Heart of Glass & Queen of Scars -- Toadies & Heaven Beside You -- Alice In Chains

Ram Dass answered me this time! 

I know, I know, you'll just say that he's dead and how could he possibly answer me!?!

It's the algorithm, I'm sure of it, but at least it is feeding me Ram Dass content, even if he's been dead for a while. And, just because you're dead, doesn't mean that what you said while you were alive doesn't have an impact. People like to ask why God won't answer directly when you pray. I think God does answer, but you have to be open to receiving the answer from the most unexpected people, places, and even just things encountered in your everyday life. 

Yesterday I posted that I wished I could ease the suffering of those who are enduring it. And then almost immediately after posting to the blog, I saw the Ram Dass quote where he said that he didn't have any right to take away anyone else's suffering. It's theirs. It is for them to endure, change, and learn. Of course he put it very eloquently, whereas I, like always, just came here to write this down before I forget and the words just kinda spill out. Maybe it worked that way for him too, I'm not sure because I never met him. I think what he meant by not having the right to take away another's suffering, is that it is interrupting another's lesson, and I believe that suffering is often a lesson we need to learn about ourselves and our own nature as individual human beings. As good as our intentions may be, sometimes what others need is our presence when they are suffering. For you to sit with them and say, I hear you. Hold space for others. To listen to them and not be dragged into their drama. 

I can't ease your suffering but I can hold space for you when you are suffering!! That's the answer!

I don't have to fix all the problems, I never had to! 

I just have to be present and hold space for those that I love. 

I may not be able to understand your suffering--I may not be able to see inside those dark thoughts in your mind, but I can very much hold space for you! I can give you the freedom to figure it out and still offer you the same love and support that I have always offered!

Sometimes, you get the answer. Just be careful what you're asking for, because you'll receive the lesson you're meant to have and not necessarily everything you've ever fantasized about having in life. 

Beside You -- Toadies

I wrote a bunch of shit and I just wasn't feeling it so I scrapped it and began again. Because you can do that, at any time. Try something new. Make different choices.

I hope you can find hope if you've been struggling.

Words written by Todd Lewis:

I don't give many promises

And you don't really know me

If I could promise you just one thing

It's that you never be lonely

So walk around with your head held high

And I make it my wish tonight

I hope you'll never be lonely

I hope you'll never be lonely

Although I'm leaving, wherever I go

I'll always be closer than you know

So channel your voice and make it true

And I'll be right there beside you

I know it gets hard sometimes

When it comes to leaving

But you're never gonna leave my mind

I only hope you believe me

Although I'm leaving, wherever I go

I'll always be closer than you know

So sing out loud and make it true

And I'll be right there beside you

My wish tonight, I hope you'll never be lonely

Although I'm leaving, have no tears

I will always be right here

And you have a light that will shine through

And I'm right here beside you

I don't want to try to pretend to know how you feel, if you're suffering. I have suffered my own things in life, and still do. I no longer feel the deep dark depths of depression. I find it hard to force my mind back to those times when I felt such despair. I no longer seek to wallow in it. 

I don't know how to save you if you won't try to save yourself, too. 

Maybe I shouldn't try? It feels cruel to leave you all alone in the depths of your own despair. What am I to do? When all you seem to want to do is wallow? All I want to do is sing and dance in the light. Why won't you take it when I'm trying to share my light with YOU!?!?

I wish I could make it easier for you--ease the suffering that you endure! Oh, how much I wish it. 

I love the Toadies, they make me happy and I always sing along. 

But you've gotta save yourself, guys. 

I can't do it for you.  

Here's another song for you, I've shared it before:

written by: A. Kubiszewski, C. Hall, J. Sellers, JAMES ERIC SELLERS, M. Eliopulos, Marcus Eliopolus, Walter Flakus 

Stabbing Westward -- Save Yourself

I know your life is empty

And you hate to face the world alone

So you're searching for an angel

Someone who can make you whole

I cannot save you 

I can't even save myself

So just save yourself

(Save yourself)

I know that you've been damaged

Your soul has suffered such abuse

But I am not your savior

I am just as fucked as you

(I am just as fucked as you)

I cannot save you

I can't even save myself

So just save yourself

Please don't take pity on me

Please don't take pity on me

Please don't take pity on me 

Please don't take pity on me

My life has been a nightmare

My soul is fractured to the bone

If I must be lonely

I think I'd rather be alone

(I think I'd rather be alone) 

You cannot save me 

You can't even save yourself

I cannot save you

I can't even save myself

Save yourself

So just save yourself

I think that it's really important to note how the lyrics change at the end. I truly believe that you can be saved, but sometimes you absolutely have to do it yourself.

