OM Namah Shivaya

Truth. Simplicity. Love and Service to all sentient beings.

This is the message that has come to me through the Bhagavad Gita. God, it seems, has many roads leading to him/her. God, and the great cosmic consciousness has purposed it this way.

The Bhagavad Gita was brought to my attention years ago by a star that shined on this planet for a very short time. Her name was Dina Certrulo and while she was here, she and I were friends and she taught me about things along the lines of divinity, spirituality, the Tao and Hinduism. She was probably the only person that I ever came in contact with that shared with me in this way. If it weren't for Dina, I wouldn't be leaning in this direction. Because of her safe and valued opinion I am forging ahead. She was wise beyond her years and generous with her knowledge. I would only hope to be as kind.

I have been hungry for these things forever and they very rarely fall on deaf ears with me. I'm always paying acute attention. I am aware. I am present. I am being. I am in the now.

This is revealing. It is liberating. It is cosmic.

Not just in theory. The very nature of spirituality is to take you from yourself, your 'so-called' circumstances and illuminate the magnificence in and of your life.

This year has been a year of karmic cleansing for me. The beginning of 09 was all about my throat chakra and how I was not living my authentic truth. I allowed someone to bully me. I am 46 human years young and I allowed myself to be bullied.

It was not empowering like when I was younger and had more control over the situation. This time, as karma came around, I was not prepared, caught off guard and holding my tongue in the name of 'doing the right thing' or 'taking the higher road'. I suppose for some, peace works like that, but for me communication is the key. Without saying the words "hey, that hurts" the hurt can never heal. On the contrary, the hurt festers until it becomes something entirely different, something much worse. No. Nip it in the bud. That's my new mantra on speaking the truth and living your authentic truth. Look people right in the face and with as much love as you can muster, tell them exactly what you think. Do not be spiteful, judgemental, cruel or sarcastic. Just speak the truth.

"That hurt."

or

"Please do not treat me that way, it makes me feel badly and it is very hurtful."

"If you knew how much I loved you, you could never treat me this way".

Choose your own words, but speak them, out loud, in love, into the ether, into the cosmos, outside of yourself so that God and the Universe can hear you and know that you've worked through your karma and can speak on your own behalf in truth, simplicity, love and service to all sentient beings.

Then I broke my arm. My heart was broken.

What does my arm have to do with my heart?

Well, I was on my way, so I thought, doing Reiki, helping people, giving lectures and .... then ... I had the cast and you know the rest. I was incapacitated up until very recently. It took the rest of 2009 and shoved it right into a plaster disaster. Not to make light of it, but why not. That was then and look at me now, typing close to 90 wpm and doing my hair and taking care of business and giving my biggest lecture of the year at MSU.

Bones heal way quicker than hearts.

My wrist still hurts but when it hurts I do not fall to my knees weeping.

I do not become incapacitated and depressed.

It is just healing and now I know what a healing bone feels like.

In retrospect, I also know what a healing heart feels like.

It's just about the same thing.

It's when we become attached to the outcome...we become attached to the reciprocity of love and when we don't get it...what then? The bones hurt? The bones break? The heart hurts? The heart breaks? I've learned it is better to not be attached to the outcome of love, or bones. To the outcome of life or death. A broken heart should never happen, even though you love with all that you are. Love with no expectation of getting anything in return and then ... when you do not receive love ... you will not be dis-appointed.

I just went to Shop rite and checked out at the express lane because I only had a few items. A beautiful, young, African-American male was working the register. I asked him "How are you? They're not getting the best of you are they?" and he just smiled. I said "I never let them get the best of me" and I looked straight at him. He returned my glance smiling and contemplating.

What I was referring to was the negativity, the monotony, the hatred, the sarcasm, the ill-will, all the negativity that there is in the world that would keep us from living our authentic truths, our authentic lives, the best us that we are in the world and in the cosmos ... no, they will never get the best of me in that way. I will love them though and I will love you despite all of those obstacles and I can only pray that all at once they would fall by the wayside and make way for truth, simplicity, love and service to all sentient beings.

