Freedom & Liberty

The Same

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You and me we are the same

we only answer to a different name

we both have a book of life

where we have our individual chapters of strife

we both have physical bodies and brains

we both have the ability to take the reigns

just like me if you belief it – its true

making a special moment out of the blue

from the windows in which we look through

you have the choice to do the right thing

to dance to the songs that you sing

to write them yourself and make your own way

to cherish whats within our reach every single day

Finding the Place

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Need to spend more time

in the sun

with breaths of fresh air

where there’s plenty of space

where noones in a race

except the kids playing on the lawn

or the deer over yonder with her fawn.

maybe not as far as voluntary simplicity

but certainly away from the big city

brief moments and stretches in passing there

but returning back where the focus is care

where love and life thrive with ease

where you feel a caress from the breeze

where life is slower and can be enjoyed

where love and energy are always employed

like waving as you pass along

where it feels so right and you sing a song

a place where everything is fresh

and you feel at your best

where that is common among the rest

downhome love and acceptance

with wider expansions and the will for the present

where being good in all things important

the feelings, not the things ride the current

of now and whats right here

I’m not there right now, but the time is near.

A Poem: Soul Sisters

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You have to know both heaven and hell

to know what to wish when throwing your penny in the well. 

It’s important to be acquainted with both sides

it will definitely help you to make the most of the ride

avoiding the empty holes and knowing when to glide. 

I do know now there are just a few in which I can confide

As of late I’ve called them soul sisters, you bet they’re bonafide. 

We, together, know whne its safe to no longer hide

You see, when you are of this special clan 

you’ll never have to worry – You’ll always have a helping hand

they are the handful that really understand

Amongst us we share our dreams and love freely

we give all we have completely. 

We love to dance and just let go

and to witness such is quite a show. 

Of women being free to be who they choose

because there’s so much more to win that to lose. 

Let’s enjoy and laugh and share great moments

Remember when in Rome, do as the Romans. 

We create our own world, full of beauty and honesty

a place that is safe for each of us to be

together we will be ourselves, natural and free!

Beauty’s got the best of her

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Her eyes are bright

her love is right

but she still doesn’t know

 

beauty’s got the best of her

youth is on her side

but secretly she wishes

that she can run and hide

 

its time for her to be set free

to fly around like a honeybee

shes always sweet in her way

but nows the time for her to say…

 

oh set me free!

so I can learn what I need

so I can see who I am

’cause I just want to be me

 

beauty’s got the best of her

youth is in her eye

a heart bursting full of love

all she needs is time

 

oh set me free!

so I can learn what I need

so I can see who I am

’cause I just want to be me

My Personal Quest

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I really want to know what things are about. I want to know what love is about. I want to know what life is about. I want to know where I fit into the bigger picture. I want to know about spirituality. I want to learn as much as I can about everything that peaks my interest. I want it all.

Can I have it all? I am not sure, but I am sure trying. That is all I can do. I don’t know much about love but I am sure trying to figure it out. I don’t know much about life, but I am sure doing my best to live. I don’t know where I really fit in, but I am trying out different situations to find folks that are more like me than not. I don’t know much about spirituality, but I try to listen to my inner voice as often as I can. I know a little bit about a lot of things so far, but every time something new interests me I try to take the time to learn more than I know now.

I want it all… love, life, happiness, health, light and knowledge. I want to experience everything that I possibly can. I want to know about me in this process. I want to know about others in this process. I want to know. I just don’t know much yet. In fact, sometimes I think I don’t know anything at all. But I do know one thing… I can certainly say that I have been doing my best to find what I am looking for. I just wish sometimes it were easier to know exactly what it is that I am looking for.

Consumption and Bliss?

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Joseph Campbell says that we should “Follow Your Bliss”. He is right. Finding what makes us happy and going for it sounds like a pretty simple idea, right? If it is so simple, why are so many of us just trying to be like one another? Why are so many of us unhappy, overweight, stressed out, overworked and in debt? Why is it so hard to do what makes us happy?

