Relationship Dynamics

Greetings to all my readers (which aren't many!), I would like to talk today about Relationship Dynamics.  It is of dire importance that both parties of the relationship be on the same page of their life's book.  Two differing standpoints can cause friction, like two tectonic plates rubbing against each other, which in the worst case scenario can result into an earthquake, which everyone knows from knowledge that earthquakes are devastating, and will only leave wreckage in its wake.  If you love your woman, then you will listen to her, hear her vocal thoughts, understand her perspective, and appreciate her differences when it comes to something that both of you have disagreed upon.  This does not mean that you as a man have the obligation to adhere to this difference, because sometimes those differences can sever the ties that bind that particular relationship.  If you take the time to listen, and refrain from talking too much as to overwhelm the dialogue, then you might be able to learn what it is that she aspires for.  A woman's dreams should be the place where a man nestles his heart, because if he loves his woman, then he'll make sure that he will take the seeds of her dreams and plant them in fertile soil, water them, care for them, and watch over them as they grow from a seed to a beautiful rose.  But, if that rose has already bloomed, and you don't take care to nurture that flower, it will wilt and the petals will fall to the cold ground of divorce and despair.  You don't have to be married to someone to go through a divorce.  The term can be applied to any relationship that goes south, that slowly decays and dies.  It is the responsibility of the man to nurture the dreams of his woman, and to shine his light like the Sun on her planet, because the Sun is the reason why this planet is habitable.  She is like the earth, a planet that is far enough from the Sun to not get absorbed and obliterated by its strength and solar intensity, but close enough to harbor life.  A true man will make sure that he acknowledges his wife or his love (or both) as a queen and someone to be respected.  Behind every strong man is a strong woman, so the man must understand that she is his shield, and he is her sword.  If both of you are reading the same chapters of your life's walk together, then you will both become authors of a unifed story, which is a beautiful conception.

I will get more into the woman's perspective on how she should caretake for her man, but that will come in another post.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.  More to come soon...

Sincerely,

Stephen Strange

A New Beginning

Today is a good day to be alive.  With all the blessings from the God that lives within us, we can walk in the light of the world and hold our heads up high.  We are physical manifestations of something ethereal, an essence that resides in our eyes, our minds (the third eye), in our non-verbal communication, in our words, and in our expressions.  What animates us?  What is this force known as consciousness?  Whether you subscribe to a religious doctrine, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or anything that has a structure of practice and a set architectural format that you abide by, remember that the one aspect of our existence that connects us all is the fact that we are human.  This is a bond that is shared by all men, women, and children.  We can look into each other's eyes, and see a reflection of ourselves, the incarnation of God in the flesh and physical body.  I'm certain that if we as a human family were to strip ourselves of the clutter of religion, and free our minds from those prisons of mental incarceration, the separation that we adopt when we subscribe to a particular set of rules that govern our spiritual direction, we would realize that we have more in common than we previously assertained.  We are family, but because of the distance of continents, or states, or nations, we have separated ourselves from our true essences of brotherhood, which is blood.  Blood is thicker than water, but water is powerful, and blood drenches the soil when we clash on the stage of warfare.  We all have the Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head, which is the acronym explaination of the word ALLAH, the arabic word for "God".  If you break down this acronym, you will see (hopefully) that this word is the diagram for the human body, the temple in which God places his spirit in.  Two books (the Bible and the Qu'ran) help us to understand the lyrics, poetry, precepts, and dictations of great men, who were much wiser than most on this planet.  The one thing that keeps us at two different points of understanding, like a yardstick that is put between two men, keeping them at a distance, is this subscription that one person's religion or spirituality is absolute, and the other person's beliefs are completely invalid, and thus non-existent.  I think that we as humans have devised the greatest separation between human beings in the form of organized religion.  How would you feel if you were to walk a mile in another man's shoes, understanding his practices and his rituals, knowing the internal knowledge of his storehouse of wisdom?  How would it feel if he were to do the same?  We live on the same planet, but we as religious practitioners are light years apart from one another, creating differing polarities that keep us estranged.  If the planet simply understood the notion of where God is, (which is within the human being, and subsequently in all creations) we would drop the shackles of religion and unite in celebration to the notion and harmony of an all-inclusive understanding of our relationship to the universe, God, and ourselves.  When a man meditates, he does not dwell in the minds of other men, he simply turns his eyes inward, and seeks those jewels that lay within.  Walking with God is not a group activity, it is a self-revolution, a self-Jihad, an adventure where each step that is taken is the energy that the Self provides to this spiritual awakening.  God is not far from you, as most will have you think.  God is in the reflection, God is in the eyes of your fellow men, God is in the animals, God is in nature and all creations, God is in the very existence of consciousness, and God is within you, which means that you are God and God is you.  I am not saying that because we are gods (Psalms 82:6 and John 10:34) that we will not die.  We all have a debt to pay, which is death, because death is the payment for sin.  We all live in a physical, perishable body.  What I am saying is that within us, this force that drives us nearer and nearer to a self-awakening, is the potential for all infinite possibilites, to learn and understand the kingdom that is within.  Don't be deceived by the 10% when they tell you to worship a diety that is beyond your own soul and spirit, pointing to the skies, instructing you to place your energy beyond that which is already within, only waiting to be unearthed like a diamond in the deep soil of the soul.  Understanding self, the true reflection of the Creator within, is the greatest journey one can embark upon, and if we as human beings understood the necessity to invest in our minds the type of energy that is productive and healthy for the human family, then we would truly be free.

