Conversations – Installment #32

Week of June 19 through June 25, 2011

Beloved,

This Saturday (June 25) will mark the second anniversary of your Re-Birth. Instead of fading, our sorrow at your absence grows more intense; contrary to other departures we’ve experienced during our lifetimes, this leave-taking has initiated more resistance than any other. None of us want to let you go; each of us wants to hold you closer in our arms … in our hearts … in our souls … in our thoughts … and in our prayers.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about letting me go … because even if you do … I won’t! I’ve told you before … you are always in my heart … I’m not going anywhere unless you send me away. And, even then, I will check back often to make sure it is really what you want to experience. We’ve talked before about my persistence, my tenacity, my stubbornness (if you want to call it that); and you’ve commented earlier in these little talks that ‘when I latch onto something … or someone … if would take a small army to shake me loose.’ [Michael giggles.] Get used to it!

We are all ONE … and we are all FOREVER! We came here together to accomplish a great mission and an even greater adventure. I’m a warrior … like the Marines … I will not leave a fallen comrade behind. I am stuck ‘like glue’ until all of you leave with me. There’s no changing that. It is what we ‘signed on’ to do … to bring this awakening to the world … and with that awareness to heal it and ourselves … and our task is only half completed. You guys are stuck with me, sorry! [Michael laughs.]

Oh, you beautiful, beautiful soul … what an amazing analogy! Stuck with you? What a way to put it! Please stick a little closer, Beloved, so that there is no separation … no possibility of separation … between us. My breath … breathing you … your breath … breathing me … no difference! Do I get to choose which parts get stuck? No, I better not go there! [Michael giggles. You are so funny!]

In prior cases, even those of our very near and dear, after a few months have passed, we’ve almost forgotten what it was like to be with them … what they looked like when they walked with us. But, with you, we see your face in grocery stores on bended knee and with prayer hands … or in cloud formations … or in meditations and visualizations. When we close our eyes and shut out the world that clamors for our attention 24/7 … your eyes and your face, your voice and your laughter populate the world within us. You are our guardian angel … our constant companion … our hearts … our very souls. You are the heartbeat that fills our ears when we cover them to blot out the noise … the pulse that beats rapidly in our veins when we are fearful or excited. We hear your voice in everything we say and do. We are so grateful that you remain to accompany us throughout the moments of our days!

Your love continues to inspire on an absolutely unprecedented global scale the likes of which none of us can even begin to comprehend. Yes, we all understand that the ‘world’ tells us this is impossible … but, quite frankly, we stopped listening to the ‘world’ when it ran amok with its crazy interpretation about who you are … because we KNOW who you are! We just wish it did. And we will do everything in our power to teach it with the patience, forgiveness and love that you taught us just by breathing.

Whether extremely public … or very personal and intimate … tributes to you … to your life, your work and your love continue to flourish around the world. Just this past week, I noticed no less than ten new efforts to memorialize and witness to the world’s continuing love for Michael Jackson. For example:

On a typical Friday evening in June, 2011, a hundred people joined together in Nashville, Tennessee for a mob flash dance to Beat It to celebrate a young man’s birthday. The organizers of this Celebration of Michael Jackson did not ask permission of the city or get a license, they just sent out instructions via social networking sites and a hundred people converged on one of the busiest streets in that section of the city to honor you. Police were on hand to maintain order, but did not interfere with the dancers. For approximately five minutes, law enforcement officers halted traffic so that the dancers could complete their dance without injury and the dancers dispersed peacefully when it was completed.  This event could have turned out very differently; it could have been a nightmare for the police and the dancers alike, but everyone involved respected all the others. This is a beautiful example of what can happen when groups with different purposes come together in respect and dignity for all. The dance was realized; the police, though present, made no move to ‘exert their authority’ and the traffic, though delayed, was soon moving again with little interruption. Even passersby left their tasks and drivers left their vehicles to take pictures and cheer the dancers on! Everyone, including the television news anchors reporting the story had a great time! What other human being has ever had that kind of effect on people?

