The Light Shines

The light shines through the window,

It shines for us to see,

A shining of the moon that beckons to be seen.

The beauty of the nighttime that waits for you and me.

A feeling that you've waited for,

each morning and each night,

A feeling that your soul brings,

 filled with love and light.

It brings a certain yearning,

 waiting to be told,

A simple warmth that that holds you 

and keeps you from the cold

An open heart is waiting for us to wait and see,

Everything that awaits us if we live and be,

A simple dream of love that gives us hope and prayer

And adds to our life in texture and wanting waiting there.

Of thoughtful contemplation,

Which shines through in the night,

A future life is waiting,

In universal delight.

So pick up all your worries, 

It's time for you to see,

The life that has been waiting,

For all of us to be.

Life is filled with bounty,

Hidden from the eye,

We look up at the moon at night

And marvel at the sky.

A moon that shines for everyone,

Way up there with the stars,

A new life with unending hope,

That heals our hidden scars.

Give thanks for all you have,

And for those who've gone before,

Remember they are with you,

When you open up the door.

To life and understanding,

Peace, love and something more,

A simple wish, a dream, a sigh,

For that's what life is for.

The Secret Keeper

All of my life I have been a secret keeper.  A person who attracts people to talk about whatever their soul needs to purge to move on in their lives.  I have had so many experiences and still managed to greet just about everyone with a warm smile and a compassionate ear.  I'm not a therapist, I'm not a priest, I am just a simple but complicated girl with a simple dream. My dream is to take on the topics that others don't really want to talk about such as politics, religion and sex. 

Everyone has a secret.  There is something about every human being that they wish they didn't have to carry.  In a world of positive thinkers they are successful or unsuccessful, a winner or a loser, a saint or a sinner.   But in the world of our brains there is always something we hold close to our vest never to be spoken of.  Until one day we just let it all out.

I have never been good at keeping my own secrets, I'm a pretty open book.  I used to spread the words out in different chapters amongst different readers.  This way I purged my own secrets and nobody knew the whole story.  Sometime in March most of the story came out and the rest has been keeping me in fear since the day my world came crashing down.  I couldn't live with my own secret hell anymore.  I crashed and burned.

A lot of really positive and wonderful changes have happened since then.  I feel closer to God and the universe.  I have learned to replace most of the resentments and sadness with love and happiness and I have learned to appreciate the simple but complicated person with a smile that everyone can talk to or about.  There is a need for us to have these conversations with each other so that we can heal ourselves and become whole before our soul leaves this world.

Our soul is the center of our universe. The soul beckons other lost souls to share their lives.  The soul calls wayward travelers to share their secrets with people they don't know.  Someone who won't judge them,  who will listen and help them move along their way with a smile.  That is what I am, a simple but complicated woman with a simple smile and an ear to listen. I have been so fortunate to meet many strangers who have heard my sentences and even more who have read my chapters.  I am so grateful to all of them.  I find God in my conversations with others and feel I am sharing his essence of who I am when I speak to strangers who let me into their lives in gas stations and supermarkets.  I know that I am not alone in my troubles because I know that everyone has something they have to transcend.

Your secrets may come early in life as mine did or it may come later in life when you just can't remember where you parked your car.    But trouble knocks on everyone's door.  So does beauty and laughter and music and hand embroidery.  Hopefully in our mere mortal lives, the latter knocks more than the former.  Until then I am grateful to be the secret keeper because it is not a good thing to keep our secrets in our heads while it slowly poisons us from the inside out. 

Find God or whoever you believe in.  Find the beauty of art, the movement of music, the laughter of a good joke and most of all find a fellow secret keeper or someone you really trust and get rid of the poison.  And then close your eyes or move your body and DANCE.

Shattered Trust

Shattered trust.  I was sitting in peace and quiet contemplation when this subject appeared in my mind.  I have realized that my purpose is to give children a voice, either fostering self-esteem or taking on issues that are deeply hidden.

This issue is one that is deeply hidden.  I feel compelled to write about sexual abuse committed to children by people in authority.  Namely the Jerry Sandusky trial and what it means.  Not that Jerry Sandusky is the poster child of this subject there are many poster children for this subject.

