For me, I am a bit of a black sheep in my family, having turned away from the fundamentalist Christianity of my upbringing.

Many years ago I had a conversation with my mother in which I explained spiritual beliefs I held. At the time they really weren't all that different from those I grew up with, except that I believed in a god of my understanding as opposed to one imposed by someone else and, especially, I didn't believe there was one-God (eg, the one-and-only that Christians believe in), and that anyone who didn't bow to him would roast in hell. (Me being me, I didn't actually tell her all that, or put it quite like that. I have never felt a need to shatter others' beliefs just because I don't believe them. I guess I just wanted to share something about myself, something that would show I had not entirely turned my back on spirituality or on the idea of god.)

When I finished speaking, mom looked at me and said: “Just because you believe something doesn't make it so.” Exactly. And I didn't point out that the same would apply to her, wouldn't it? The less rigid our beliefs are, the less we need others to confirm them for us by conforming to them.

I believe very little in the way of beliefs any more (a few still crop up from my unconscious every now and again for me to look at), but here are some things I think about:

Maybe truth is a little bit like forgiveness: by the time we come to it we forget we ever thought there was anything to forgive. Perhaps you don't agree, but think about it: if I still hold that thought in my mind that "somebody done somebody wrong," I'm obviously still hanging onto my grievance, and as long as I'm intent on playing that song, have I forgiven, truly? I don't think so. Speaking for me, of course.

So maybe by the time we come to truth, whatever that is (to me it looks a lot like understanding, or clarity—the non-intellectual version of both), we forget we were ever searching. I think it's because by that time we have come to oneness. In oneness, can there be right and wrong? Assuming, of course, that oneness and judgment cannot coexist as separate concepts.

In a manner of speaking, or at some level, you and I (we all) are one to the extent that we do not judge one another, even in our thoughts. That doesn't necessarily mean we see eye to eye on everything. It doesn't necessarily mean we agree to disagree either, not exactly. I could be wrong, but it seems to me a statement like “I accept your position or actions, but I don't agree with it, or condone them” isn't quite oneness yet. Why? Because as long as we can think in terms of judgment, or right vs. wrong, or better vs. not so good—ok let's just say, in terms of dualistic concepts, period—we're not one yet.

Of course, we'd miss this sort of discussion, I expect…

Note: A version of this was first posted at Gaia's Questions and Reflections: The Group forum, in a thread titled “What if everything you knew was wrong?”

This one.  Well, humming is more like it. And no, I wasn't a member of the choir here. :) (I wish!)



What can I say about Morten Lauridsen? He's an award-winning contemporary composer of choral music, both sacred and secular. There's something about the way he does harmony that blows me away.

According to musicologist and conductor Nick Strimple (Choral Music in the Twentieth Century), Lauridsen is "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, (whose) probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered... From 1993 Lauridsen's music rapidly increased Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer." (as quoted on Lauridsen's official website; the first part of the quote is in reference to the composer's sacred compositions)

That I can.

That I can write consistently, day after day, four or more single-spaced pages of the novel I began writing from scratch on November 1st, having signed up in October for this year's National Novel Writing Month.
That instead of making the customary excuses I can just sit down in front of the computer and place my fingers on the keyboard as if I really intended to write, as if I had any clue as to what I would write on that day.
That every day the words arrive on the page, at times like refrigerated molasses, at times pouring onto the screen so fast they trip over one another's feet.
That the motley collection of characters I despaired over after the first week turn out to know one another and are running with a better plot than I could have imagined. For now all they ask is be allowed to speak through my fingers.

Imagine what else I could do if I put my mind to it?

That no matter which road we take, what sorts of side shows we get distracted by, or how many flowers we stop to pick along the way, there is only one possible place we can end up. Home.



Whatever that looks like to us.

The images in that video brought me naturally to this song. So many beautiful versions out there make it hard to pick a favourite to share with you.

How about this wistful version?




Or this groovin' one?




I have to say, I feel pretty close to home already, what with all this wonderfulness surrounding me.




And in one way of looking at it, isn't home wherever we are? We long for home, until we discover it within ourselves.

Now, it’s mostly writing. Writing, as far as I remember, was my first love; from the time I learned my ABC’s I would write stories to read to my younger siblings. But I naturally gravitated to first-person writing, and that’s where I got into trouble with my family (mother), who labelled what I wrote a pack of lies. So at the age of ten or thereabouts I was already spinning into probably the longest continuous chunk of writer’s block in the history of the world. Especially when it came to creative writing. A lot of years later, worlds of healing later, I started writing my stories again. After a year or two I began tentatively to read from my writing to a good friend of mine, over the phone. And not long after that I joined zaadz (now gaia) and on the same day, Diving Deeper, a writer’s workshop here. The rest feels a bit like a miracle to me. I write freely now, and copiously; and I not only allow but invite others to read what comes out of my pen.

For many years in between the then and now of my writing life, what kept me sane was singing, especially in choral groups, and dancing, especially ballroom.

What allowed me to dance when I was blocked in other areas of creative expression, I think now, was that dancing was completely forbidden (and therefore unspoiled, virgin territory, so to speak) when I was a child, not only in our family but in our community. I didn’t even discover it, never mind my love and natural ability for it, until after I left home for the big city.

A while back I posted a blog featuring several versions of I Will Always Love You (by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton, who wrote the song). I'm wondering now how I missed seeing this one, by the young and obviously very talented Connie Talbot.