The precious gift of a voice

It isn't until something is gone, even if momentarily, that we realize what we have. For me, these last few days, I haven't had a voice. I have been sick and lost my voice for about three days which meant barely being able to speak, and certainly, singing was out of the question. I love singing. And this was the first time in my life when I couldn't. The thought of never being able to sing has really made me think about one more thing I take for granted. More than ten years ago, after 9/11, I had recorded a version of the Star Spangled Banner. It was uploaded on what was then mp3.com, a huge worldwide community of musicians. I was chosen out of 50 Anthem singers to be included on the American Red Cross Relief Album. I remember that evening well. I was very honored. After that, my version of our Anthem was used in various presentations, including this one, which I found the other night on YouTube.
It brings back a lot of memories, some very sad, of course. But it also reminded me that my voice is such a precious gift. And not only do I need to take care of it, but I need to take care of me, too. My song begins about 1/4th of the way into the tribute.

Living an "Uncomplicated Life"

We often hear others tell us that “Life is complicated”. Life is not complicated. Life is beautiful. It is a wondrous journey of adventure, discovery, awareness, self, synergy, learning, growing, experiencing, loving. Life is intelligence. And that is not complicated, only complex and perfect. We are connected to each other, to nature, to the energy force of life and consciousness all around us. Complicated, no. What makes our life complicated are our own self-defeating ideas, which we are not born with but are brought on by our own conditioning, by fear and by false truths. What we tell ourselves and what we fear are what make life “complicated”. Change should not equal fear. Change is essential, change is unavoidable. Our lives are constantly in shift of change, just as our universe is, our world is. The leaves fall every season so we can have rebirth in the spring. Shedding of an old season of our lives, whatever it may be is also essential for rebirth in ourselves. We should not fear change, it should be embraced. Avoiding change is what “complicates” our lives. Avoiding a necessary decision because we are afraid of a particular outcome that could make us feel uncomfortable is what makes our lives “complicated”.
When we live in truth, love and without fear, we are not living a complicated life at all, but one that is perfect and harmonious, just as it was meant to be. Always live in truth. Embrace change. Release your fears.

Love, What Life is All About

Love is a learned phenomenon.... What worries me is that maybe many of us are unhappy with the way we've learned it. As experienced human beings, we must certainly believe in one thing more than anything else -Change. And so, if you don't like where you're at in terms of love, you can change it. You can create a new scene. You can only give away what you have. That's the miracle. If you have love, you can give it. If you don't have it, you don't have it to give. Actually, it's not really a matter of giving, is it? It's a matter of sharing. Whatever I have, I can share with you. I don't lose it because I still have it. For example, I could teach people everything I know, and I would still know everything I know. It is possible to love everyone with equal intensity and still have all the love energy I have ever had. There are a lot of miracles to being a human but this is one of the greatest miracles.

-Leo Buscaglia
Love, What Life is All About

If this was the cold war....

Dallas, TX   -  Winter has forced us all into hibernation. For the past two days we have not been snowed in, no, that would have been tolerable. We have been iced in. The entire metroplex is covered in a half inch blanket of ice and here we are, isolated, locked inside our homes. And to add insult to injury, we woke up to a smelly gas leak this morning, a non-working heater, a freezing house and for me, a toilet whose pipes had frozen in the night. Flushing was out. There were even power outages all over the city throughout the day to “conserve energy”. Everyone in the city and all of our 100,000+ Superbowl guests are sucking the energy down to a low pilot light flame. Let’s not forget the colossal TV screens we’ll need to fuel at Cowboy’s Stadium this Sunday. I'm SURE that will take priority over heating residents' homes.

I guess I could look at this as a time to unwind, catch up on some book reading, and work on things I know I should be working on, but I already have cabin fever and I’m ready for things to go back to normal. I want to be able to just drive somewhere. Anywhere. Isn't it amazing how hard it is to surrender?  

So being trapped inside the house for two, maybe even three days, has made me restless. I have had no choice but to take my time to enjoy the silence, relax more and surrender. Forcing nature to accept your agenda never works. Nature always wins. (See photo)