And many poster children means many children who have hidden this secret somewhere in their mind and body.  I have no idea whether or not I was ever molested myself.  None.  I don’t remember huge chunks of my childhood and that is one issue I don’t even want to bring in to my new life moving forward so if it is a secret, it is a well hidden one that will stay there.  I do know that I have a visceral reaction whenever I hear a story about one of these pedophiles, but perhaps we all have a visceral reaction.

If you look at all the priests and coaches and parents who have been accused of doing something like this for every one child you see there are probably hundreds, or thousands or even millions more.  The Catholic Church is known to have moved priests accused of child molestation from parish to parish for decades if not longer. It is a stain that they should own and seek  God’s mercy for every day of their lives.  They should have never allowed even one priest to shatter the innocence of one child and put him somewhere else where he could do it to someone else.

With coaches it’s the same thing, I guess a school or sports program does not want to tarnish the reputation of the school, so they fire the said individual and they don’t report it to the authorities and they hope it will go away.  It does go away but it ends up somewhere else, like Jerry Sandusky.  He has 8 accusers so far but how many kids did he really molest who are too ashamed to come forward and admit they are a victim.  That victimhood will follow them the rest of their lives if they don’t confront what happened to them and find a way to make peace with it. They must realize that they were a victim and get help to deal with it.  Oftentimes a child feels there is nothing they can do when this happens because first off , they believe no one will believe them and secondly, they carry a shame so deep that they cannot admit even to themselves that they did NOTHING to deserve this.

There is never a reason to abuse a child.  No child deserves to live with this stain while the person who is responsible for it just moves on along the road and does it to someone else.  Meanwhile the child never really recovers from the trauma and the shattered trust.  It takes years to deal with childhood trauma and years ago there was such a stigma about mental health issues that now many adults walk around with this private shame themselves.

I ask them to find help, find love and don’t take the burdens of a sick person into your soul.  There are thousands of mental health professionals who can help you to make peace with this violation and make you whole again. And for the child molesters among us(and they  know who they are), there is only the hope that when they die they don’t come back in another life time and pick up where they left off.    It’s up to God or the universe to decide what to do with them and hopefully he does a better job of it then the churches and schools do.

Thank you for reading it was a tough issue to deal with but I just felt called to do so. To those abused innocents, I may not know exactly what you went through but I do know how childhood trauma affected my life.  You are not alone.  Bless you and I hope you find peace in your soul.

A Spiritual Awakening

I have been going through a spiritual awakening of the type I never thought I was possible or capable of.  It has been a long 6 months but I have learned so many things about myself.  I learned that it is possible for your soul to know something that you cannot even imagine in your wildest dreams.  That if it is true, your belief in God, the universe, your family, even a monastery can give you the answer you were never looking for.

I had a dream over 10 years ago, a beautiful angel grabbed my hand, took a walk with me and brought  me to a cottage overlooking a serene pond.  While there I noticed a little building on the side which was filled with my work and a small green baby sweater.  Since I was crocheting baby clothing at the time I never thought twice about the green baby sweater and I thought the angel was an angel guide.   I did however move myself from Long Island to upstate New York. I worked really hard, believed in the dream. The dream of moving from one place to a simpler kind of lifestyle. I experienced  numerous synchronicities to keep me on my path.   I have not regretted that decision one little bit even today. I have great friends, I've discovered I'm an artist, I have my work in several stores here and I have found a more authentic self here.

Then one day I put on my headphones and the rest of my life started changing immediately and it scared everyone except me. The music had spoken to my soul.   My soul was happy, I've lost at least 30 pounds, laughed, came out of the shell I lived in.  Everything changed and I mean everything.  Today I look back at the girl before the headphones and wonder where did she go?

My soul had made a connection with a voice.  Weird things started happening almost immediately, syncronicities, messages everywhere.  I knew things I shouldn't have known about the voice and the voice knew things it should not have known about me.  We conversed in code  about kings and queens, princesses and towers.