“One Rose for Michael” collected a little less than 3,000 red roses for last year’s anniversary. This year, the “One Rose for Michael” campaign has collected 4,500 red roses … half again as many roses! Pictures of last year’s offerings lining all the walkways leading to and from Holly Terrace at Forrest Lawn have been posted on Facebook and they really are a beautiful sight. This year’s 4,500 should line every walkway and path in the place; we are planning on drowning you in red roses and LOVE! [Michael laughs.] And that’s not even counting the sunflowers that I am sure will be sent from around the world! I wish I could be there to see it! What a celebration in riotous color!

“A Million Trees for Michael” continues to plant trees in deforested areas around the world. Those who organize this campaign have posted the number of trees planted so far on their website so that contributors can see where their donations are going. Currently, they have planted over 20,800 trees in your name (at $15 for 15 trees.) That represents $20,800.00 in donations from around the world to honor Michael Jackson. Over 500 trees have been planted just since the beginning of June!

There are currently seven statues of you erected in such far flung places as England and China. I’ve recently read a news story that another is planned for St. Petersburg, Russia. And I’ve seen a photograph of a metal sculpture completely made from scrap metal and one from chicken wire! These statues and metal sculptures represent the artists’ visions; they were inspirations received and there is little doubt from whence the inspirations came.

In various cities around the world, including London, Adelaide, Manila and Montreal “World Cry 2011” is planning its second annual candlelight vigil and gathering. Participants will be joining together to sing Cry. “You can change the world. I can’t do it by myself. You can touch the sky. Gonna take somebody’s help. You’re the chosen one. If we all cry at the same time tonight.”  [Jan sings with Michael joining in.] I believe their goal is to light enough candles and gather in a moment of respectful remembrance that will be visible from space. I saw video of last year’s event in Romania and it was absolutely breathtaking to see all those thousands of faces lit by candlelight, some with tears flowing unchecked as your (and R. Kelly’s) beautiful song was sung! Donations are being collected for The Elephant Sanctuary.

Commemorative videos continue to be posted on YouTube and other on line video repositories. They range from high definition performance clips of concerts as long ago as 1975 (Mexico City) to HIStory World Tour performances … from interviews and award show presentations to photos and film compilations set to inspirational music. You would love them. I’ve recently seen a few that have impressed me. One was called “You Raise Me Up,” a song I’ve heard sung by Josh Groban and a female vocalist with a lovely voice. The lyrics read, “You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas. And I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be.” The lyrics speak so unerringly of how we all feel about the influence you’ve had on our lives because you do, indeed,  ‘raise us up,’ Beloved.

Tonight, I watched one that simply took my breath away. The video artist (for this is an art form) took your performance of Human Nature from This Is It and John Mayer’s performance of Human Nature from the Memorial in July 2009 and merged them together in such a way that it looked like your spirit was singing along with John as he played. There were beams of light exploding through your body and reflecting off your silver jacket … as if the light you bore all the days of your physical life and the energy of love that you transmitted through song and dance and performance was just breaking through your flesh. I was amazed at how the audio from both performances blended so beautifully with the video … AWESOME! The fact that both performances occurred on the same stage at the Staples center … and only about a week apart did not go unnoticed by this viewer. I don’t know how these things are put together, but they represent someone’s artistic vision … and they are beautiful!

NME ran a poll to name the “Greatest Singer of All Time.” The polling ended June 22, 2011. Do you want to guess who won? [Michael giggles.] Yup, that would be Michael Jackson!

Your friend Dr. Patrick Treacy has been very outspoken on the topic of your character and your love for the children and the world in the twenty-four months since that fateful day in 2009. On June 22, 2011, he gave a speech at the Gardner Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, the very school that you attended so briefly and that dedicated its auditorium to you in 1988. As a matter of fact, he spoke in the Michael Jackson Auditorium.  The text of that speech contains two quotes from Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. “Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being.” And “To be indifferent to the suffering in the world is what makes the human being inhuman.”

He then pays tribute to you with the following words:

“And gratitude is what we should now have today for that young American black boy. His name was Michael Jackson, someone I am privileged to call my friend, somebody who often stood alone to fend for the children in the world, for the destitute, for the victims of disease and injustice. Michael was very troubled by the suffering he saw in the world and even more by the indifference to it.