"Religion is a prison for the seekers of wisdom..."
~Killah Priest, from the Heavy Mental album

Peace to everyone, and I hope that one day the human family can drop the manacles of their differences, and understand the common ground that we stand upon, which is love.

Still Looking

Greetings to all the readers, it has been nearly a year since my last post.

I finally earned my degree from the University of Kentucky, which in hindsight, was a great achievement. Now, I'm on to other endeavors. I should be publishing my first non-fiction book on my struggles in life, specifically with the struggles that I have undergone (and subsequently survived) in the past thirteen years. I feel as if a new chapter is looming on the horizon, with the coming of my first publication and the launch of my first website. The website is tailored for the writer of all genres, and will allow for a forum to be created, as well as a place to write and post your writings. These endeavors, I pray, will not go unnoticed. I have placed a lot of hard work in my first manuscript, and in the coming months of this year, I should have a fiction piece that I will self-publish under a pseudonym. For anyone who is interested in reading about my trials and tribulations, I will post an E-Store link here on my blog spot after the book is published. All I have left is the cover design, then things will really spring into motion.

Now that I have the degree, the pertinent question is, "What do I do with it?" That question is of serious import. One does not wish to sit around and let the diploma collect dust while it rests mounted on my living room wall. Nor do I wish to miss out on excellent opportunities to make some decent money. If my plan blossoms, as I have predicted it will, I should have a number of streams of income in the next few years. I am a writer, but still not hired. Hopefully, this blog might open some doors, and possibly windows, in the writing world as I leak out this blog to potential employers.

And, I am back doing what I love and cherish the most, which is writing. I have high hopes, but I don't stretch out my dreams too far and too fast, because the plummet could be devastating.

Thank you to all those who have kept up with this blog, I appreciate you more than you know.

Sincerely,

Stephen Strange

The Culmination of Years of Hard Work

Well, today is my final day at the University of Kentucky, and in a week and a half I get the privilege of walking across the stage at Rupp Arena to grasp my college degree. Now, it won't be the official diploma, that won't come in for another 90 day after graduation, but it's the feelings, the emotions, the sensations, the stimulation of getting to that summit, and planting your flag in the soil of that mountain called College. The journey has been a long one.

I'm excited, and I know that I won't let these memories of going to classes, weathering the hot and the cold, speaking with professors and classmates, reading for hours upon hours, and walking the many campuses that I have had the privilege to walk down, go. They will be forever lodged in my mind.

College is not easy business, but it is possible for people to get their degree, as long as they put their best foot forward, and walk the walk one step at a time. Remember, slow and steady wins the race, so my friend says.

This is the culmination of years of hard work, and in a week and a half, I get to celebrate.

Educate your mind, for that is the greatest pursuit of being human, second only to the pursuit of God.

Stephen Strange signing off...

Peace.

