What The Hell Is That!?

If you remember, I posted an entry a while ago that had a picture of something I couldn't explain. Here, for your amusement and conjecture, is another. Click to embiggiate.

The Road to Success

I've suddenly been hit over the head by my muse, who is demanding that I work not only on my book, but on my musical as well. This has caused a path to be worn in the carpet between where I sit in the living room and the piano in the dining room. It also means that while certain parts of my brain are shouting dialogue and turns of phrase at me, other parts are singing numbers like, "When My Pussy Comes Home", one of Mrs. Slocombe's numbers.

Oy.

Meantime, enjoy this allegorical map called, "The Road To Success" (it inhugifies if you click it).

Accepting Love

Whenever I find myself in a difficult situation or experience, I try to ask myself, “What is it about love that I’m not learning?” Sometimes the answer is a bit convoluted and I have to dig around a bit to find it and sometimes it’s looking me in the face.

It’s my belief that all we’re really here for is to learn love. The Beatles were right when they sang, “All You Need Is Love” because if you boil everything down—the so-called good and bad lessons—it’s only about love: love for others and love for ourselves. Love covers a multitude of sins and I know from my own experiences that when I apply the love lesson to any given situation, I’m prompted to act from the best part of myself rather than ego or fear. I’m no saint, so it’s not always easy. It’s never easy, in fact, because it’s so easy to act from fear.

We’ve been going through a financial crisis for so long now that I’ve almost come to accept it as our lot in life. Almost. Right behind that defeatist attitude, however, lies the knowledge that it’s only a test, a test that I intend to pass though. When someone offers help, my first reaction is to feel small and embarrassed—a failure—but when I ask myself, “What is it about love that I’m not learning?”, I know that I’m supposed to learn to accept love, to turn off the negative voices and allow people the joy they receive from their selfless actions.

By accepting assistance from others I not only allow them the blessing that giving bestows, I also keep the flow moving so that when it’s my turn I’ll have what it requires to help others. It’s a continuum of energy that sets us up for an ever-expanding dance of giving and receiving. That’s what the adage, “Tis more blessed to give than to receive” means. And isn’t that what life is about anyway? All creatures on this planet benefit from working together for the good of all—it’s only human beings that have distorted that into the I, Me, Mine mentality that plagues and poisons our society; it comes from fear and is the opposite of love.

For those of us who believe in reincarnation and remember our past lives, the lesson is even more wide-spread because we are able to look into the relationships that have traveled with us in and out of lifetimes, find the karmic issues, resolve them, and move on. Perhaps we helped others in a past life and we are only just now receiving the energy, like ripples on a lake caused by a toss of the proverbial pebble, or maybe we’ve been wealthy in a past life and need to learn important lessons about pride. In this light it’s easy to understand how important giving and receiving is to our soul’s evolution.

How can we ever expect to be in a position to help others when we cannot receive or accept help ourselves? Today, accept not only the love that your friends send, send that love to them in return by not stopping the flow that they’ve set up and when you are able, pass that love on to the next person in need.