I didn't think too much about it, except for this weird kind of connection and all the strangeness in the rest of my life.  A connection with the voice was not even in the realm of possibility.   At the same time I made a connection with the voice, the voice made a connection through my eyes and a sort of clairvoyance came with that connection.  The feeling that I was not alone and I was deeply loved.  The feeling that two lost souls had connected somewhere outside of ourselves. The feeling that the voice and the eyes were just two lonely souls going through the same kind of life experience at the same time. The voice seemed to have an answer for every question my soul was looking for, and the eyes were the object of yearning and a deep knowledge of things not known outside of myself.

 Many sleepless nights, hormonal issues and a full moon later, a connection was made that foretold of a great sadness and regret for something that mere mortals had no explanation for.  A flame had been kindled and a friendship between voices and eyes began. A connection between two souls so intense that I could feel when the other soul was heartbroken and was in despair.  I reached out and ended up in a few month long dark night of the soul that changed who I am so completely that even now I feel that part of my soul is in limbo waiting to be reunited with it's other half. On that evening the flash of a queen came up on my computer, a queen named Kathryn Howard and a story of two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.

My physical life took a turn from bad to worse and I had a nervous breakdown trying to cope with the intense experience of soul work and mere mortal work.   The breakdown resulted in me following a car on the highway believing the voice was in the car, what was really happening was an escape from the mere mortal life I had come to outgrow.  The days that followed were manic and crazy as going through a traumatic episode of the soul and the body at the same time would be .You cannot even imagine what my life and the lives of those around me became for a while.

From that day forward to today whenever I found peace the voice was always there. The voice told me that your mother sent me to take care of you.  I was part of your dream. I felt a great deal of peace from the words and the feelings of the voice inside my head.  It was a guiding voice that to this day tells me that it will take care of me and that I have the strength of my mother, my grandmothers and the strength of all the other souls and angels both mortal and heavenly behind me.  I have also heard the voice of my heavenly angels when I am meditating confirming the messages.

As I felt the presence of this comforting soul, synchronicity were everywhere and I began to get emails about spiritual awakenings, psychic abilities, chakras, soulmates and what to expect from a spiritual awakening.  As I had already experienced these feelings when I wanted to move from where I used to live to where I  live today,  I paid attention to and believed in the messages.   A few weeks later I  had this feeling this soul really was sent to save me and was sent by my mother.  . 

Then as I gained my sanity back I started to get back to my normal life.  Everywhere I went I saw something that reminded me of the voice.  License plates, facial features, songs. I felt I was living a Carl Jung daydream. I began to meditate and felt the light of my chakras illuminating my soul.  Whenever I would meditate my spirit guide or angel was always with me.  I started to feel the presence of this soul in a more physical form and I felt myself sitting next to someone and putting my head on its shoulder or walking outdoors with the feeling of a hand in mine.  My dog also started reacting strangely as she sensed a presence too.

 In the weeks that followed, a picture of  my brother appeared in  my head and the inner voice told that it was  the voice was my brother Lawrence and that my mother who believed in reincarnation had sent him.  There was always something on the computer that seemed to validate the images that my brain was receiving.  I remembered the name Kathryn Howard only to find out that she was a hand embroidering queen who was beheaded by King Henry VIII.  Her lover was also hanged on the  same day.

Cambridge, NY is where the monastery at New Skete is located. I belong to an artist cooperative in Cambridge and had forgotten that I had switched from the morning shift to the afternoon shift in the fog of the aftermath.  So with nothing to do for three and a half hours I decided to get cheesecake from the nuns at New Skete only to discover that the store did not.open until 2:30 in the afternoon.  So off I went using the directions on the door to the New Skete monastery.  I have never been in so peaceful a place in my entire life.  There were paintings of Saints and prayer books open to certain passages which had meaning in my life.  I wrote about the experience on my other blog, Tangled Stitch.  I had such a profound experience in the monastery that I heard the comforting voice very clearly and very loudly  using the name of one of the saints.

Everywhere I  have gone since that day  I picked up inspirational quotes,  have met angels in human form and heard angels in spirit form. I seem to meet  interesting people at the coop who believes in angels and spirituality every time I work.  I am still hearing from the inner voice names and words that confirm the experience I am having.  I research them on my computer and see familiar faces from every aspect of my life from childhood to adulthood.  I remember interesting psychic and spiritual events from my childhood on a daily basis.  The soul voice is still with me telling me that my soul has gifts I have yet to open and that my potential is unlimited.  The soul calls me by my name DebraAnn or Deb.  DebraAnn was a name only my mother used to call me by before I became an artist.  Now DebraAnn is my name and it seems to fit me more securely then it used to..