Forcing the Inner Force

Often I'm forced to force this inner force on the pages, often when I'm not in the mood to write or create, but it is necessary for the writer to continuously spill out thoughts on the page. This thought reminds me of that film with Sean Connery where he sits down at the typewriter and just writes. The kid across the table from him is sitting there quietly at the typewriter, thinking about what he's going to write. Sean Connery asks him why he is sitting there. The young man says that he's "thinking" about what to write. Sean Connery's reply is to just write! Often we find ourselves in situations where we don't feel that creativity coursing through our veins, where we don't want to write, but it is extremely necessary to force your way through that blockade and simply write! All of our pieces don't have to be "Masterpieces", they simply need to be expressed, because once a thought is conceived, it leads to successive thoughts, which in turn lead to an article, a poem, a book, or just scribbles. Exploring words and how they can be used is important to my thought process. If you noticed, I used the word "force" in the first line three times. I just wanted to play with that word, because aside from writing blogs and writing in a diary (of which I haven't touched pen to paper for months), I am a poet who is searching for that perfect technique that is unique to my skill level. We as writers thrive on the written word; it's like food to us, light to us, a force that cannot be controlled under creative circumstances because it is unpredictable in nature. You never know where the words will take you. The other night, I opened my third eye and began to seek places of vision that do not exist in the physical world. The experience was exhilarating! Usually, when I lay down to sleep at night, and through most of the waking day, I am constantly thinking in spoken word, where the words and I hold some sort of dialogue. That night I began to explore the visual aspect of my thought, and it took me to places that are created only by imagination. The imagination can be susceptible to the negativity of our minds, easily; but to create destinations in your mind, to create a pathway for your mind to travel upon like a wormhole in the time-space continuum is an amazing experience. For about half an hour, I soared through my third eye (the mind) and experienced places that do not exist but only in my mind, and took a much needed rest from all the confusion of trying to control and monitor my internal words. My mind has consistently, since the moment I realized that I could hear my mind speak inside my head, been attuned to a negative frequency. Breaking free from that captivity, even if it was only for about half an hour, was a liberating experience. It gave way to the thought that there just might be another way to think in this reality we call life. Our minds are like black holes, they gravitate all things towards its epicenter. Using our minds in a positive, magnified fashion, is to let go of all the tethers that our mind has created for itself. The mind is both its greatest ally and its greatest enemy. Think on that for a while.

Peace to the Human Family Tree, which has no beginning or ending....

Stephen Strange

Frustration

It's amazing how that when things go against the grain, I get frustrated with life, either because it's moving too slow or speeding by too fast, and I'm not balancing the gravity of my being, both mental and physical, in this sphere called consciousness. I meditate on peace, dig like a miner into the earth of my psyche in an attempt to find those unpolished stones, which once polished, produce the jewels of patience and equilibrium, which once found, can be used as fuel to navigate my spaceship (the mental eye) throughout this illusion we call "the world." Often I wonder if I'm the great illusion, and that all of this we identify as reality is just a dream of some puppeteer who created me to rest on my center as a creation, as a human being, to observe the winds of life swirl and course around me along the curvature of my circumference, to experience the sensory stimulation of my five senses, just to one day die and then to have the universe collapse upon itself, because the massive illusion called consciousness has become deceased within my soul, and I sleep the long sleep. Is God and man a duality that has been blindfolded from our spiritual eyes, keeping us sleepy in life, or is it a reality that can be realized through inner concentration, focus, practice of virtues, and meditation? This frustrates me, because often I dig too deep in the abstract nature of self. The mind is an extremely powerful mechanism, so powerful that it can rewind back (if the mind is finely tuned) to the point when the physical of my mother's egg and my father's sperm cell merged, to the point when my blurry soul came into physical existence in the womb, and if the mind is calibrated to the finest and sharpest point, it is possible to draw back before all of that physical combination came about and reach back to see where my soul was dwelling before I became a glimmer in my mother's and father's eye. Where does the soul come from? Are we merely physically animated creatures, or do we have something, called a soul, which is beyond all the limitations that are placed on us from the moment we are thrust through physical creation and consciousness? What came before physical awareness? I don't believe that my physical body is the extent to my mental abilities, is the limitation. Christ said, with the faith of the mustard seed, one could move mountains. That's telekinesis. Telekinesis originates from a thought. A thought originates from the mind. But where does the mind originate from? From whence did the idea of a universe, and subsequently, consciousness, come from? These questions frustrate me, because being schizophrenic, I experience aberrations that I cannot explain, which pulls me into the realm of infinite energy beyond the mere physical.

Thanks to the reader, for giving me a reason to write.

Stephen Strange

Hailing the Return

Greetings!

It has been months since I've posted thoughts, but rest assured the undocumented thoughts still rattle around in my house's mind-attic, ricocheting off the walls, digging into the frame, craving to be let out! I've kept myself consistently busy with my classes this semester, mainly with four classes, each of which requires a significant portion of my energy. I graduate in May of 2011. What a joy it will be to walk across that stage, knowing that I've accomplished over eleven years of off-and-on hard work. It will be a milestone to look forward to, and something noteworthy to glance back upon. (I have ten minutes til my next class, so bear with me!)

I've noticed that not many people are flocking to this spot. Hmm...I'm going to have to figure out a way to get some publication of some sort, something to get people to the thoughts that I have and express. Thanks to those who HAVE come to see me muse over writing.

Peace to all.

Stephen Strange