Colors of Life – Ram Dass & Being

Ram Dass & BeingI watched an entire season of Ram Dass teachings and all the quotes this week are his.

The teachings had everything in it from his disliking of people, to his sexuality, to his questioning of Enlightenment. But what I noticed throughout the entire season it’s about being. He was just being.

How difficult it is for most of us to just be. Just sit still to quiet the mind and just be. So much of what we learn is to be a doer or a thinker or a seeker.

“The thinking mind is what is busy. You have to stay in your heart. You have to be in your heart. Be in your heart. The rest is up here in your head where you are doing, doing, doing.” 

The idea of being is just being. We have the answers to our lives, but we don’t sit quietly to hear what they are saying. There is more to us than this three-dimensional physical plane. We see this in our dreams, meditations and sometimes we get that aha moment when we talk to somebody or watch a TV show or overhear someone speaking. It’s amazing to me when you get those little nudges and I don’t know where they come from. Is it intuition? Is it our higher self, our angels, spirit guides? In the past, when I have fought these nudges, I will fall flat on my face. So, follow that intuition, Spirit guides, higher self, etc. because it’s usually right. “Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we’re so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.”

These nudges told me to write and publish my poetry. I was scared to do that because yes; I was exposing who I was. I was afraid I would not be accepted. The opposite happened. I was accepted. This same little nudge came to me constantly for two years to start up the Poetic Resurrection podcast. I didn’t know what the podcast should be about. I knew it would not be about acting. Then, during the pandemic, I saw people marching and helping at food banks and I thought, how wonderful would life be if we had self-love and self-acceptance? With these acceptances, it would be easy to accept and love others. There would be no fear of loss. Whichever direction these nudges are directing you, they need to be of a kind heart.

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.”

The poem for this week is Continuum from Inspire Me: Perception.

Continuum

Spring florets glimmer
In afternoon light
Scent of fresh tulips
Myths of existence—fables

Trembling in 90 degrees
Veneer of tears
Illusions of turmoil
Created by self
Head spins—Pandora’s Box

Seven sins tap across the stage of
A cardinal songbird
As the earthfall cleanses itself
Hope gathers irises
For a rainbow bridge

Oyá* conjures and flees storm
Yemaya*—mother disapproves
Amazon and Niger Rivers
Dominated
Femininity protected

Travel—Antipodes
Indian ocean with full moonlight
Glistens as the waves erupt
Hera’s* vengeful heart
Aches from illegitimate family

Crumbled mirror of water
Tears cascade past seven years,
Moisture blooms lilies of death
Phoenix’s ashes resurrected
In endless evolution

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  • Oyá uses tornados as her weapon and raises dead armies to use as her warriors.
  • Yemaya is a powerful orisha who’s the mother of living things.
  • Hera is Zeus’ wife, best known for her jealousy of Zeus’s other family.

 

Colors of Life – The Little Girl

The Little GirlYesterday, I was honored to once again interview Luis J. Rodriguez for an upcoming episode on Poetic Resurrection. We spoke for about two hours and we had an amazing conversation about many subjects, including sexual abuse. Being a survivor of this, I had written the poem The Little Girl featured in my first book, Inspire Me: Raw. I’m grateful to my parents for being there for me. It was an experience I thought I had overcome since I could talk about the situation. But, I hadn’t.

It wasn’t until I wrote the poem that I could release the shame and trauma I was holding onto. It served no purpose but to keep me down. Why would I want to hold on to that? The situation is that we sometimes don’t know we’re still holding onto the past. It has a way of showing up as a trigger and that’s when I knew I had to work on letting go. I don’t believe in “forgive and forget”. Yes, I can forgive, but you don’t forget. You learn to forgive them and yourself for holding onto so much pain throughout your life.

I’ve noticed many survivors talk about their experience and I wanted to do the same; I just wrote from the perspective of the child, because the child doesn’t understand.

