Life goes on. the pandemic goes on. We learn and we grow and we adapt. or what? We get left behind, we moulder, we shrink and we drink and we get lost?
Ew!
Right?
We always have choices to make. We have the choice to accept what is and to adapt or to resist what is and fight it forever. Neither is perfect but one is more perfect than the other and you will only know which is which when you commit to one.
For me, I’m writing this post to unravel some realities. I’m frustrated with my own lack of forward momentum, my past choices, my potential future choices and the stupidity of worrying about those. Ok. Honestly I’m not thinking about my future stupid choices.
I would never label future choices as stupid and…
This will guide me in making better choices in the future.
Deal with frustration. Get beyond it. Frustration is only there because you think you’ve lost touch with what really matters.
You haven’t. You only think you have.
So, change your mind.
We get to do that. As often as we need to, want to, get to.
And make a new choice…choose differently. Rename it.
You’re not frustrated! You’re growing. You’re learning. You’re accepting new ideas, new boundaries, a new definition of yourself.
See?
Wasn’t that easy!?
Now GO! Embrace your redefined self. Learn the new steps. Read the new rules. Hell! SET the new rules! and then erase them and start over. Whenever you want to…whenever you need to.
Do you Give Yourself The Credit You Deserve for being MAGNIFICENT?
YOU are MAGNIFICENT!! Do you feel that truth? It’s there, inside you, that kernel of knowledge that holds this truth for you.
Am I right? Or DO YOU give yourself credit for being MAGNIFICENT every day?
And, do you know how to do it? Just start SAYING it. “I’m MAGNIFICENT!” and you don’t even need to believe it YET!
You just keep saying it…keep looking at yourself in the mirror as you say it. POINT at your reflection and try saying it then…say it with EXTRA FLAIR and a HUGE SMILE -“YOU are MAGNIFICENT!!!”
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{SMILE CUZ THAT’S REALLY NICE TO HEAR FROM YOUR BIGGEST CRITIC!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Now, if you have a smartass reflection that asks you “Why?” and you don’t yet have an answer…SMILE AGAIN and say,
That’s for ME to KNOW! Your reflection can mind it’s own business!
But in all seriousness, a BELIEF is a thought you keep thinking, over and over…until it’s a truth.
So, just get busy practicing with your deeply truthful magnificence.
Listen to that still small voice deep within, the voice that is somewhat louder each day you repeat this thought…
That still small voice is growing more profoundly glad you’re reading this right now…
“What are you? Glory. Mercy. Peace. Truth. You give calm of spirit. I understand it. Courage. the contented heart.”,
Terrence Mallick, Director/Writer The Thin Red Line
The scene is sounds, mostly…the sounds of dry gras fronds brushing against cloth, against other tall dry grass fronds. The images, men in camaflage walking through developed sugar cane. Silent. Blue blue sky. Cobalt blue. Gorgeous sky. Unfair blue when the men come upon a scene. It is two blood-bathed bodies, lying in the talk cane. One is shirtless and his legs have been taken. The other is a jumble of face and torso and blood. One soldier covers his mouth and nose.
Next Scene: Voiceover as Private Witt, played by Jim Caveziel with blue eyes so expressive. His thoughts:
“Maybe all men got one big soul. Where everybody’s a part of. All the faces of the same man, one big self.” Private Witt, “Thin Red Line” Writter/Director Terrence Mallick
Private Witt continues in voiceover thoughts: “Everyone looking for salvation, by themselves. Each like a coal -drawn from the fire.”
The sounds are just his thoughts and the score that was composed for this movie. Powerful, impactful, soft, expressive music. The scene itself is muted. Private Witt is a stretcher bearer. He is walking through a dirt patch that is blanketed with the bodies of the dead and of the wounded. It is a veritable symphony of the battle’s advance sprawled across that patch of dirt. No wonder the music plays so softly. We don’t need much to tell us what’s going on here.