We are so consumed with the idea that we need to be the best at everything we do. We consume everything in major quantities. Spending money, mostly that we don’t even have, unnecessarily in order to make us happy, which never really happens and further fuels the cycle of wanton consumption. We are so obsessed with keeping up with the Jones’s that we lose focus and sight of our own personal wants and needs. We are a media ruled society and believe most of what we see… but that isn’t the reality, not for everyone.

We want to earn the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time. We want everything right now and do not know what it means to work, to really work for something any more. We are so lost that, of course, we cannot say that we generally follow our bliss. When we never take the time to look inside of ourselves, to find out what really makes us tick, how can we ever truly know what does make us tick?

Looking like our Neighbor

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Since we cannot choose our genes and we didn’t have an option, is that why we are sooo outwardly focused now? Why are we so interested in our outward appearance when most of us cannot help how we look. Of course there are the extreme people for one reason or another that surgically change their appearance, but for the rest of us… why are we so focused on how we look instead of how we feel?

I guess how we feel, in this climate, is directly linked to how we look. Especially since we are forced to be so consumed with the idea of “perfection”. We spend billions each year on cosmetics to look like everyone else, to help boost our self esteem but does it really work? Just because we look the same or similar on the outside doesn’t mean we are the same on the inside. What about looking inward and accepting our own natural beauty? What about accepting how we look and moving on to bigger and more important things?

Let’s look at health… internal, spiritual, mental and physical. What about those? Doesn’t health make us happy? Doesn’t happiness make us healthy? Self love is totally involved in this yet is overshadowed usually by the desire to look a certain way, to fit in with the crowd.  Why do we want to look like everyone else in the herd instead of cherishing our differences? We are not cookie-cutter versions of one another… we are all so individual, yet for some reason strive to look like our neighbor.

… you need to look back

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I found this article from Outsider Online.

As Johnson explains it, Kelly Slater started riding new high-performance boards in the 1990s that were ridiculously thin and narrow. Slater, who’s known as”the Freak” for his extraordinary surfing abilities, could ride these boards with flair, but lots of other surfers couldn’t. Then the fish and other retro styles made a comeback. “You jump on there and suddenly you can glide again,” Johnson says. “I think about this in terms of music or anything: Sometimes things progress to the point that it’s not really progressing anymore. You get to this dead end, where you need to look back.”

Intellectuals, Obama and the WeatherUnderground

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Okay, just a little food for thought… we are who we are and we are never going to be anyone else and can never really know what it is like to be anyone else. I am sure you agree with this line of thought. I am a white American woman, aged 28, who grew up in the center of California in the countryside between two rural towns, went on to join a sorority at Fresno State University but left and dove into mid-level management at the age of 20, lived in national parks for 7 years and then dramatically changed my life and moved to Brazil after falling in love with someone on foreign exchange. My story is completely unique, as your story is completely unique. I have definitely come across a variety of people in my life, but I will never know what it is like to be a man, or to be black, or to be an Ivy League graduate or to be the first black president of the prestigous Harvard Law Review. I don’t know what it is like to grow up in Hawaii. I don’t know what it is like to have a very non-American name. I don’t know what it is like to lack a father figure while growing up with my grandparents.

With that said, I do know what it is like to finally start to see the world and the US for what it is. To finally have that breakthrough moment where you say… humn… things just aren’t right… it doesn’t make me unAmerican, and it doesn’t make me unpatriotic, in fact just the opposite because it drives me to ask questions and to research to find the answers about what we do and why we do it. I feel more American now than I ever did and am grateful for this every day.

I remember watching the WeatherUnderground documentary a few years ago… one of many documentaries I have seen in my adult life and to be quite honest… even though I don’t agree with what they were doing, I understood why they were doing it. There is a big difference. People go about things the way they see best, we always try to do what is right, we try to follow through with our convictions – that is why people join the Armed Forces or join the clergy or go to a University. Everyone has a different and totally unique way of looking at things and working towards their goal. I think above all else, trying to understand the reason of why people do what they do is of the utmost importance. That is where the real answer is, at the root, it always is.

