Inner Michael

By the time you read this, I will be fast asleep. Well, not actually sleep as we found out during the Conrad Murray-Michael Jackson fiasco. Hopefully those around me will know what they’re doing and will monitor me and if I stop breathing, there is proper equipment in the state-of-the-art surgical suite in the hospital.

I too will trust my primary doctor and hope that his hands are guided and that in those wee hours of the morning, I will be a little more to him than a “patient.” I will be a person healing and he is a healer. My doctor is a personable man and the go-to guy for sports medicine. I will be “asleep” for a few hours. As I drift off, I will utter a little prayer to be safe and for the healing to begin immediately. I will emerge in pain and likely bewildered and then cranky.I will be free floating enough in the Universe, first stop “Neverland.” As I leave my body behind, I will pass the second star to the right and will be halfway to morning when they wake me. As we spoke, I explained to someone who was a part of the curriculum development way back in the beginning.. that I would be “offline” for a bit, she exclaimed: “I had no idea!” There are only a handful of people who know of my passage this last year and how it was for me as I watched my life transform into something I didn’t recognize. It is yet another spiritual passage, another initiation along the path. A kind of emptying out. A letting go of all that does not serve and all that weighs me down as I prepare for the next step of this journey. My Indian friend who took me out for an Asian dinner last night recognized it as a grand Vision Quest.

Two years ago I was in a car accident– the third one that jarrred and injurred my right leg and hip. A head-on collision years ago likely began a degenerative process in the bone. In the most recent one, a driver hit me from behind. The chain of events that occurred after that incident has led to this surgical intervention to replace my hip joint on the right side. The damage occurred over time and has prgressed to not being able to walk well. Since a nurse is on her feet and lifting either patients or equipment all the time and that aggravates an already vulnerable condition, I had to stop working. My bones now touch as the cartilage wore away from the inflammation and injury. Physical therapy didn’t work. So Monday I become a bionic woman or a partial robot–whatever you prefer as they replace my hip joint with artificial bones made of plastic and ceramic. 

You can well imagine that “the 99%” has now become personal. I am someone the 1% calls lazy and irresponsible because I can’t work now. Since age 16 I have been making my own way in the world and been self sufficient even raising two children as a single mom. Our state is recalling its governor who has a moratorioum on state sponsored healthcare. My premiums have tripled and are one an a half times my rent. No one should be in a position to choose between their home or their premiums. Since the condition was getting worse, I knew as a nurse that the premiums were the priority. There are many people struggling to make their way in the world. Many older adults have to choose between food and medications that keep them alive. Medically,  I now have a pre-existing condition. If I were to drop my insurance in favor of a place to live, I will be un-insurable. I do not meet the criteria of a “disabled” person which would give me access to healthcare and state sponsored insurace. Governor Walker has placed a moratorium on state sponsored insurance.  There is already a waiting list of several years and a person must be without insurance for at least a year to be eligible. A medical emergency or surgery can throw people into a crisis. Foreclosures are widespread as many are losing their homes because a medical condition forced them into bancrupcy. Healthcare costs soar when people can’t pay their medical bills and institutions are forced to absorb those costs. As a nurse working with kids and adults on ventilators, my professiona demands that I be able to walk. If I cannot walk, I cannot work.

The governor’s new initiatives and his actions place in jeopardy the kids I worked with who were on vents and are dependent on them for life. If their parents had insurance at work, they became a liability for the companies carrying that insurance and many were fired– not for performance reasons but because of the expense to their employer to keep them on group insurance—they were a drain on the system and their medical needs forced everyone’s premiums higher. Employers have no choice but to let them go. So they turned to Medicaid for help with their children’s medical needs. These handicapped children cannot live without their ventilators and their parents can’t afford the insurance and certainly not the medical treatment required

There are certainly abuses of the system but they are not widespread; Governor Walker thinks they are. He has recalled nurses’ Medicaid pay and billed many of us for hours we legitimately worked but his people have determined, were billed in error. Many of the independent nurses I know, including me, have had to give up pay or pay back monies that the governor’s people say were inaccurately billed in previous years-. There has been little recourse except to be billed or to have pay garnished while these “inaccuracies” and “overpayments” are paid back into to the state coffers. When asked, there are no straight answers for how this discrepancy that occurred years ago “in the computer system” has suddenly surfaced and needs to be “rectified.”