Transformation in film is a tricky business.
Poetry of the soul, of the human spirit, of fear transformed, of courage, of death, resilience,
A baby bird falls out of its nest in the shaking of all the artillery shelling and gunfire.
Blue sky, lofty fluffs of clouds frame the scene.
And the ‘enemy’ seems untouched, up on their hill, under cover.
the sounds of grass, buzzing of bugs, crickets, bullets whizzing past, canteens clinking against gun belts. Fear hums in the air, with death and amazing blue sky and clouds.
A young, a very young, wounded soldier lies in the arms of his fellow officers. He looks up into the trees…and… he watches the light playing through the leaves. And…breathes his last.
John Savage: lifts up a handful of dirt, “Dirt…”,
he growls, referring to the hillside they have been attempting to win from the ‘enemy’ and have lost hundreds of men in the doing, so far… “…just dirt.”, his face curls in a snarl.
A pheasant flies up, suddenly, a new sound, wings beating. And grass fronds, and machinegun fire.
Images of home. Wife. Kisses. Soft light, lips, breezes through open windows…then wading in the surf together…and then, back to the blue sky battle. Birds singing in the frond-waltz-crisp-swishing sound of the soldiers breaking through the tall grass.
Sean Penn’s character says, in a quiet moment, to Private Witt: “I feel sorry for you, kid. This army’s gonna kill ya. If you were smart you’d take care of yourself…Running into a burning house where no one can be saved…(music softly up)
“What difference do you think you can make…one single man- in all this madness? If you die, it’s gonna be for nothing. There’s not some other world out there where everything is gonna be okay. Just this one. Just this rock.”
Cut to: Sky now clouded with smoke…dogs on the ridge silhouetted against the post-sunset sky, scavenging at something…God knows what,
Cut to: Intimate warm, rose-colored bedroom. Window open. curtains wafting
“WE…we together…” and the frame is a man and wife, intimate, a breeze coming through the open window..in a symphony of love and ecstasy and oneness…”one being…” sighs and whispers…”flowing together like water, til I can’t tell you from me…I drink you…now…now…” end scene .
Cut to: Elias Koteas in the near-dark on Guadalcanal. “You are my Light…my guide”.
Darkness descends on the tall grass and shadows the faces. Grenades looped, shining in the moonlight, around their necks.
The full moon shines down. Sleeping soldiers on the wet, trampled, muddy grass.
Morning comes. Grim faces. John Cusack snarls at his Colonel’s orders. You can hear his thoughts, “Propoganda puppet. Glory hound.”, if you had to guess. Kinda goes with the curl of his lip when the Colonel turns his back.
One of the more up-close, human, tragic and painful scenes in the film, when the Americans make their assault on a small Japanese MASH unit and overwhelm the Japanese is followed directly by Private Witt pouring water over a tropical leaf. His thoughts return to the cheery village, the waterfall and the children:
Cut to: Off the front lines: In the scene in a tent, where the men of Charley Company have been awarded a well-deserved week-long break from the front line, the Elias Koteas character tells his men that he will NOT file a dispute against the Colonel, though he has ever right to, and that they have been “like sons to me…You are my sons”
The sky and sunset scenes, the beauty of nature throughout the film, that Mallick highlights aptly, illustrate just how war is part of what we are, our invasion upon the Earth, our place here, not always, but often violent is our contribution. Juxtaposed gorgeous skies, better seen on relaxing vacations, found in most scenes in this film.
Wonder. Beauty. Awe. Contrasted with Violence. Death. Tragedy.
“War done in noble men…turns ’em into dogs. Poisons the soul.”