Last week I went back to the monastery for a second time, while there I found the face of the soul, the face of myself with a different nose and the familiar faces of my friends and family all painted along the walls of the monastery.   I left the monastery,  feeling once again that this is no mere coincidence but a spiritual awakening and a connection of souls. I did a little research about the New Skete monastery  and found the name of the monk who started it was Laurence Mancuso.  My brother's name was Lawrence and my mother's maiden name was Mancuso.  I also saw a likeness of the angel reflected on the monastery wall and the name is spoken or appearing everywhere I go.  I must admit that at times I am fearful of these messages as they seem to be of a nature that is slightly out of the ordinary for a hand embroidery artist, but they almost always happen when I am at peace and they are always comforting and loving.  I believe that there is a beautiful angel watching over me and that we share a part of our  souls.
.

Blessings.

YAP(Youth Advocate Programs, Inc)

While looking for a job recently,  I sent my resume to YAP, which is short for  Youth Advocate Programs, Inc.  At this particular time in my life I didn't think it would be a good fit, but perhaps in the future I will be more open to it. 

But today as I was trying to figure out a positive topic that we all could agree upon I decided to look up their website which is here(http://yapinc.org/) and share what they do. Here is the description of what they do from their own website.

"Since 1975, Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP) has offered effective and cost-efficient alternatives to the incarceration or other institutional placement of young people. YAP's programs, which are offered in juveniles' own communities, are family-focused and strength based. "

When we are kids and traumatized we don't make the best decisions for our lives and the ramifications of a bad decision can shape the rest of our lives.  I am so inspired by the idea that this program offers alternatives to the incarceration of a young person that just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Everybody deserves a chance to rehabilitate themselves and heal themselves, especially at a time when that chance can mean the difference between success and failure.

They work with the kids and their families and give them a window into their capabilities and strengths which is also important to a young person.   They provide child welfare, mental health and juvenile justice systems with cost-effective alternatives to residential, correctional and other out-of-home placements. The most positive part of what they provide is that a significant percentage of clients served are those who have been rejected by other service providers, so they are giving these kids and their families a second chance which they might not have had under different circumstances.  They are making a difference to a child, to a community and to the world that child may serve in the future.

They are located in many different states and need workers and donations so please read about their services at their website and applaud the good work they are doing by sending a donation.  Thanks for reading.

Morning Has Broken

Morning has Broken is a song by Cat Stevens also known as Yusuf Islam.  He wrote this beautiful song many years ago.  The song was a hit when I was a young girl.  He wrote many beautiful songs, such as Wild World, Moonshadow and The Peace Train.

After a near drowning accident in 1977 he converted from Cat Stevens to Yusuf Islam and started practicing Islam.  That conversion didn't change the beauty and meanings of his song, but it did change his career and his marketability.  Why?

I think after 9/11 the American consciousness changed.  Religion became far too important in this country and started to bleed it's way into everything. It makes sense in a way, we had to blame somebody and it was easy to blame the religion of Islam because 19 young men were inspired by Osama bin Laden to fly planes into buildings.  Our fear kept us in an us against them national fervor for years.  We became a country of warriors and cheerleaders.

I am not downplaying the importance of 9/11 and the affects and consequences of that day.  It was a human tragedy played out on television.  In the months that followed we seemed to form a great distrust of anybody with an Islamic name. As a whole, we were a frightened and shaken country suffering from the anxiety of seeing tall skyscrapers coming down to earth with thousands of people in them.  I understand that.

Returning to Cat Stevens, music is the message good or bad.  Music can inspire us beyond the realm of race, religion and age.  Cat Stevens wrote a whole catalog of songs both before and after his conversion but clearly his religion changed the business of selling his records in a profound way.