Welcome to third world Wisconsin, third world America.

While I had sympathies for the “Occupy” people and movement, it’s now become personal. The “Occupy” movement and the 99% challenging the 1% is a push for us, as a society, to be compassionate with all members of our culture– the rich and poor, the infirm and the well, the working class and the elite. “What you do to the least of your brethren, ye do to me.” Instead of corporate greed, the 99% is asking for compassion and equanimity for the members of society. Whatever your political persuasions, we are all one in the spirit of “Cry,” “We Are The World,” and “You’re Just Another Part of Me.” It’s time to embrace all people alike and recognize their humanity.

Walking has become a problem, therefore work has become a problem, I was denied disability and the healthcare it brings. There was no choice but to retain a healthcare policy even though it tripled. No one should be in a position to have to choose between insurance or housing. And when the time comes that the individual who has been paying premiums for years needs that healthcare, it should not be denied or the treatment dictated by the insurance company. That insurance compay should not be looking for ways to not pay or to drop someone who suddenly needs the services they are insured for. What a racket! What industry makes millions as people pay for services not needed and then finds a way to deny the very service they are being paid to provide? What industry is taking money from the public to deny the public what they are paying for? What other industry do we pay lots of money to say “no!” ?

Something is very wrong with this whole picture. So yes, “Occupy” while noble before,  is suddently personal. The growing dissatisfaction and realization that the old ways aren’t working on this planet is real. It is time to build on a collective conspiracy to value, elevate, respect and revere people beyond corporate profit.

Without going into a lot of detail, I find that my situation and my life, and thus Inner Michael, must change and evolve. I have refused, put it off, delayed it and tried to get around it.  And while the whole purpose is not clear to me yet, in being called to “do battle” in so many ways in this last year, I have become a seasoned warrior. I have lobbied for what is just and right. I have stood up to the bullies. I have learned to “listen to the people” while at the same time listening to the still small voice inside. The battle has at times, included battling not just for dignity, but for very sanity as I watched everything that had meaning to me disappear. This journey is taking place on so many levels as to be deep, profound and meaningful. And painful. 

I am grateful for those teachers who surround me—friends, family, my fellow congregants at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and all those who have sent well wishes and gifts my way. There are many lessons in a life passage such as this one. Humility and gratitude must be mastered, for example. As a proud, independent and professional woman, I have made my own way in the world all my life. Suddenly hardship is as much a friend as joy and an even better teacher. Humility best shatters the ego.

To face the reality that one’s body does not cooperate is to grieve significant loss and to face one’s own inevitable mortality. It is a test of fortitude, of perseverance in the face of helplessness and it is a huge challenge to faith. Thank goodness and god for my mentor shaman and a new spiritual director in my life who explained this passage in terms of its metaphor and its archetypal significance. Just knowing that this passage has meaning helps to hang on to a sanity that at times has threatened to disintegrate.

I empathize with those dependent on pain medication. I see how easily it could slip into addiction by those who have no medical background or understanding of the dangers and in particular, addiction. In the fog of pain, it is easy to find oneself asking: “Did I already take my medication dose?” It would be easy to double up and take more than needed. When pain is insurmountable, it is easy to understand how a person might cross the line between dependence and addiction or take more than the body can handle as it slips into coma or death. Severe pain can cause sleeplessness as it wakes you from a sound sleep with a piercing discomfort. When the pain wakens one, that is the point at which there is no point even trying to sleep. It’s not going to happen. I can see how after a few sleepless nights, one might take more medication than is prescribed or in combinations that one is unaware are dangerous. If a medical person finds this tangle hard to navigate, I understand how a lay person might find it impossible or might make a fatal mistake. Taking pills for what ails us is so much a part of this modern culture that the ease with which we reach for chemical remedies is frightening. And that’s a medical person talking.