Listen to the Poetic Resurrection Podcast here or at PR Podcast

Buy Inspire Me: Raw on Amazon

The Little Girl from Inspire Me: Raw

The little girl walks to school
Tenements line gray streets
She does well in school
Her five-year-old stature
Shows resistance & strength

Drawings of prismic colors
Joy and glee adorn her face
Hesitant to show teacher
Waiting for praise—teacher questions
She understood but couldn’t answer

Teacher screams at her
Points—to disappear into
The sea of moveable desk
She gazes at her tattered shoes
Her friend speaks English, she does not

Colorless teacher was unkind
To the little girl
Who only speaks Spanish
Tears flow down her face
She hides – the teasing kids

Goes home, keeps to herself
Pretends to be an actress
Living a world that wasn’t her own
Only hearing voices of a different land
Citizens we are, but not considered same

Pretending so young to be okay
Her seven-year-old friend
Said she wanted to play
A store basement, dark and clammy
Her friend gazes on while she screams
“It hurts,”. “Why did you do this?”

A teenage boy
Took friend’s innocence and
Now he’s taken the little girl’s
Her soul and worth
But she doesn’t understand

The store owner saves her,
Atop soaring stairs
Bold voice of disgust
Vibrates the crypt
Boy halts, he runs

She now rests at home
A peeling grey wood porch
Third-floor view—sits on step
Sunless hallway
Looking at the sky so blue

Doesn’t know how she got there
Mind’s a haze of events
Discolored panties, hand washed often
Advertise the status of her little life

The bandages trying to hold
The innocence lost. It’s too late
Mom looks at her—
Turns away and cries.
Did she do something wrong?
Sorry you’re hurting; doesn’t know what to do

I’m sorry mom
Don’t mean to make you cry
Don’t mean to make you cry
Tears never came to me
The little girl who didn’t understand

 

Colors of Life – Season 3 Intro

Colors of LifeWelcome to season 3 of the Poetic Resurrection Podcast. This season we will touch upon the “Colors of Life”, an international perspective with an introspective edge. We have poets and writers of different backgrounds who will read and discuss their writings. This is a breakaway from the usual podcast which steers away from politics and religion. They will speak about what happens in their culture, belief systems, and challenges they face. As always, love and acceptance are our perspectives. Just the experiences and acceptance of self and others. Join us for this insightful look at international existence and the different cultures and beliefs that create our world.

The poem for this week is Citizen from Inspire Me: Raw. I wrote this poem several months before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. It surprised me to hear from many people that they didn’t know Puerto Ricans were American citizens. On a side note, people from Guam are also American citizens. Please join us in this new and exciting season and here’s the poem Citizen.

Citizen

Curly red hair
Freckled skin
Speaking Spanish
Not fitting in

People’s bias
Perceptions
Ignorance
Citizen

Where are you from?
How did you get here?
Was it a struggle?
No—citizen

No boats
No tunnels
No hiding
Airplanes

I belong here
Born here
Educated
Citizen

Listen to this episode on this website or Direct to Colors of Life Hosted site

Poetic Resurrection Podcast

Purchase Inspire Me: Raw

YouTube video CITIZEN

Surreal Photoshoot

Sonia at Zuma BeachThis week I had a surreal photoshoot with Ken Sawyer a theater director and photographer. We had fun and we’re both into surrealism and unique photos and art. We shot for hours. I’ll post more as I go along. This picture is for a poem I wrote Ray of Light which will be in my upcoming book entitled Inspire Me: In Time of Need. 

In the meantime check out my other books here

Poetic Resurrection Podcast S2 Recap

PR Podcast S2 RecapThanking all our guests and listening audience for joining us for Season Two of the Poetic Resurrection Podcast.

  1. Jaclyn Steele—Soul of Connection we discuss the Soul Connection and how our soul’s calling intertwines our lives, beliefs, and our connection with others.
  2. Alex Greenwood—Soul of Mystery We laugh, joke, and discuss the soul of writing mysteries.
  3. Trini Rodriquez—Soul of Healing We discuss Native American and Mexican American sweat-lodges and how this brings you closer to your soul.
  4. Che’Rae Adams—Soul of Writing We discuss what it takes to write a good story and how the story germinates from the soul. That inner voice drawing us to write our story.
  5. Ian Brooks—Soul of Intention We had a lively discussion on the process of intention. How the pandemic, perceptions, and beliefs affect our lives and how we can change the characters we created in our story.
  6. Jonathan Troen—Soul of Self-Love We have a lively conversation about the Self-Love Revolution.
  7. Martin Espada—Soul of my Father A reading of Letter to My Father and how it affected him. We discussed historical events and perceptions of Puerto Rico and its people in this heartfelt interview.
  8. Joachim Brackx—Soul of Self We discuss the self and how our perceptions play an important part in compassion, self-love, and acceptance.
  9. Rick White – Soul of Understanding We have a great discussion about grief, life, illness and acceptance of self, our value, and how life changes.
  10. Samuel Ashe II – Soul of Giving we discuss how our experiences teach us to help ourselves and others.
  11. Melissa Da Silva – Soul of a Relationship We discuss Her journey from a toxic relationship to self-acceptance, love, and grieving of love lost.
  12. Charlie Sheldon – Soul of Storytelling We discuss his journey from Yale to being a fisherman to writing his books.
  13. Andrew Seaton – Soul of You We discuss spiritual awakening and how it’s simple.
  14. Louise Alexandra Erskine—Soul of Imperfection We discuss toxic relationships, parenting, and being a single mother raising boys and how her poetry and photography clarified and taught her acceptance of being imperfect.

