A Noble Truth........

Mi gordita preciosa y bella,
Once again you are passed out on a trip to the land of slumber, oh I do hope you bring me back something neat!

So last night I wrote you about learning from your mistakes. Well in the past I have been the kind of person that if there was a bump in a friendship of mine for instance I'd count my blessings and be on my way. If someone felt the need to end our friendship I was like, "Oh well, who needs em, good riddance!" Why should I have to put in work to a friendship, I'm awesome, I thought, everyone should want to be friends with me. And I honestly mean that with all the humility in my heart. But over the years after I have seen friendships come and go I have learned that it's not right to live your life that way. In the end to forsake all friends that come your way when the going gets tough, well, it pretty much equates to a very lonely life. I like my solitude as much as the next guy but in the end we are immortal and leave an eternal legacy behind not by how many people we've let slide through our fingers like quicksand, or by the moments we spend alone but by the number of meaningful connections we've established in our lives and by how many people we've touched. That is how we are remembered. That is how we live. Always.
So I wanted to remedy some mistakes I have made and so I wrote a friend of mine today to mend things between us after a very long time. I am not going to lie to you Athena, I was nervous writing to her. Sometimes when you are putting yourself out there and being candid with your emotions, well mi vida, that can be incredibly intimidating. It leaves you open to getting hurt, embarrassed, or even worse ignored. But that's okay Athena. It's okay to feel all of those things. Because in the end mami, life goes on. "In the end everything is okay, if it's not okay, it's not the end." It's perfectly fine to put yourself out there, to wear your heart on your sleeve, to be honest with people about how you feel regardless of the outcome. And the funny thing is most of the time the outcome is always better than you imagine. So with my anxiety aside I simply pressed sent and let the Universe unfold however it saw fit to. As you well know, I am as your unki called it today, a "lengthy" writer, so I wrote her a pretty nice lengthy message with no preconceived notions or ulterior motives than just to say a few things. And she wrote me back! Isn't that great!? The best part of it is, she wrote me the following message;

"The greatest meditation is a mind that let's go."
Out of all people I expect you to know where this quote is from.
P.S. You have a beautiful daughter
You can call me anytime.

Like I said the outcome is usually better than we imagine. And I thought it might be apropos to use that very beautiful quote to talk about tonight. Of course, I know this quote is from the Buddhist teachings. And I can't think of a more perfect way my friend could have responded. I completely agree with this teaching. Something I've come to learn in life baby is that holding onto certain emotions or feelings especially if they are negative ones, do more harm to oneself than anybody else. You certainly don't hurt anyone but yourself when you hold onto anger and resentment. That reminds me of another quote, "Holding onto anger is like grasping a piece of hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone, you are the one who gets burned." Interestingly enough that is also a quote from my friend Buddha. Very smart man Athena, I hope I get to teach you all about his beautiful words and beliefs. If we are to live life as creatures who are truly free, like Jonathan, well then we have to let go of all that holds us back from soaring, we have to release any baggage that could keep us grounded. In doing so, you are at peace with yourself. You are free to love and to do so without expectation or without rules or regulations. I imagine that living life with that attitude,with that frame of mind, leads to a lot of happiness.It's not always easy to live this way and I working on it everyday.  So what I want you to take from this experience is this, one it's always okay to put yourself out there and let people know how you feel and what's on your mind and two, it's not just vital to one's peaceful existence but it's a spectacular way to live .....that is the path of forgiveness and letting go. I believe it takes an immensely courageous and kind person to be willing to acquiesce to another persons plea for forgiveness. In the end those who are hardest to love and forgive are probably the ones who need our love and forgiveness the most. I would love to see you grow up to be that kind of person. To know when a person truly desires to be forgiven and then to do just that. When you forgive, others forgive you. Because trust me baby, there will come many a time in your life when you may need to be forgiven. When you forgive you are free of any lead weights to consume your brain, you can love, you can laugh, and you can be sure that karma will always come and find you. And I guess essentially when you forgive people you are claiming ownership over your thoughts, since anyone that can break your peace of mind can consider themselves ruler of your thoughts. If someone hurts you, disappoints you, or angers you and you allow that emotion to be felt over and over and ponder it incessantly then that person has some sort of power over you and they are victorious in their intent. But if you forgive them and forget their injustices then you are the winner because you have freed your mind and therefore your life of any negative influence they may have had. Remember that always. It is time for us to come to our farewell. I hope you are able to take away with you a little appreciation for Buddha and his teachings. You will get to know and appreciate many wise, courageous, and inspirational men and women and of course all whom without Jehovah could not have made such a mark on humanity. And we most certainly at some point or another discuss more thoroughly different religious beliefs. Anywhoo, I was saying goodbye right? Right. Well now I will lay down next to you and by your intoxicating and divine smell be drifted off to bed. May all your days be filled with noble truths....Ti amo bellissima bambina.

One of the very first....

Hey mamacita, 

You are laying here next to me and I hope my furious typing does not disturb your beautiful, peaceful slumber. I type so hard no matter how hard I try not to. So remember that quote book I was telling you about.....

Isn't that hilarious? Wow. How it takes me back every time I look at the cover of this book. Pretty much epitomizes my interests at the time and who I thought I was. I still feel that way ....Anywhoo....

So since I told you about Jonathan, my fine feathered friend that brought us here to play in the absolutely astounding world of words I thought I'd write you a little passage from the book that made it into the very first page of my very first quote book. Seems fitting enough...

 "Why aren't there more of us here? Why, where I came from there were. . . "

". . . thousands and thousands of gulls.I know." Sullivan shook his head. "The only answer I can see Jonathan, is that you are pretty well a one-in-a-million bird. Most of us came along ever so slowly. We went from one world into another that was almost exactly like it, forgetting right away where we had come from, not caring where we were headed, living for the moment. Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection and another hundred again to get the idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. The same rule holds for us now, of course: we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome."

He stretched his wings and turned to face the wind, "But you, Jon," he said, "learned so much at one time that you didn't have to go through a thousand lives to reach this one."

So what does it all mean Basil? ;-) You know reading that makes me realize once again how very true it is. You see Athena, for me, I feel that life is a series of tests. Not tests placed on you by anything or anyone other than your very self. We are often  faced with situations in which we may not make the most sagacious choices, or say the nicest things, or even end up doing something extremely different than what we intended to do. That very situation is a lesson in disguise and well sometimes not in a guise at all, sometimes that lesson slaps you like a bucket of ice cold water in your REM stage!

If you don't learn anything from your life's experiences then living them is futile. . So many people  live their lives making the same mistakes over and over and then death reaches them and they are none the wiser. I have been guilty of making the same mistakes one too many times. However, if you align your life in such a way that you are faced with a situation you've been in before and this time you do things right or take a different road then you are wiser than you can ever imagine. I want you to be the master of your life and not some little hamster running your life away in circles! You are a true success when you learn something about yourself from the choices you make and use them to guide you to where you want to be. In other words if the formula you are using for life doesn't seem to be working for you then you need to rewrite the equation a different way. So we must apply the knowledge we gain throughout our life and put it to some use. We must use our experiences as a lighthouse to guide our path in the right direction. 

That brings us to our farewell, that and the fact that my stomach has now begun eating itself and I must do something to appease it. Thank you for listening and I look forward to our next meeting.Oh yeah...I gotta end this right...It has been a most ineffable delight sharing with you one of the very first quote books and touching passages that danced along it's first entries and I hope that this is just of our very firsts in a long line of many....Je'Taime