During a very dark time, a new spiritual advisor who “miraculously” entered my sphere quite “by accident” recently, has restored a confidence and hope that was slipping from its hold by the fingernails. She is an author, Jungian and founder of a lay Franciscan order.  This journey is the same archetypal journey taken by those she identifies as a group representing that archetype and its life passage: clowns, troubadours, madmen, fools and wandering mystics. While the path of the shaman is not simple or easy, the path of the reconnaisance mystic requires a stamina and faith that is not for the fainthearted. I immediately thought of Maya Angelou’s lament that few can identify with who are not either African or Native American…

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

“Still I Rise” ~Maya Angelou

That kind of journey is not one that you choose, but one that chooses you. It is a naturally inspired work in the world whose passion is not without commensurate pain. There are great things that can be done in the world if god intoxication is allowed to have its way, the inspiration and intuition is followed and faith is steadfast and integral. That last one is the requirement that is most demanding in a world that seems to particularly challenge the faithful. And in facing personal hardship, faith is the first thing that is challenged and  becomes doubtful.

A challenging entire passage or vision quest that involves multiple and significant losses makes what’s important in life perfectly and starkly clear. That makes me think of the beautiful gift of experience and words given us by Oriah Mountain Dreamer…

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

—————————–

There are and have been “companions along the way” thank goodness. And there are modern day mystics—Andrew Harvey comes immediately to mind as does his work in the world of spiritual activism. It’s another way to bear witness, to witness, and to resolve to restore spirit to the human condition. Matthew Fox, Michael Beckwith, James Twyman, Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, James Redfield, James Cameron, and Dan Brown with other modern spiritual revolutionaries also come to mind.  God bless the visionaries among us. Michael Jackson was one of those. He qualifies as among those gifted artists embodying an archetype and bringing a message that leads us back home– to ourselves.

The journey of faith involves a battle with identity: I am not my things. I am not my profession. I am not my environment. I am not me feelins of despair or desolation or even elation. I am not my fear even though it looms over me. I am not my finances—either wealth or lack. One discovers: I am not defined by any of those things because they can all pass away. The question then becomes – “well, if I am not that, who am I?” In the end, as Oriah so beautifully illustrates, none of that matters. Nada. None. Zip. Amen.

When things are gone, perhaps love is the only thing that matters? What comes to mind then is the lyrics to a couple of popular songs, one from the film Urban Cowboy:

Lookin’ for love In All the Wrong Places
 
I’ve spent a lifetime looking for you
 Single bars and good time lovers, never true
 Playing a fools game, hoping to win
 Telling those sweet lies and losing again.
 
I was looking for love in all the wrong places
 Looking for love in too many faces
 Searching your eyes, looking for traces
 Of what.. I’m dreaming of…
 Hopin’ to find a friend and a lover
 God bless the day I discover
 Another heart, lookin’ for love
 
When I was alone then, no love in sight
 And I did everything I could to get me through the night
 Don’t know where it started or where it might end
 I turn to a stranger, just like a friend
 
I was looking for love in all the wrong places
 Looking for love in too many faces
 Searching your eyes, looking for traces
 Of what.. I’m dreaming of…
 Hopin’ to find a friend and a lover
 God bless the day I discover
 Another heart, lookin’ for love
 
You came a’knocking at my heart’s door..
You’re everything I’ve been looking for..

No more looking for love in all the wrong places
 Looking for love in too many faces
 Searching your eyes, looking for traces
 Of what.. I’m dreaming of…
 Now that I found a friend and a lover
 God bless the day I discover
You, oh you, lookin’ for love
 
In all the wrong places
 Looking for love in too many faces
 Searching your eyes, looking for traces
 Of what.. I’m dreaming of…
 Now that I found a friend and a lover
 God bless the day I discover
You, oh you, lookin’ for love.
————————–

And this song with the same title by Marc Almond:

Looking for Love in All The Wrong Places

Keep on looking now
You gotta keep on looking now
Keep on looking now

You’re looking for love
In all the wrong places

Where your walk it’s always shadow
Conversation always shallow
When they talk they never look you in the eye
They look over your shoulder
To faces even colder
And you feel a little older
Every time

You’re looking for love
In all the wrong places

When you’re looking for reaction
When you’re searching for direction
When you’re scared of rejection
Or attack
You need the warmth of loving
When you’re growing tired of seeing
A colourless reflection
Looking back

You’re looking for love
In all the wrong places

Something real to fill those little empty spaces
So you’re looking for love in all the wrong places

You need understanding
You need a home
All those people so alone
You need understanding
You need a home
All those people so alone

You’re looking for love
In all the wrong places
You’re looking for love
In all the wrong places

You better keep on looking now!