When I was deep in depression, I listened to a lot of different music for a lot of different reasons, but sometimes it was to wallow in the darkness, to wallow in the sadness of losing my mother. It was grief. I wallowed and I raged and I survived. 

I'm still here. 

She Likes Surprises -- Soundgarden & Absinthe -- I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

It was my open letter to God; like I said in that post (The Day I Tried To Live), I never really expected an answer. You can imagine my surprise when I actually did get an answer. It wasn't the one that I wanted, but it was an answer, nonetheless. 

I'm not sure if I have written about this here before, I know that I have written about this a lot both by hand and on a keyboard but it's hard to say where exactly. I do not envy the children who will have to sort through my papers and computers after I die. 

I hope all my stories don't die with me. 

When I was a teenager I was extremely sad for no reason and could just not figure it out. It went on for what seemed like an agonizingly long time. I know now that this was probably the beginning of PMDD--but, at the time, I just had the sads. I would pray to God all the time to just deliver me from the misery. Every night for a while I would pray not to wake in the morning. And each and every morning--or early afternoon, as one might expect of a teen on the weekend--warm sunlight would spill through the windows and, upon waking, I would deride god for not having given me overnight what I had asked of him in my prayers the night before--and then one day, I was mad about it and was like allllrighty then. So much for praying. And it is so interesting to me that this is the memory that is stuck fast in my brain. I can remember where I was when I had the thought, not really the outfit I was wearing, but I can see the room--my bedroom as a teenager, painted a very pale lavender--I had just stepped into the room onto the berber carpet and was hovering in the doorway for a moment when the thought came to me. Maybe the lack of an answer is the answer; God doesn't want me to die. Or to suffer. And if he's not going to personally come down here and fix me being sad all the time, then I've got to do it for myself. I will make myself happy. 

This one thought changed everything, and this moment in time--that is the memory that I turn to when I might be excessively sad and trying to think my way back out of the sads. Sometimes, when you're really upset it is easy to forget that it is the endless well inside that we must tap, rather than looking outside of ourselves--everything we need to seek about God and life--it's all inside that bottomless well. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you don't. I'm not sure that it matters if you quite understand, but, maybe someday you will have your own epiphany and these words will make so much sense. It kinda goes back to the Ram Dass quote about being on the path--don't worry, you don't really have to do anything, you're already on the path. 

I had a very weird dream the other night. I don't want to share the exact details because I don't know that they matter as much as conveying the feelings that I was having during the dream. Sometimes I am sure that when I'm dreaming I am actually slipping from my own body and joining that place we all go when we die--and, from there, I was in another's body and that person was hopeless. But they didn't know that I was inside them now. (Freaky, I know, but I beg of you please read the Remember Me series by Christopher Pike--yes it's YA, and I have loved these books all my life and reread them every few years). But the people around this person knew she was hopeless and they were trying to break her, to get her to take her own life. Which I couldn't let happen. So I took over. Whatever it was that she would have done if  I hadn't been in her body didn't matter anymore, because I was going to show her and everyone else that you don't have to be hopeless and you don't have to break and suicide yourself. So I started being me instead of her in the interactions she was having during this day. She was scared to death, hopeless that things wouldn't ever change or get better, and it's a feeling that took me back to the scene in my lavender bedroom as a teen. I knew the answer and it was inside me. I laughed in the faces of the people who were telling dream-me horrible things, trying to provoke me, that wanted to hurt me--and when I laughed, their looks of evil hatred turned to shock and amazement for a moment before they switched immediately to anger and they doubled down. But I had already found the well inside that I knew was there and I was already dismissing all that hopelessness and replacing it with the faith, hope and love of that endless well. The dream was over, at least that part of it was, when I found that well and tapped into it. 

The best way that I can describe the feeling of the well is--every happy loving moment that you've ever experienced or hoped to experience is inside it and it feels like your whole body will burst with love. There's a word for it, I suppose more than one, depending on how you view language and semantics. Sublime. The most incredible feeling. Like being safe, loved, and whole.