Off for some spiritual healing

Did you hear…


The wind in the trees. Did it pass you by unaware? Did it whisper and you couldn’t make out what it was saying?

This is a writing blog. With over a thousand posts on the writing craft, I have poetry and famous quotations intermingled with my posts. Every now and again I’ll divulge some of my life story, so maybe one person, who might be going through the same thing, might find solace in my words.

Here lately I haven’t felt much like writing, about writing. Why? Because of stats. Statistics show again and again that many come to visit my tell tale life story. I can post a blog on writing and get 50 – 80 hits but let me whisper my life story and wham the stats go up…jumps through the roof.

We’re an odd lot, we humans. Always interested in others shortcomings. Nosey busybodies poking our nose in other people’s business. Is it so we can feel better about ourselves? Do we get a good chuckle and laugh as we say, “Wow that girl has it bad.” And then we run off to tell our other friends, “Did you hear about so and so, did such and such?” Then she tells her friend and so on and so on.

This is what the world has become. And we wonder why we’re in such bad shape? Oh I know, let’s blame it on someone else. I don’t like to talk political jargon, but you know what, I’m sick, extremely sick of people who can’t move on!

The president was nominated, so get over it. He’s here for four more years. Why waste perfect good energy on spewing hate? Do you relish the feeling that hate gives you? Does it feel good swirling around in your mind?

We had a horrific, terrible shooting (a few to my memory) and the president wants to ban assault weapons. Then the cowards sit at home, with no knowledge and spew hate. “He ain’t taking away MY right to bear arms!” So really, you need an assault weapon, for? To display and wave it in your kids face and say, “Look, Daddy’s a man!”

Daddy’s a coward if he needs an assault rifle.

But everyone isn’t really upset about ‘the ban on assault rifles'. They’re upset because ‘it’s MY right!’ Me, me, my my. That’s what the world is all about now.

I understand that the Americans have a right to bear arms, that’s all good, but when should you be given the right to bear an assault rifle? Does a hunter need one to KILL animals? I mean seriously, if he needs more than one shot to kill the doe eyed, innocent victim, an animal, should a hunter be hunting? Make the game fair if you wish to KILL.

I’m sick of all the rhetoric. I’m so tired of all the hate and slaughtering of moral values, I’m fed up with humans in general. As I fought the battle, in the end, it is I who lost.

This is the season where I will try and find myself in the midst of shadows that lurk but are never seen. I will do some spiritual healing and find myself once again.

“In both the Old and New Testaments, fasting is seen as useful for humbling oneself as a sign of commitment or repentance and for increasing faith, especially when accompanied by prayer. Fasting allowed one to be devoted to spiritual matters without distraction from earthly things. However, fasting was not to be considered an end in itself, nor a substitute for obedience to God and doing good deeds.”(Isa. 58:3-10)

As I sit alone in this world with no friends, no family, no one who cares, I will fade to the shadows and one day you’ll see my silhouette standing there, off in the distance. You’ll call out to me but there will be no answer. As you move closer to me I will fade even deeper into the mist, until I am soon forgotten. You’ll move on, forget me, and then remember me.

I hope you wonder to yourself if you had any cause in my despair. Was it you who pushed me to the shadows; Or will you go on with your merry life, consuming yourself with yourself and those that matter to YOU.

In my reflection, I will pray for you all (and for mySELF) and hope to someday return, rejuvenated, revived, reborn.

God Bless you if you are reading this.

Poetry Sunday

Live to Die

Born of this world

we are doomed to try,

Doomed to live

but freed we die.

Life speeds by

no time to slow

The mind is often

not allowed to grow.

Smell the flowers

breathe the air,

Slow the motion

of life with care.

Beauty in sunsets

the rising moon.

Cherish it all

it ends too soon.

* * * *

Our Earthly Duty

My mind spins a column of webs

in this clouded world we live.

Worldly possessions of wants

never outsource what we give.

I feel I’m alone in pursuit

of wanting to see it end.

Wars, fires and poverty

bureaucracy unwilling to bend.

Changing it all for the better

a haunting daunting task.

One by one we succumb

shedding our outer mask.

Now is the time to rise above;

take aim at our earthly duty.

Each man on his own mission

to share the wealth of beauty!