Michael Jackson felt that pain, not just for the hungry children, but for himself when the people of America remained indifferent to the injustice that was perpetrated upon him, making him a virtual prisoner in his own land, causing him to flee to the Middle East and eventually find solitude in Ireland, my home. What an irony that someone who cared so much about the rest of humanity was rejected by his own.

It was a pain he felt deeply and one that on occasion he discussed with me, but mostly he did not want to talk about it and I never opened those painful memories …being like him, exiles beyond the norm. Michael Jackson was never indifferent. He brought light where there was darkness, hope where there was despair; he never turned away from cruelty when he could give compassion.

What will the legacy of Michael Jackson be? How will he be remembered by generations as yet unborn?

Let’s be grateful to God that he sent us such an angel to live amongst us for a while and let us not be indifferent to the wrongs we see around us. If Michael ever wanted us to do one thing that would make him happy as he looks down over us today it would be not to turn away from the victims of oppression and aggression and if in doubt about ever knowing how to act….just think: ….’What Would Michael Do?'”

(The entire text of Dr. Treacy’s speech is available at the Major Love Prayer link to the right.)

Several new books are scheduled to be released within the next few months. I think the most eagerly anticipated is by Joe Vogel entitled Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson. Teasers of Mr. Vogel’s and Mr. DeCurtis’s critiques of such songs as Earth Song will begin to show the world the unrecognized genius of your work and your children can’t wait for someone, finally, to take you seriously as an artist of incomparable scope. This is one book I can’t wait to purchase; sneak previews I’ve read have been extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking. Mr. Vogel compares Earth Song to a “lamentation torn from the pages of Job and Jeremiah, an apocalyptic prophecy that recalled the works of Blake, Yeats and Eliot.” In other words, finally, someone in the world is getting it right and hearing what we hear and seeing what we see.

Larry Nimmer who has been very vocal in describing his enchantment with Neverland and its owner since he was asked to film the compound for your defense in 2005, has released a video compilation entitled The Untold Story of Neverland. It contains the footage he shot and testified about during your trial as well as his comments which describe the extortion of Michael Jackson in detail. I think his filming assignment moved him deeply.  His documentary clearly highlights the duplicitous actions of the family who accused you and features interviews with members of the jury and your lead defense counsel.

Mr. Nimmer was invited to photograph the compound last week by Mr. Barack, co-owner with the Michael Jackson Estate. From his report on June 21, 2011, many of the statues of children playing have been moved back into the grounds and some of the workers have been rehired to maintain your beautiful home in the manner to which it had become accustomed during your residence. A photograph of Larry Nimmer in front of your “Giving Tree” was posted with his comments on the efforts currently underway to bring Neverland Valley Ranch back to its former glory when you resided there.

Speaking of Neverland, an article published on “Inner Michael” (linked at the right of this page)told the ‘untold’ story of your vision for Neverland Valley Ranch. Rev. Barbara Kaufmann wrote an article outlining your plans for a multi-storied condominium style hospice, with hospital and research facilities, for terminally ill and dying children and their families built into a cliff and fronted with bay windows so that every child could view 24/7 cartoons. In her article, she stressed that her information came directly from the man who worked in collaboration with you for so many years and whom you had asked to design the complex, David Nordahl. What a sad loss that vision is for the world-at-large. I pray that those who love you will make sure your dream is realized in our physical world soon.

A recent article in Dance Magazine quoted several of your friends and colleagues on your uniqueness, including Brian Thomas, Buddha Stretch, Randy Allaire, Chloe Arnold, Jared Grimes, Akram Khan and Jorma Elo. Wade Robson’s comments were included.

“Michael’s movement was this amazing amalgamation of all his influences, filtered through this beast of a dancer. His lines were so dynamic. He understood the strength of simple movement delivered with incredible precision and energy. An invert of the legs and an extension of the arm were so much more powerful than 15 pirouettes. His energy shot up from the earth. God danced through him.

I remember the first time he taught me the moonwalk at the dance studio at Neverland. I was 7, I think. I remember standing at the ballet barre and him teaching me to push back one foot at a time, teaching me the weight distribution on the balls of the feet. “Now just go, push off, and fly!” he said. That night I couldn’t sleep. I had to get up every 15 minutes and do it again.