And so the evening shade will fall
Where nameless voices call and call
And think of all the friends you made
While you toast with Prozac and lemonade

You can hold me under septic skies
(You can dream to your own places)
Watch the sun set in my eyes
(You can’t seem to put)
Could this be the time to die?
(A name to all the faces)
The wind upon your face
(Something real)
Your lips upon my lips
Like urban velvet
(To fill those little empty spaces)

So you’re looking for love in all the wrong places
You keep on looking for love in all the wrong places

Dream and take away the tears
(Keep on looking now)
Drift on to where your heart is numb
(You gotta keep on looking now)
It’s lovely there where love becomes
A drug to fill your need
Just believe in you!
And learn to love yourself
Before anyone else.

—————————–

The Sufi Mystic Poet Hafiz says it this way:

My Eyes So Soft

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly

let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you

as few human or even divine ingredients can

Something missing in my heart tonight

has made my eyes so soft

my voice so tender

my need of god

absolutely clear.
–Hafiz

Michael Jackson traveled this path in other ways and with another kind of lament as a reaction and challenge to the poverty of spirit or soul that he saw all around him and that caused him great personal despair in his life. It was the reason he said instead of your anger, some deserve your forgiveness and that people whose intention involved harm were acting from an internal vacuum and needed “L.O.V.E. more than judgment or disgust. He understood how those with wounded souls acted from a lack more than arrogance or that the arrogance came from a false bravado informed by fear. Michael only wanted to be loved because he knew that is what powers the world where salvation has returned and the world cares for all its children—all the children of the Creator.

Michael knew about the dangers of shadow and projection and ego. He sang of all this and it is a grave sadness that this is not more understood—and his gift to the world not more understood and appreciated. But I believe that time is coming and that we (We) have much to do with that conversion. Too many people, and in particular women of a median age have had a spiritual emergency and awakening at Michael’s passing. The Dalai Lama said that the salvation of the world will come from the West and in particular, Western women. I think he’s right and I think “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” The “Divine Feminine” is on her way back; the goddess is rising and the women are awake or waking. Arundati Roy said “Not only is another world possible; on a quiet day I can hear her breathing.” As close as the breath? Divine energy, Prana, Chi, Ki, Qi, Ruah or the holy breath is as near as the next inhale.

So I would ask that you take a deep breath and say a prayer for my rapid healing and for change as it comes now through necessity. I have been resisting it. I have gone kicking and screaming. I have railed against divine guidance: “at a time in my life when I should be sitting at the feet of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama at the shore of the Ganges, or sitting on a beach with a drink in my hand that has an umbrella, I have sat at the feet of a pose on toes teacher wearing sparkly socks instead of sandals. In the essay and short story “When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Sparkles.” I have screamed at god and demanded to know why this latest messenger instead of brining wisdom like Ram Das did a few years ago, comes with lightning rod polarization and controversy. I have learned that (“why?”) doesn’t work but (“what?”) inevitably does.

Inner Michael, I have decided, will continue despite any bumps in the road or path (obviously) but that there is a larger picture of which Michael and we are a integral and necessary part. I have been speaking of expansion and new perception. That will involve new direction too. The meme will change when consciousness changes enough to support a new vibration and higher state of mind. A simple technology introduced on a planet with impeccable timing is unstoppable and revolutionary in its impact. I hear her breathing too. According to my spiritual director now, the ego must be stripped bare and moved out of the way. A reliance on god and an “informed consent” means a restructuring of the bones of a new creation. The metaphor and paradox is not lost on me.

