It's funny how Beatles songs were playing every time we left my mom after visiting hours. This was the first of like two dozen. Several people commented on it. Usually they were ones she (&/or we) loved, and most we remember her singing. She was such an awesome singer.

I'm going to be writing the whole story. Not so much her story, as my story with her. A lot of this is likely to be emotional and locked away. I'm sure I'll be creating a special Christy filter. I know I have several wonderful new people who have been checking in through friends or communities. If you're interested in continuing the Christy(Amanda) story with me, just please add me first and let me know. I'll be honored and delighted to give you access.

Thank you guys so much for all the support. I was very close to my mom, and this has really been the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm so grateful for all the loving energy. I honestly might have turned feral without it.

* Feel free to skip this post if you like. I am just sloughing the muck of this morning’s headlines and internet highlights.

Cho

The headline this morning: NBC News: Airing Cho video ‘good journalism’

For once I’m not linking to it, because I refuse to add to the sensationalism. I’ve refrained from commenting simply because everyone feels they need to comment on it, and 90% of them are only fanning the flames.

Though I’m a proud proponent of the World Peace Experiment, I still keep myself informed. I’ll read the headlines, and when a trauma like this occurs, I pray for the victims and their families and I offer healing to the situation for anyone who could benefit from it. As the WPE urges, I try to stay away from adding to the negative frenzy often stirred up by the media. When I read something negative, I consciously send out “Only love prevails” and work to keep the collective consciousness pure and spiritually informed.

Some people scoff at the thought that love, or positive energy, could make a difference. I believe it can. What happens when people grow up in a world where this kind of behavior is sensationalized, and thousands react from places of anger and hurt. You could argue that it’s justifiable, and I don’t doubt it, but hurt and anger only beget hurt and anger. People get stuck in this…this disgusting muck, a circus ring, and the effects of reveling in that sort of consciousness ripples out through all of humanity. It doesn’t matter what you believe, emotions and energies are some things that move us all, and we can lend to cleansing and healing reactions, or we can call for blood.

NBC is like an idiot child dumping blood into a frenzied shark tank, using the guise of ‘education’ to be asinine and, quite simply, dangerous. What happened to the days when mass murderers sent packages to the media, and they quietly turned it over to police and graciously helped in the investigation? Running the names of the victims as the main story, I can understand, or information for burials, fundraisers to offset the costs, scholarships set up – both for the college, and for local victims of mental disorders to receive the help they need. Not, for the love of God, making all of it worth it for him. When I read that he killed two people, went and mailed his press release, and went back for the rest of the killings, that was the LAST thing I read. That was all I needed to know. I’ll continue to give him my energies of love and healing, but those are the only energies anybody’s getting out of me. He’s dead, it’s past, let’s help the living.

Only love prevails. That’s what I want to contribute to this massive flow of contributions. I don’t want to argue a bit, I just needed to get that out there.

tru2myart did a moving and loving post here that’s a shining example of spiritually informed response.

interactiveleaf also did an excellent post here, which opened with a very enlightening quote:

There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Alec Baldwin

I can’t decide whether I’m glad or sad that this scandal is getting attention. It definitely strikes a chord with me and has me ‘Only Love Prevails’-ing like a mantra. You see, my father did a very similar thing to me once, only it wasn’t a voicemail, and it was on my sweet 16th birthday.

Alec needs to get off the blaming Kim Basinger for constantly ‘attacking’ him as a parent, because I’d bet anyone that his daughter Ireland is the one who gave it over to TMZ.com. Anyone else want to open a pool on how soon we’ll see her in her first film role?

Brangelina, TomKat, etc.

Can we please stop melding couples names together? Ok, it was cute five years ago when Kevin Smith coined ‘Bennifer’ (the first version). If you want to know what really happened, I think Kevin Smith is a closet Earth’s Children fan and I completely blame it all on Jean Auel and her ( Cut for Shelters of Stone Spoilers ) Take that, Kevin Smith – you’re outted for what you’ve unleashed on us!

Kthxbye!

It’s stupid! Just stop!

Um, I mean Only Love Prevails… *smootch* *hug* I love you. Ok, now please stop saying that, internet.

x-posted to dailyrumi

I made a post last week asking about everyone’s favorite Rumi poem. There were such gorgeous poems shared, and I really loved seeing everyone’s choices.

Today’s post is also a little different, which I hope is ok with everyone, and it springs out of discussion in that post on Rumi’s healing through his loss. I mentioned that I’m often moved by the depth that comes through when Rumi writes for his beloved friend and mentor Shams of Tabriz. It’s great how you can look at his collected works and see his journey through the grief process, from his feelings of emptiness and longing to his ultimate healing in realizing that the Friend and the Beloved are one.

I was looking for examples of his healing, and I found so many beautiful passages that I thought I’d compile them for today’s installment. My main source is The Essential Rumi, although many of them popped into mind from a great book that I think was just titled The Love Poems of Rumi. The ‘On Rumi’ introduction in The Essential Rumi and Wikipedia’s entry on Rumi are both good reading if you’re interested in the history of their ecstatic relationship.

The theme of union is so breathtakingly executed in Rumi’s poetry; it’s what originally drew me to his works. For Rumi, it was Shams of Tabriz; much of Rumi’s poetry was inspired by him, and one of Rumi’s books was actually titled The Works of Shams of Tabriz. I read these poems and think of beloved friends and Elders I have lossed, but mostly for me it echos my greater longing to become one with Spirit. I eagerly await the day I can embody such grace and wisdom, and experience a true ecstatic union. I read these declarations of love and I hear the echo of namasté - the divinity in me greets the divinity in you. With every relationship we form, we have the opportunity to experience this. Ecstatic indeed!

These are some of my favorite passages. I hope you enjoy. I’ve linked to the whole poem wherever I could.

( The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along. )