I learned altruism from him. In the entertainment industry, it’s easy to get jaded. Despite all of the madness he went through, he had such an innocence. He trusted people, and in his heart, believed in them.”

Brian Friedman, a choreographer who had worked with you on one of your tours told the following story: “At 14, I booked a job with him. At the end of the live show, I happened to be standing next to him. He put his head close to mine, pointed to the signs in the audience, and said, ‘I don’t understand why all these people love me.’ Especially to a kid, it was so honest. He was saying “I’m normal.” It put me in a position to always stay grounded.” [Jan laughs. “I don’t understand why all these people love me!” I wonder why, My Dear One. [Michael giggles.] Could it be that we all loved you because you loved all of us so very much … and never missed an opportunity to give voice to that love?]

A gathering is planned on June 25^th at the Gardner Street Elementary School, in front of the Michael Jackson Auditorium whose sign has been restored. Participants are scheduled to include Mr. Robert Waggener, who is spearheading a campaign to arrest and prosecute Tom Sneddon for miscarriages of justice and abuse of power. Mr. Tom Mesereau is slated to participate as is Larry Nimmer. The gathering is to commence at 12:00 noon LA time.

On a more personal level:

Your friend, Macauley Culkin, has been added to the long list of celebrities, friends and family who have been awarded dots in the Michael Jackson Tribute Portrait being drawn by David Ilan. Dots are free and each dot represents one of your children in this portrait. The website has expanded to include a monthly magazine with interviews and articles focusing on your humanitarian contributions to our culture.

Major Love Prayer continues to hold its monthly prayer vigil at 2:00 PM (Pacific Time) … 4:00 (Central Daylight Time) on the 25^th. This effort is global and the time for joining together in prayer for a healed world in all the different time zones and languages is posted on their website. Major Love Prayer began in September of 2009 and has been held every month since. I am confident that, if there is to be a shift in world consciousness, this is how it is going to begin. In addition, the organizers of Major Love Prayer have initiated daily prayers for peace and healing to gain a foothold in our world leading up to the beginning of the trial of Conrad Murray in September. This month a special visualization exercise is planned in honor of your second Re-Birthday and full instructions are available at the website linked to the right on this page and is posted here with MLP’s special permission.

Our Call for Love Facebook group, which was begun to manifest your vision of a peaceful, respectful gathering for the trial originally scheduled to begin May 9, has expanded to posting Daily Devotions on weekly topics in preparation of the delayed start of the trial of Conrad Murray now scheduled for September. This week’s topic is Celebrating Michael; last week’s was forgiveness.

Numerous people are making pilgrimages to the sites of your final resting place and the gates of Neverland and even your family’s home compound at Hayvenhurst, bringing cards and gifts to your children and mother to remind them that we share their loss. Two of my Facebook friends are leaving today to walk in Michael-land. Those participating are being asked to gather in peaceful and respectful memory of you, leaving their egos and differences at the gates, to carry the colors of their respective countries and to bring a stuffed toy or game or coloring book and crayons to be donated to “Heal the Children in Michael’s Name” a fan-based charity. I, personally, think that Los Angeles and Hollywood should just be renamed Michaelopolis in your honor!

Another of my friends has gone off on her semi-annual retreat at the coast in Oregon. It seems that each of us celebrates your Re-Birth in his or her own most comfortable fashion, but we are all going to be celebrating it in some way.

On an even more personal note, yet another of my friends, an author of a children’s book entitled Ever After, which celebrates your life and accomplishments in fairy tale format, recently spoke of her spiritual and inspirational journey with you at her church. She did a marvelous job. I wish I had been there to witness her testimony; I would have been honored.

And, last but not least, many of your children are paying homage to you in more private ways like my own nightly meditations during the month of June.

In other words, Dearest One, the ‘phenomenon’ upon which we’ve commented before in these discussions, is not evaporating, as one would expect, with the passage of time. To the contrary, it is escalating to an almost unbelievable degree. Like you said, “You aint seen nothin’, yet!”