Quotation Saturday

WRITING

“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
~ Ursula K. Le Guin

“It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”
~ Cornelia Funke

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
~Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

PAIN

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
~ Chuck Palahniuk

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bull. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
~ Jim Morrison

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
~ James Baldwin

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
~ C.S. Lewis

MUSIC

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
~ Bob Marley

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~William Shakespeare

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Life, he realize, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”
~ Plato

REFLECTION

“Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections.”
~ Jane Austen

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
~ Søren Kierkegaard

“Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
~ Charles Dickens

“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts…”
~ Jess C. Scott

Poetry Sunday ~ The Ring,The Flame, Sacrifice

The Ring

The ring it wraps around the warmth of my finger.
Endless devotion of my love does linger.
Commitment of truth in faith I am bound.
Nothing obscured; my finger lay crowned.

Deeply enmeshed it's more than a ring.
A sign of his love which makes my heart sing.
A love that surpasses everything immortal.
Entrenched is he in the depths of my portal.

Laying claim to my body, my soul, and my heart,
The ring is a symbol my love won't depart.
A reminder of trust that I'll never stray.
Promises made when he placed it that day.

The ring it marks all we hold true.
Encircles the choice of starting anew.
It's through the ring that I am reminded,
The light of his love shall never be blinded.

Love's Eternal Flame

 Trust is the flame that burns desire,

Of  loves' sweet embers of a fire.

Melting like wax it rolls downstream,

As blissful as moonlights radiant beam.

Honesty is the wick that molds it as one

Until the flame smolders it can't be undone.

Truth is an endless dripless sea,

Of all that bonds you to me.

Faith is the solid sacred pillar

Love is the eternal ignited filler.

Should the candle be left alone and broken,

Silently I'll wander no words to be spoken.

SACRIFICE

Sometimes our lives intermingle with one

Allowing us to expand ourselves.

Committing to the spatial amount of time

Remembering to allow each others wings to spread

Into the fullness of a blossom.

Forever being grateful for the journey

Into each others soul

Constantly nurturing…

Each others total hollow shell.

Copyright ©Joni Zipp All Rights Reserved

Quotation Saturday

VALENTINE’S DAY

 "Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction."
~Antoine de Saint-Expuery,

 "We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
~Unknown

 "Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."
~William Shakespeare

“Valentine's Day is just a capitalist scam, designed to make people currently in a relationship spend unnecessary money in a fruitless attempt to ensure undying love and devotion. For those of us not in a relationship, Valentine's Day is simply added pressure to identify ourselves within the context of a romantic relationship, whipping us into a frenzy that only the presence of our soul mates can relieve.”
~ Heather Hepler

LOVE

“True love is rare, and it's the only thing that gives life real meaning.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

“To love is not to hide things, it is to be as open as a fresh wound. You might expose the ugliness in you, but it is the beginning of healing.”
~Joni Zipp

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
~ Paulo Coelho

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
~ Neil Gaiman
 
SECRETS

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
~ C.G. Jung

“With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.”
~ Sara Gruen

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
~ Cassandra Clare

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
~ André Malraux

“Secrets are lies in disguise,”
~Joni Zipp
 
LIES

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
~Mark Twain

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
~Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
~ Leo Tolstoy

“When the need to lie surfaces, the need to betray becomes who you are and ever will remain.”
~Joni Zipp

Poetry Sunday ~ Heaven's Hope

Heaven's Hope

My head hangs low this evening

when all the world’s asleep

I give my heart to heaven

so safely it will keep.

I lift my eyes to the sky

where once my soul was free

Heaven bound is my words

I’m left on bended knee.

A sinner stands among you

God has frowned they say.

a little piece of paper

makes me right with God today.

The shadows of the tendrils

as fog has crept on in

Lonely in the mist I sway

stained, I stand in sin.

Confused I’m left to wonder

will the vapor cloud subside.

The hypocrite in me released

No longer do I hide.

God’s own gracious glory

is my only way to cope

Standing firm in my belief

a door of heaven's hope.

Quotation Saturday

SPORTS
(in lieu of Super Bowl Sunday)

“Winning isn't everything--but wanting to win is.”
― Vince Lombardi Jr

“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.”
― Erma Bombeck

“I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.”
― Haven Kimmel, Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

Vince Lombardi Jr.
“football is like life - it requires perserverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.”
― Vince Lombardi Jr.

“Guys care about sports teams. I'm not talking about simply rooting; I'm talking about a relationship that guys develop, a commitment to a sport team that guys take way more seriously than, for example, wedding vows.”
― Dave Barry


SUNDAY

“A sabbath well spent,
Brings a week of content,
And strength for the toils of the morrow;
But a sabbath profaned,
Whate’er may be gained,
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.”
― Anonymous

“... God is not a Sunday plumber - he's always available...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“... millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
― Susan Ertz

MEN

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”
― Virginia Woolf

“Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.”
― Gillian Anderson

“No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn't in submission to God!”
― T.D. Jakes