When I listen to his songs, I hear messages of peace, of the moon, of the morning.  I don't hear the voices of those 19 men on that fateful day.  He wasn't the only artist who was affected adversely by their personal beliefs, The Dixie Chicks also were blacklisted because they had the audacity touspeak out against President Bush while on foreign soil, their cds were burned in the streets.

It's time to heal and find the connectedness of peace not the divisiveness of war.  I have included a Youtube video so you can hear this beautiful song and remember a day when religion of any sort didn't really seem to matter as long as you were in worship somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ESHjYat9rk 

God bless, namaste, peace, etc.

Politics the big dirty word we're not supposed to say.

I think we can all agree that the country is kind of a mess right now and with the election coming up there is so much at stake.  Not just for us but for the planet, for the children, for the people in other countries we are at war with.  It's a huge election.

We have two choices unless another person drops his hat in the ring.  Now I have to say I'm a little disappointed in Obama, but mostly because he wasn't able to get much of his agenda done.  Now it's not all his fault, a lot of it has to do with the lack of communication and cooperation with Congress the last 3 1/2 years.  That is kind of a double edged sword.  Both Congress and Obama deserve an F on that course.

And then we have Mitt Romney who is a completely different Mitt Romney then the one who was governor of Massachusetts. He has flip-flopped more then a sandal on a beach.  It's hard to figure out who the heck he would be as a leader, as a purplish Democrat I hope he's the governor.  But it scares the bejesus out of me if he is the one running now.  The only priniciple I think he has is that he likes to make money and is very good at it.  Great for a husband but for a president?

What is his plan for the health care bill?  If he's not intending on fixing it and just wants to get rid of it, what does that say for his principles when he was a governor?  What does that say to the millions of Americans who need healthcare  and are depending on that law to find them some?  What does it say to the millions of Americans without jobs who are sick at the moment?

What is his plan for the education system?  Is he one of those republican who thinks the education department and the energy department should merge?  Yes perhaps we can set up some schools on the oil fields of Saudi Arabia?  Or perhaps they are suggesting that BP take over the education system?  Taxes all over the country are going up and schools are getting rid of arts programs and after school programs, and head start programs all over the country.  Doesn't every kid deserve a good education?

Speaking of energy, what is the plan for energy?  Energy that won't kill the oceans, and the trees and that won't leave us with 3 legged, 3 eyed frogs.  Or are we just going to pick another oil rich country to invade so that we can depend on the kindness of sheiks for the rest of our born days?  Halliburton will certainly be happy but what about all the mothers and fathers of our current brave crop of soldiers? They will live in fear for the next 4 to 8 years  that their sons will be the  next to be called and shipped out.  God bless them for their service, they deserve much better then another war being fought over oil.

I'll keep picking topics that pertain to politics and other interesting things that hopefully will connect us over the next few months.  I still am of the mind that in the end there is much more that connects us as inhabitants on this planet then divides us.  Peace to you and everybody is entitled to an opinion that differs from mine and I promise I'll read it.  Especially if you are someone who can tell me what Mitt Romney really stands for. 

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Peace, shalom, namaste, salam. All of these words mean peace on our universe. If we look around we see there is very little peace on earth.

There are people of all religions who believe in peace, just as there are extremists who practice against that peace. All of the basic tenets of all religions follow the same universal laws. Yet there are those who twist and turn those laws to favor their own religion above all else.

They reap no rewards for this favor as there are so many wars across the universe which are said to be the work of Allah or the work of Christ or some other diety. Both Allah and Christ were peacemakers. Instead of finding the unity of the word peace, people are finding the words of war.

All of us living in the universe have an obligation to find peace within ourselves, find a tenet to believe in and share our peace with those around us. We must all tell our leaders that they do not speak for us when they talk about starting new wars in new places and dropping bombs on innocent civilians. There is room on this great universe for all of the universal laws to be withheld.

Find peace within yourself and share it with everyone you come into contact with today. Leave them feeling better from your presence and then move on to the next person you meet. It is only in finding peace within ourselves and sharing it with others that we listen to our hearts and not our dogmas.

Finding inner peace is a lesson I am working on from this moment on, as I find that living in regret and bitterness over the past is not what God really wants from me. He wants me to find peace and share it in this moment. Thank you for reading.