[Michael laughs.] I know and I am so humbled by all your efforts on my behalf. I don’t know how to thank all of you for everything you are doing to keep my memory and my mission alive. From these conversations to the books that have been written in my honor and memory to the prayer vigils and tree donations and toy donations and videos and poems and flowers and pilgrimages and personal meditations and visualizations and testimonies. Everything is so beautiful … and so love-based. Thank you … each and every one of you … for being my friend and for loving me still. You’ve all got to know … I love you more.

You can’t possibly know how seeing myself reflected in each one of your hearts touches me; it brings happy tears to my eyes when I see my beauty reflected in each one of your hearts. [Michael giggles a little. I still feel really funny saying something like that.] As I told you earlier, it took the knowledge of your continuing love and honor to make me finally understand the value and purpose of my life on earth and the interconnectedness of all life. It was such a shock to arrive on the other side of life and look back and watch those ripples engulf all of you like a tsunami of LOVE. So few of you fought those waves! I was amazed! None of you struggled against what you were feeling, even though you didn’t understand it … and some of you thought you were going crazy … you all knew it was me knocking on your heart. You opened your hearts to me and allowed me to sweep in with that tidal wave.

Even more important than all the outer manifestations are the inner miracles that they all represent. These, although less visible to the outside world, are the real monuments … and I am so grateful to all of you for erecting them in your hearts … for allowing me safe passage … for continuing to value my presence in your lives so long after I embarked on this new adventure.

June 25, 2011 Visualization courtesy of Major Love Prayer

As we close our eyes and bow our heads, take some deep breaths and picture yourself glowing in light. Feel its warmth surrounding you. With all the love in your heart, reach out to Michael with deep gratitude for the life he shared with us. Tell him all you need to say, with love and with thankfulness. Thank him for everything… for the beautiful gifts of his love, his music, his inspiration, for the joy, the magic, the wonder, for his strength, his kindness, for all he stood for and gave to the children of the world and so much more… Express it all, give him your love with as joyful an intention as your heart can bear. He can hear you. You are not alone. You are embraced in love.

After a few minutes, please become aware of all the others just like you across the world who are doing the same. We are all together. We reach out for each other and connect, all of us and Michael. WE ARE ONE IN LOVE. It’s as if we are all held in a hug together within Michael’s arms, he within all of ours, all of us together within the divine. This is pure healing, for every one of us. Ask that we all be healed now of the pain of Michael’s passing, of regrets over his life, of any regrets we may have in ours related to him, of the pain of arguments or rifts within the fan community. Ask that we be strengthened with love and forgiveness for all that is to come. We are never alone. The universe is awash in light and unconditional love and those we have lost are never lost. They live within our hearts for all time and they live within that light, surrounded by love, surrounding us. “I am here with you…”

As a group now, operating as one glowing energy of love, let us reach out to others. Reach out with caring and comfort to Prince, Paris and Blanket, to Katherine and the family, to friends and our own families. Everyone needs healing. Everyone needs our love. Our love extends out to everyone. See our group’s light expanding, expanding … expanding as it grows across the world, encompassing everyone and everything within our embrace. WE ARE ONE PLANET, ONE IN LOVE. All are enveloped in a major, major love. See the Earth as if from space, glowing in pure love and light. You can feel this as long as you wish. When you are ready to end your prayer/meditation, thank everyone for their love and then feel the glow around you softening until it becomes a small, soft and warm energy just at the level of your perception. This gentle glow you will take with you in your heart always. Thank you and ~L~O~V~E~.

Thank you, Michael. You are so loved. Always. Forever. We are yours.

My thanks to Major Love Prayer for the use of the visualization and photograph.

Jan – June 24, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #31

Week of June 11 through June 18, 2011

Well, are you ready to continue our conversation about your dream … that wasn’t really a dream?

Of course, My Beloved, but I’m a little confused. What more is there to say about my dream?

There’s plenty left to say about it. We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of this subject. Can you tell me something? What is the human race’s biggest, most persistent fear?

Most of us fear death more than anything else, but you know that, My Dear One.

