papers where she is regularly found toiling over a paper, article, appeal,  or judgment for her clients or the human rights movement. She has spent the past 30+ years of her life working for and attending to the business of educating, supporting, and winning equal rights battles and lobbying for law reform for women, children, and all, in various organizations and international courts. 

Her sacrifices for the struggles of others are countless, and frankly the workload is mind boggling. Her efforts take her all over the world hearing stories and cases of unimaginable atrocities which she simply cannot abide, and so she barrels forth beyond any reasonable expectation and often with little reward or at personal cost, with a tireless dedication and optimism that floors me.  I could never hope to step into the shoes of such a woman, but I was touched to be let into a vulnerable outpouring of her heart in this impromptu passage that has thankfully been legally released for my blog (haha!):

My Struggle

They praise my work for the rights of women and children - in fact for the enjoyment of human rights by all.  But do they know?

Do they know the fears?

Do they know the doubts?

Do they know the nervousness?

Do they know the exhaustion? 

Do they know the passion and the energy it takes to overcome these things, and which push me on to do, to speak, to write, to present, to lobby, to participate?

Do they know the prayers I say for strength, for inspiration, for knowledge, for understanding, for patience, for consistency?

Do they know?

Do they even care to know?

Does it matter if they know, if it's what I must do to fulfill my life,  when I chose my struggle as the soul transporter of my purpose?

Margarette May Macaulay, July 11, 2010

If...Just for Comfort

Simply aiming for comfort has come to be seen as shooting low, or settling for less - especially in careers, and certainly in relationships.  Since we know I choose constant change and upheaval in the former, I mean heretofore to focus on the latter.  

At present (for this may change), I propose that just because someone impresses you doesn't mean they will be the next love of your life.  And if it looks like this miracle may not be the case, do you walk?  'Yes' some of you may say, but this is what defines the youthful heart I think, which is easily impressed by the magnetic qualities of the object of desire and equating this to that of undeniable love.  
When you 'grow up', and have enough affairs in life however, you learn that a person can be endlessly interesting yet never grips your heart, while a most ordinary soul can enchant you for life.  

Mutual admiration of the hot chemical kind  offers experiences or delights  with exciting fitful tales, but at a certain age, is this height of elation a necessary experience, let alone an automatic inclusion in our personal narratives? Evolutionary biology and psychology show that the timing of our most heated affairs and loves are aligned perfectly with our most fertile, hormonal, energetic years - when we are blind enough to create or believe the singularly aimed love-hype of 'forever after', and, also  whilst we are fit enough for the turmoil all that preposterous or near pathological energy often leaves in its wake.   

We are all taught either directly or indirectly from a young age that we should look for the impossible in a mate; find a  soul that 'completes' us, challenges and delights us, loves us endlessly, unconditionally, AND should be resident in a preternaturally attractive body which should remain that way...for eternity; any thing less being a most unsettling compromise. And no matter how you may have started out: in a bewilderingly beautiful and adrenalized love affair, or, a befouling catastophic event  - you still, in youth, believe this, wish, hope, and look for this tall tale whether you care to admit it or not. 

Then a bit more life happens. And it becomes distastefully apparent that alas, eternity in life (pardon the paradox, but it's what the fairy tales sell, right?), let alone with another, is not meant for some of us mere mortals.   And with one disappointing reality check (aka highway-of-love-heart-wreck) after another, we eventually rewrite the fantasy, the very tale that perhaps set the blind spots in place for all those collisions.

We retreat, we heal, we spend time with ourselves, we create some quiet, and then...we don't look; rather we hold exclusively open auditions (I know, oxymoron again) for someone to share the quiet with.  We become satisfied with the idea of someone filling a less complex role than 'soul mate' or 'self-completer'; we find we can only open up to  someone who is clear, calm, direct, and free of the indefatigable grand arias of yada-forever-bull-cah-cah; you know, someone who can just keep it real.  And if we find them, we herald them publicly as a wholesome catch summed up simply as "there's just no drama."  

I scream on my behalf on this one.  Heaven knows, the gods have ensured throughout my life and so therefore know, my great fortune in love, or at least, in affairs.  I have swept, and been swept off my feet by dashing novas in ways meant only for the movies to be sure, and much to the envy of those who've heard or witnessed my inordinately epic (and sometimes ridiculous) romances.  But - but, at this point the only thing I look for in my new tailor-made fantasies can be satisfied by far less frills, pomp, and unsustainable circumstance. Of course I still want fun adventures, but I also want to relax while having them.  I just want to be...sigh...comfortable.