Ben Chaplin’s character: “My dear wife, You get something twisted out of your insides with all the blood, filfth and noise. I want to stay changeless for you… I want to come back to you the man I was before…How do we get to those other shores…to those blue hills? Love…where does it come from?… Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out…conquer it. I was a prisoner, you set me free.”
in a scene shortly after Chaplin’s character has this daydream of thought, he gets a letter from his wife explaining that she has met an Air Force captain and wants a divorce so she can marry him. She says, almost heartlessly, to us, since we’ve seen how thoughts of their love have sustained him, and how he’s not touched another woman nor talked to one, that he doesn’t want to feel the desire. Her letter says, “Dear Jack, I’ve met an Air Force captain. I’ve fallen in love with him. I want a divorce to marry him.”…and goes on…”forgive me..it just got too lonely, Jack.” and he laughs heartlessly, despite himself, “…we’ll meet again some day. People who have been as close as we have, always meet again. I have no right to speak to you this way, I just can’t stop myself…Oh! My friend! All those shining years! Help me leave you.” …and he wanders off, meandering, lost. It’s a heart-wrenching scene.
Witt wanders back to the blissful village he had escaped to when he went AWOL and finds it much changed. No songs. No playful children. and they were fighting. “we were a family…had to break up and come apart..and now we are against one another. Each standing in each other’s light. How do we lose the good that was given us, let it slip away…scattered, careless? What’s keeping us from reaching out, touching the glory?”
Private Witt faces his death with the calm he’d sought in the beginning of the film.
Who were you that I lived with, walked with? The brother, the friend? Strife and love, darkness and light–are they the workings of one mind, features of the same face?
“…Oh my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining“
And upon that note, the credits begin to roll on what may be the most ambitious and beautifully captured film about war and the changes it may wrought upon the soul and shape of man. Beliefs, hopes, faith, imagination, hope itself, desire and, perhaps above all…sense of self, oneness, and the connectedness of all things.
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SING! Your voice, lifted up into the heavens JUST FEELS GOOD and it’s nobody’s business if you want to sing your heart out.
Life is FAR TOO SHORT not to let your heart leap out of you, through your throat, between your teeth and tongue and into the air…to possibly bring joy to others…or simply to just bring joy to yourself…LIFE is OURS to EMBRACE in the ways that bring us closer to our MEANING! and our MEANING is ENJOYMENT of LIFE…
There is only one YOU
and only YOU know what makes YOU feel GOOD!
Listen to those words speaking in your heart telling you to SING!
And Do It, darlin’…just do it.
EVERY day is a gift.
Every gift precious.
Lick it up, breath it in with every precious moment.
“Don’t ever believe what they tell you…You cannot get enough sugar!”, Michael, the angel in “Michael”, screenplay by the One and Only Nora Ephron 🙂
Hidden in our hearts are often the seeds of the most tremendous beauty we are, even as incredible humans, often unable to imagine. Unless we allow our deepest and purest beauty shine through. Some of us are more capable of this than others. But even the others of us can learn.
We are humans. We are far more capable than sometimes we even imagine.
So, as I was saying, hidden in our hearts are these seeds. They are seeds of strength and power, courage and beauty. Even if we never know they exist, they exist. Sometimes others see them even we when do not. Sometimes.
There are days when we come close. And there are days when they launch us into mesmerizing leaping hearts of gold life and dancing. Those days…I think you know the ones…those days are when our eyes sparkle and shine. Those are the days when we do magic. We feel magic and we believe. We just believe.
Can you think back to your last one of these days? I bet if you try really really hard you can. You’re really special, you know. You’ve got those days piled inside of you. One of them will pop up and you’ll be so happy to see it. I promise you.
Is it bad that I’m promising you something gigantic and huge and spectacular like this? It is all that you know? And you will get it. It will happen to you. You’ll feel it before you know it and you’ll know it when you feel it.
Don’t worry at all if that makes no sense to you. Not at all. Sometimes we humans count too much on our brains. Sometimes we have to just let the feeling move up our bones and into our hearts from there…like from our feet to our heads and our hearts. Never discount the feeling that comes up from your feet. That happy feeling, it finds the right track! It finds it like it’s the Yellow Brick Road to your heart. And it’s paved in really really amazingly bright gold. And it’s for you. You know? It’s for you like nobody else. Nobody.