To be able to see things for what they are. To be able to atain a birds eye view is to turn a blizzard into a breeze as they say. To be honest this is why Intellectuals are Intellectuals. Those Intellectuals usually go on to teach in the most prestigious Universities and write books and become successful in the Academic world, this is no coincidence. They have the ability to see beyond what most people see and have revelations and realizations about the things that have always been right in front of us.

Surfwise Documentary Comments

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My Goodness! I finally saw Surfwise, a documentary about the Paskowitz family! A basic rundown is that an esteemed doctor decided to do things his own way. He found a woman who would live the kind of life that he wanted and set out on a 25 year adventure of traveling around, having children and living a life in an alternative way. It really is an interesting story.

I understand the idea of removing yourself from regular society to avoid its nasty influences, as it seems to be a theme amongst the counter culture for quite some time. I understand the idea that we should go back to being a bit more primative than we are now, especially with what we consume in our bodies, not to mention the wanton consuption of capitalism. I understand the idea of procreating so that you send more seeds out into the world that are a bit more like you and a bit less like others, hopefully in turn spurring some change along the course of life.

The vagabond lifestyle full of freedom and liberty is very attractive on so many levels. Definitely as an individual, even as a couple I can imagine. However throwing a kid into the mix really does turn it a little sideways, let alone adding in 9 kids… there is definitely a reason that they had all boys up until number 8. One of the kids said that they were either going to be a rockstar or homeless which is really rather interesting because as I percieve it is only a fine line between the two, or at least there used to be before music became so commercial… and funny thing I actually saw the Black Flys play when I was in my teenage years.

Their lifestyle definitely set them apart from everyone else. Not having the opportunity of a formal education in our society would have a dramatic effect on anyone and it seemed to be commonly expressed through their interviews… except the one guy who was very jim morrison-ish who said he was going to keep the dream alive. That is fantastic but what about that oldest guy, he was fucking crazy. seriously, when he was singing that song that he wrote for his dad and in a matter of minutes he had worked himself up into quite a sweat and tears even, my god. there is a lot of angst and frustration still lingering. Also, that same guy, “the captain” is the one who injected business into the Paskowitz family’s life even though he said that he was in line with his fathers ideas… it just goes to show that everyone, no matter where they are will always percieve one thing a little different than the other.

Going off the grid has definite appeal, but I think if there is one thing that became so apparent to me is that if you do, you will end up falling so far behind what else is going on in the world. Which may be alright, if you decided to never return, but things will continue to evolve no matter what… It is about the consciousness that we must have in our daily lives that will propel us into that next level. Any extreme either way is extreme and in some fashion does cut you off or away from the rest.

It then also made sense to me why we have gone this route of processed easy accessible food, and lines of credit so that everyone in the pack can keep up (unfortunately lead by corporations with dollar signs in their eyes). Why make things harder than they have to be when there is another way of doing things? Sure you can regress because you find that it is more rewarding or beneficial to do so, but I think the key idea that I got was that we just need to have a sense of freedom and general moderation to enjoy what is out there in our daily lives. Those kids are products of something that they didn’t choose, like all children are… someone mentioned recently how childhood is an affliction that everyone suffers from… and they just had it a little different and how many adults can look towards that and fantasize how wonderful it would be to leave it all behind, live in volunatry poverty for the sake of freedom and just be. Children aren’t quite that way and we are really only this way as adults because our lives weren’t really like that growing up… is it a case of the grass is always greener?

Sex every night. That is definitely a luxury that should not be overlooked. I did like his idea of having sex with 100 women and finding his mate that way. That when he learned to “eat pussy” his life changed!!! WOO HOO! That the most important aspects were to be a good husband, a good father and of course a great lover (I wrote this down last night!). About keeping the passion alive… and being sexual. I was particularly fascinated with his idea that it is due to lack of sexual expression that we then become more pornographic in our society… that was an interesting viewpoint… and I might just have to agree… However, on tv kids programs here it is more common than not to see a bikini wearing hot brazilian babe dancing for no apparent reason… I haven’t really been exposed to porn here, but I can definitely say that there are A LOT of transvestites and one of the largest gay parades in the world held here in São Paulo every year… there might be some correlation to that as well…