Podcast on this site.

Poetic Resurrection Podcast Hosting Site.

The Soul of Imperfection with Louise Alexandra Erskine

Louise Alexandra ErskineIn our final episode of season 2, we have an amazing discussion with the lovely Louise Alexandra Erskine. We discuss toxic relationships, parenting, and being a single mother raising boys and how her poetry and photography clarified and taught her acceptance of being imperfect.

Louise Alexandra Erskine is a poet, photographer, and content creator learning through a lifetime of passion and heartbreak Louise writes about her relationships and experiences in life, love, loss, surviving domestic abuse, and falling in love the right way – with herself! Louise experienced success early on writing poetry on Pinterest and has returned to writing as part of a long journey of self-discovery after losing herself to a controlling, abusive marriage. Louise is now a single parent raising three children in the English countryside and using Instagram to express emotion through imagery and tell the stories of her life both through her poetry via https://beautifullydefected.com and as a family connecting with other women struggling through toxic relationships on @this_beautifully_defected_life.

Poetic Resurrection Podbean

Poetic Resurrection podcast page

 

The Soul of You with Andrew Seaton

Our guest this week Monday, Sept 20th is Andrew Seaton author of Spiritual Awakening Made Simple. We discuss the Soul of You – spiritual awakening and how it’s simple, we address grief, and other emotions affecting our perceptions. Check out this informative interview.

Andrew Seaton is a spiritual author, teacher, counselor, and mentor for spiritual awakening. For more than four decades, he delved deeply into educational philosophy and psychology; old wisdom and new science; reports of higher consciousness; and a wide range of personal development, holistic wellness, and spiritual awareness practices.

As Andrew experienced all the personal ups and downs of his life, his working life was quite varied, but mostly in education. He had many different roles in that field, most of them relating to education of the whole person. His Ph.D. thesis was titled “Investing in Intelligence: An Inquiry into Educational Paradigm Change.” Andrew came to see that in our world we are generally making some deeply flawed assumptions about knowledge, human nature, and quality of life. In 2006, he resigned from a two-year stint as an education academic in order to focus on unlearning his education and other conditioning, and on awakening, the fuller functioning that he had come to see so clearly is possible and desirable.

Listen to it on the Poetic Resurrection Podcast and PoeticResurrection.com

Awakening Made Simple (on Amazon)

Andrew’s website is at AwakeningMadeSimple.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewSeaton101

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCau8nH_QV9fGPnZopgzkDrg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewseaton101

 

The Soul of Storytelling Charlie Sheldon

The Soul of StorytellingCharlie Sheldon went to Yale University and UMass, where he received a Masters Degree in Wildlife Biology/Resource Management. Charlie Sheldon is a Washington-based author of the trilogy Strong Heart, Adrift & the third book in the series Totem. (See below for links).

He worked in the fishing industry for 15 years as a deckhand, mate, skipper, and consultant, then relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 1990 to be near Olympic National Park.

He worked at seaports for nearly 30 years as a planner, project manager, and executive.

When he retired from seaports in 2012 he returned to sea as a merchant sailor for four years, working on various container and military vessels as Able Bodied Seaman and Bosun.

He retired in 2016 to work full time at his writing. Nowadays he hikes in the Olympic National Park whenever he can, cooks for his wife, pesters his grandchildren, and continues to scribble tales.

Listen to the  Poetic Resurrection Podcast and on this site 

Available on Amazon

Strong Heart: https://amzn.to/3hs1iSQ

Adrift: https://amzn.to/3C7gJrF

Totem: https://amzn.to/3hu346c