If... 

If I were but a leaf
    falling from the burdened weight of your weary limbs,
I would waft my way
    through the spaces of your turbulent sways
Leaving drops of my chlorophyll spies
    to fill your horizon with shades of new life.

But here I stick to my heavy branch
    Too weary to detach
My stems uncertain, heaving doubtful sighs;
   eyes blinded by colourless promises in cloudless skies,

Hope floats beyond the shifting spaces,        

    hiding plainly from our weeping lies.

PS. Nothing to do with the topic at hand but, 

here's a great relaxation technique...rock balancing.  

seriously - try it.  

:)

Warm Light and Love

Vanity and fear are based

on a false idea of self that cannot be nurtured or maintained.

It only consumes the essence of the soul,

beating the heart into stone cold submission of blinding parasites.

Staying true keeps the heart open, calm, graciously clear-sighted, and warm;

this happens only through service and love.

foto by SeBiArt - Hellshire Heights, JA

thanks to my friends for keeping me warm...

originally posted on Facebook, August 2010

ENDGAME

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~  

When the space for open discourse and mutual understanding and respect have been eroded by stubborn self-righteousness on all sides, how do you carve out a new opening?

The extent of any the damage and temperamental pollution in any personal conflict always determines how much work needs to be done to clear the air. It often takes courage, a sense of safety and trust, and an open and interested heart to look at your part in the mess, to admit to it, and to let yourself receive the same from the other. 

I'm no fan of conflict (as most of us aren't - ha!).  It's upsetting, and my default is either to run; and if I stay, it is to express, to listen, to be heard, to concede, and to attempt to reach across the fence with palms up - so as to arrive at an even clearer and heightened space in my relationships.  I've been told by some that this is courage, by others, that it's cowardly, and by others still, that it's a crock of unrealistic new-age arrogant bullshit. 

Gandhi said that "anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding", that "anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is the monster that swallows it up".  I couldn't agree more.  But intolerance I feel is perhaps the worst ingredient of all.  If someone pisses you off, that's fine, we're human, and as fallible individuals, we gather baggage, we create unrealistic expectations of others, and we disagree on many matters of conduct.  But it's how we rise and fall from our tirades of perceived rejection that sets the lasting impression of our character, and creates the clearings or obstacles to personal growth and inner peace. 

It is important to ask: when the inner warrior stops swinging, is it because you subdued your foe, or because you subdued yourself? Did you speak more, or listen more?  Did you seek to be understood, ...or to understand? What did you say, what did you hear, what did you learn? Did you walk away with a more open heart, or with declarations of justified intolerance? Do you feel better at the end of a fray only if the other acquiesced to your point of view?  Are you committed to winning only by being right?   And what's the prize exactly?  Sometimes it feels great to be right, sure, but in the short term. If there was little risk or sacrifice of ego in acquiring it though - then haven't we actually lost? I love a good debate, and I'm passionate about my convictions, and I've been rightly accused of being condescending at times.  But pertaining to personal differences, no matter the position I have, or the facade I attempt to create, I inevitably will carry the burden of knowing when my 'right' was actually wrong. Not fun at all.

We must be honest about the hurt of having our toes crushed, for certain, but we can only 'win' new ground by also accepting our part in the dance, otherwise our growth is stunted and our tempers remain unsettled. It's hard work to cry, and then to smile, and then to offer love when we are confronted with rejection, but the rewards of doing so earn far more trust and respect, if not from your opponent, at least then for yourself. 
  

Conversely, at times it's best to ration our exposure to incompatible souls.  Sometimes it's best to concede and accept unfavourable outcomes as some souls are immutable, or even dangerous in their erruptions. Whenever I arrive at such a juncture, I end up asking: Is this truly enlightenment and acceptance? Is it brave? Or is it a wimpy act of avoidance for the sake of peace?  I'm not always sure.

Either way, I think it's ultimately more comfortable to surrender my pride, and take personal responsibility in the end.  I'm inspired by the intense need to create safety through honest disclosure of my fears, concerns, needs, and disappointments, in the hope that this may create a safe space for others to do the same. For peaceful relationships? Yes. For a desire to live in love? Absolutely!  In the end, it's the only play on this spacious board of life that I can sleep with.  

On a frivolous note...the mushrooms came back!

And look how happy SpongeBob is despite being under seige!

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. 
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~