 Out of suffocating darkness comes blinding light. But the light cannot be seen if the darkness is puny. Part of the lesson is to exault self and one’s work to a place of value and significance. Dismissing the self and diminishing the work or devaluing it no longer serves. When artists and mystics or holy madmen wander in poverty, the impact is lessened than through he power of abundance that establishes and propels or impels through momentum. Critical mass begins with one atom smashing into one other atom and incorporating another and another making the force of that movement greater than the sum of its parts. It takes resources to reach that tipping point. Forcing those with a message to squeak in pathetic poverty instead of roar from abundance is a mistaken insistence in giving away a special gift instead of exchanging value for equal value. Lesson learned.

So after this medical crisis has passed and the healing is well on its way, I will be changing direction and creating new things that are now whispers in my intuition and the voice that leads with silence and urgent impulse. I have learned that instead of kicking and screaming, some days it pays to be silent and “listen.” That is not to say I will never scream at the Creator or Michael again- I am sure I will. But I get the other lesson now—that you can do more with more resources and wealth than you can without. Michael was a millionaire. While I am not expecting that for me, his lesson in abundance is well taken. His habit of tithing and giving back to the world in equal or more measure has hit home. “I get it; thank you, Michael.” 

I stubbornly refused to ask Michael Jackson fans for money. I never wanted to be accused of trading on his name or taking advantage of his fans. Besides, that is just not my style. Inner Michael began with a calling from fans who were desperate to understand their grief, to make sense of a senseless death and the absence of a hero and benefactor that humanity did not recognize or appreciate. They did not understand the depth of their grief or the urgency of their feelings, nor the magnitude of their sense of loss. After answering so many letters, it became obvious that some questions were common to all Michael’s admirers and the grief was different than usual bereavement. 

In speaking with my pastor and spiritual advisor, she asked if I sensed Inner Michael as a calling that I might respond to. As I responded to the need, Inner Michael grew organically on its own until it has become the “home” to some that it is today. The letters I received that tell me about the relief many felt from the knowledge I was able to offer made the effort worth it. “These are my people,” I thought, “they are “another part of me.”

But maybe that’s the ego talking. There’s nothing humble about stubborness. It’s more arrogance than humility. I had to consider that maybe people found value in the past at Inner Michael. Maybe they value the support they recieved during a difficult time. Maybe they found a place to rest or to take a deep breath; or maybe they found a home here. Maybe I have actually prevented them from expressing gratitude in a way that benefits both of us. Maybe I took that opportunity away or deprived them of saying “thank you” in a meaningful way that has value.

 

I do, at this moment, look upon all of this—the entire journey and even the current circumstances– as a preparation for the expansion or the next step. I stubbornly believe that the fans have an unprecedented opportunity to change the world. This particular journey—of a group of people devoted to a message (and by proxy and charisma and more than a little magic) and the archetype and persona of the man who brought it. There are some, in particular women who embody wisdom, who “get”this on a very deep level.

There is a reason Michael Jackson was so popular, why he touched so many hearts and why his fans were so loyal and steadfast and why they still are today. The whole of the Michael experience is far greater than the sum of its parts. There is a why in answer to the question of why the man was, and still is, so beloved. 

 

I want to continue this discussion and expansion. I want to implement some new things and take us in a new direction while at the same time going back to the original mission—understanding Michael and why you have an inner self that resonates (“inner Michael”.) I want to continue deconstructing his work and mining the archetypes and messages that he brought and that continues via his legacy. I have more to examine in his videos or short films, I have parallel teachers to introduce you to. I have more to say at Inner Michael, and I have a new idea that I think will take us into a brighter future. What I am saying is that I need you.

I need companions along the way and in order to create this new life and new work and vocation, I need to support myself and pay the bills. I am more than willing to be a muse, a minister and shaman, and even a wandering mystic or madwoman but I can’t wander naked. Those days are over. And nakedness and poverty garners no respect today. Naked and barefoot will not work now like they did for Gandhi. It’s a different age. I have recruited and constructed some amazing teams of people that have not even been revealed. I have collaborated with stars in their own right and received offers from other stars.