Lif is our rain dance, my friend. When you dance and dance and dance and then even dance some more when you stop, that’s your life singing into you. That’s your life telling you you’ve got it right. Your life knows, man! It knows like nobody’s business. Don’t you doubt it. Ever. Not never.
Nope. Not ever.
It picked you from millions! YOU!
You were picked, my friend. Life jumped up and down cuz the nurses thought it was pointing at someone else. No way, man! It was pointing at you! YOU’RE it!
So, there you are, growing and glowing cuz life picked YOU. Smiling and breathing and inhaling and all this special stuff, cuz you got it.
And you. Your reason for being born, it was gigantic. Just like you.
You are here to do amazing things. Look at you! Magic!
Look at how you make others feel when you smile! How simple is that, huh! How easy! Just think about all of the other things you can do if just your smile does so much! You could change the world, couldn’t you! Think about it! And how hard would it be! If you can change a person’s day with your smile, your words, your thoughts, your actions, your deeds could do that much for many others.
That’s like a wow of Exciting stuff, isn’t it! Are you holding your breath? Don’t do that.
BREATHE! And breathe it in. You’re extraordinary and you don’t even have to do anything special to be that way. You just ARE. I hope that feels good! Know why? Cuz it sure feels good to tell you!
You see? You did it again! You just did it.
Miles and miles, that’s how far you will go. And you won’t even have to walk around the block.
Big hearts. Big smiles. Big ideas. Big dreams. You’ve got them all, don’t you and you’re not afraid of sharing them!
You’re amazing! Hey kid! You know? You’ve got something special there. Don’t keep it hidden away. It’s like a big beautiful table set with a glorious Thanksgiving Feast right there inside your heart and Who wants to spend Thanksgiving alone! You’ve got a HUGE invitation list and they are all waiting to be invited. All you have to do is open up the doors and let them all IN! Your heart has MORE than enough room!
My wonderful friends, now and soon-to-be or Maybe Not-so-soon..but eventual friends...Laughter Yoga is HERE TO STAY!
It’s an extraordinarily EASY, INEXPENSIVE, healthful and absolutely
joyful
way of relieving stress such as you have never known before.
It’s also a FANTASTIC way to bring folks in a business meeting TOGETHER…Laughing together breaks down a LOT of barriers that might otherwise prevent OPEN CREATIVE and INNOVATIVE thought OH YEAH!! Brainstorming takes on NEW POWER, BABY!
IN FACT, even if you don’t FEEL like laughing, cutting loose in your car on the way to a stressful meeting or event, and just saying ho-ho-ha-ha-ha all the way, even if you don’t FEEL like laughing…the fake laughter ALSO DOES THE TRICK! Your body lowers Cortisol levels right away!! Lowering Tension and releasing muscles from rigidity. You will ALSO still get the endorphine rush. It won’t be as notable but darlin…you will STILL get a release.
Yes! Feel like laughing or not, if you go thru the motions, you WILL be healthier! You WILL have stronger Arteries! You WILL have lower Stress Levels! You WILL send oxygen around through your cells and you WILL thusly, help protect those very same cells from Cancer!
FEEL like it or NOT…Laughter will still help to HEAL you and release you from TOXIC STRESS!
now and soon-to-be or Maybe Not-so-soon..but eventual friends..
.Laughter Yoga is HERE TO STAY!
Your body lowers Cortisol levels right away!! Lowering Tension and releasing muscles from rigidity. You will ALSO still get the endorphine rush. It won’t be as notable but darlin…you will STILL get a release. 
You WILL have stronger Arteries! You WILL have lower Stress Levels! You WILL send oxygen around through your cells and you WILL thusly, help protect those very same cells from Cancer! 
just LAUGH ANYWAY!
created by the 
Inspiration!
Heidi & Co - Joy Injection 