He checked me out and handed me my bags and said looking right at me "I will never forget what you said". I replied "Good. It's important to remember" and I left the both of us smiling.

No, my throat and my heart chakras are healthy now, spining brilliantly on their axis, shining, like the planets, the universe and the cosmos and the karma has been worked through. I will speak my authentic truth, I will lead with my heart with no expectations or reservations. I will live my life in Truth, Simplicity, Love and service to all sentient beings (and firstly, to myself - this I have learned).

Next stop, Babaji.

OM Namah Shivaya.

I bow to whatever good is happening and to whomever is doing it.

"I can do all things through Christ... "

Joan & Frank

a.k.a. Mom & Dad

"...who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

I feel very weak. Must be a virus or something. Interesting how it came about shortly after I found out my Mom has to have angioplasty this Friday. Mom described her symptoms as weakness, overall malaise, no pep, short of breath, pain in upper left side of chest. She'd been diagnosed through a stress test and the results are leading to this procedure wherein a stent may be introduced to her clogged artery. Heart failure is a possibility without the procedure and since Mom has diagnosed symptoms, the time is right for her to get some relief.

Dad had been diagnosed the same way - through a stress test. They called the blockage in his heart a 'widow's peak' saying without the surgery, he would have a massive coronary. So, Dad did the only thing he could do. He walked into the operating room at Columbia Presbyterian in New York and allowed leading cardiologist Dr. Mehmet Oz (who is regularly seen on Oprah and is a Dr. god in my opinion) to perform a successful quadruple bypass surgery on him. This was seven years ago. Since then, Dad's been very healthy and living a good, clean life - Thank You God.

I remember being very strong when Dad was going through all of this. My sister Debbie almost passed out at the hospital, but I wasn't shaken. I just knew he was going to be alright and being strong in front of my father was always very important. Only the strong survive kind of mentality, so whilst on the front line - you 'keep a stiff upper lip' as my grandmother Violet used to say.

But with Mom it's different. Immediately, the sympathy pains and symptoms arrived after she told me. I could feel the blood pound into my ears hard, b-bam, b-bam, b-bam, what? Not again. Not Mommy. She's selflessly worked her whole life providing for her children and then for her elderly Mother, why should she have to go through any of this? I guess because we're only human after all. But, I want to be superhuman and take it all away from her. Go through it for her. Spare her the anxiety of getting up at 5am on one of the coldest days of the year and voluntarily going to St. Michael's in Newark to undergo a procedure that involves her heart.

Any procedure that has to do with the heart, the brain, the lungs...c'mon, it's heavy.

I want to protect her the way she protected me my whole life. I got sick a lot when I was a child. I was born breech and had one leg shorter than the other. Mom had to exercise my little legs daily to help them grow. In appreciation at the time, I basically kicked and screamed my bloody head off. Then, I had my tonsils removed, and ear tubes put in. I had asthma. But Mom...she was always at my bedside with a cold compress and vicks vapor rub in the humidifier, chicken soup and a few coloring books and before you knew it, I was nursed back to health.

Even last year when I had my surgery she was at my bedside wishing, loving and praying me back to health. Thank you Mommy. I love you and I hope you know I will always be here for you. It's the least I can do. Afterall, you've done so much for me, not to mention giving me life. That's what I'd like to do for my mother. Give her chicken soup, a cold compress, a snoot full of vicks vapor rub and a smooch on the head. No more, no less. She is so precious to me.

Today, according to the American Heart Association heart disease is still the leading killer of humans. And while angioplasty and bypass surgeries are very common and safe procedures to the administrators, to us it's frightening.

And in times likes these, and when my joys are too many to count, I lean on my God in prayer. I lift up my Mother and ask God to give her peace, health and a good report. I ask God to give the doctor's energy, finesse and life in their nimble hands. I ask God to remind them that each life is precious, each procedure is a life - mother, father, sister, brother. I ask God to make Mom's path straight and restore her to good health so as to live a life long, prosperous and most comfortable. I ask these things through Christ who strengthens me. Amen.