One mission and project that is on the table right now and right in front of me, will bring light to a part of Michael Jackson and his work and life that has gone unexamined. It will bring dignity and respect to his legacy. I want to continue to work with this incredible team I assembled while sharing a  mission that is rich and vibrant and lends itself to art and passion.

I want to continue my work as a producer with another personally hand-picked and remarkably talented team that share both artistry and vision and who step “naked and trembling” into every new venture.

I also want to continue promoting Voices Education Project “Words and Violence” in a larger and more expansive way. When Sue Wilson is ready, I want to work with her in media activism and I want to bring you all with us.

I will step up and step forward but I need to know I am going to step into a place where there is solid ground under my feet. Even a wandering mystic or fool (or the other similar archetypes) needs grounding and as she steps, a foundation under her feet. I need help paying for my website hosting and expenses, to donate back to those who have volunteered to help without remuneration, to pay for where the Michael Messages are hosted, the domain names and websites, and more bandwidth and technologies to facilitate the seminars and workshops that can be offered to develop leadership skills and identify life missions and to understand why we are here and what we are to do. And I need to pay my bills. And most of all, I need to establish the essentials of the mission—wireless access to the web and a place to lay my head at the end of the day.

 This will mean monetizing Inner Michael and the new websites that are planned. I will also design websites and web content for others who ask and are able to contribute to my funding. I will pursue grants and monies for Voices and for “Words and Violence” because that work is THAT valuable—it was the most explored and used part of the Voices website last year. More people are learning of it. It takes time and effort to accomplish that. And last weekend as I provided a keynote presentation for a women’s conference at a retreat center, I learned that speaking about Michael Jackson, what happened to him, explaining the media’s opportunistic targeting of this man and of Lady Diana disgusts people, impels them to listen and to exit the helplessness they feel to change it in favor of action and solutions.

I recently wrote something for the Huffington Post about the treatment of Whitney Houston by the press. I have said at Inner Michael that her work was directly responsible for the release of Nelson Mandella after her concert for freedom and human rights in South Africa. My article wasn’t published. I need time and resources to pursue other avenues. I had given the editors a heads up that my piece was in the chute but it was ignored, went unpublished and I was never contacted. Nor was I told why or asked to change it or trash it and start over. There was complete silence. There is a message in that. People need the personal touch. They need contact, inclusion and direction. While reaching numbers is important, reaching hearts is more imperative. This too means expansion and change.

People told me that they want to change things. They want to make the world a better place and the need to change the narrative on this planet to a more human narrative is absolutely clear to them. So was their helplessness—until we brainstormed solutions. I left the weekend event knowing that there was a whole new population that understood Michael better and who intend to explore the project at Voices and who will take the action only they can take and make the contribution to the humane, dignified and preciously human contribution that inspires them. They will find their “inner Michael” and their own inner light that will help all of us to find and shine our own. They are on their way to making the world a better place and their own life missions. Yes, we did that together. And I want to bring that to Inner Michael.

So, I am going to move a contribution button to the top of Inner Michael and start there. What happens next will determine the direction of my life. And as I am physically able, I will use this long recovery period to develop and foster some of those projects that beckon and await me. During my surgery, I will listen to headphones that play the anthem message we all find familiar and in particular the play and replay of what speaks to me loudly right now: “Speechless” and “Will you Be There?”

Here’s where you can find me and get updates: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/barbarakaufmann

Meanwhile, after you listen to the Youngbloods, try, just try to get these lyrics out of your head! Good luck with that! See you soon enough. ILYM.

 

 

Love is but a song we sing
fears’ the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
or make the angels cry
 
Though the dove is on the wing
and you may not know why
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now
 
Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
returns for us at last
We are but a moment’s sunlight
fading in the grass
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another right now
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another right now
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another right now
 
If you hear the song I sing
you will understand…listen
You hold the key to love and fear
all in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
Its there at your command
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
Everybody get together
try to love one another right now
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
Everybody get together
try to love one another right now
 
I said…..
 
Come on people now
smile on your brother
Everybody get together
try to love one another right now
right now
right now.