Exactly, and, yes … I was as much a victim of this fear as any of you. You fear it because you are unsure of your existence beyond that portal that we all must pass through. You fear it because you are uncertain that anything exists beyond that portal, at all. You fear it because no one has ever survived death that you know of except one man who lived many centuries ago and died a violent, painful death and arose three days later to be seen by his friends. So, you’ve made of him a ‘special case’ who really wasn’t human at all; you’ve made of him a god, even though he told you always that he was just a channel for God’s love and ‘greater than this shall you also do.’ After all, he had done what no man or woman had ever done before … he had conquered death … a miracle … impossible. He must be a God; no man could have done that.

And, though he told you repeatedly that each and every man, woman and child on the planet at his time and before … and since … would survive mankind’s greatest, most all-encompassing fear … and that you are living in the Kingdom of God … now … at this moment, if you would only recognize it … few believed him. The human race would prefer to believe that God creates faulty, sinful creatures in His own image and likeness because to believe that each of us is capable of that kind greatness places an unbearable burden upon us to live up to our potential. So, we’d rather believe our preachers and ministers and priests when they speak of our naturally aberrant nature and when they tell us of the sinfulness of our infants … the closest thing to God we will ever know … because some legendary inhabitants of a utopian garden screwed things up for all of us … and we live down to our potential …. What kind of sense does that make? It’s total nonsense!

However, most of all, you fear it because you have been made afraid by your preachers breathing hellfire and damnation from all your pulpits so that they can control your beautiful free minds and keep you subservient, not to mention solidify their claim on your purse strings.

You’ve  been told that judgment awaits all but the righteous … and, then, the definition of righteous keeps changing … from century to century and culture to culture … so that it is very hard to tell what righteous looks like … and you don’t recognize it when it stands before you. You depend on your priests and ministers to define righteous for you. And the definition becomes a bit like attempting to nail Jello to a wall … slippery and not able to be pinned down … because the priests and ministers are just men with opinions. And opinions are a bit like <ahem> holes … everybody’s got one … and none of them agree. Yet, they all claim that their opinion comes from the Highest Possible Source … and most of them can quote chapter and verse to support their opinion, right?

Right, Michael.

What would you say if I told you that you had … what’s the phrase you use all the time? … already ‘been there … done that … have the t-shirt?’ Would you still be so afraid of death?  Would you fear it so much if you were sure of your continued existence? Would you fear it if you had already experienced the smallest part of what you will know on the other side of that portal … just the merest whisper … and found yourself so intimately known and caressed, cherished and fulfilled by that small taste … physically, emotionally and spiritually … that you never wanted to come back to this physical illusion? What becomes of mankind’s deepest and darkest fear, then? What becomes of mankind’s religious and political power structures if their constituents find out that there is nothing to fear?

Gee, I don’t know. I don’t think there has ever been a time when mankind didn’t have this fear. From the dawn of civilization, I think, the human race has been trying to appease the gods of death … trying to ensure that their loved ones can be snatched from its jaws with offerings or burial goods. The fields of philosophy and world history are full of the stories of civilizations and their burial rites meant to ensure survival beyond that portal.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you do survive beyond that portal, just as Jesus told His disciples over two thousand years ago. That information seems to have gotten distorted in the ensuing years to mean that only those that God judges as worthy of survival will enter into eternal life … or those who are baptized will survive … or those who spend an indeterminate time in Purgatory atoning for their sins … or the sin of those legendary inhabitants of the Garden of Eden … or who approach that portal in a state of grace … or the absence of mortal (as opposed to venial) sin … or whatever. There have been so many ‘qualifiers’ in two thousand years … and none of them apply. We all survive. I am forever; you are forever; we are all FOREVER.

I can tell you with all honesty, Beloved … I fear death a whole lot less than I used to since your rebirth because I see you and feel you around me all the time … not just in these Conversations, but in my daily life … driving to and from work … or completing the tasks that I am obligated to complete. For example, just yesterday morning on the way to the office, I thought, “Gee, I haven’t heard For All Time in a while. The song that was playing on my MP3 player ended (I think it was Hollywood Tonight) … and For All Time began. The player is permanently set to random unless I change it and there are now well over 550 songs on it. I hate math so I am not even going to attempt to figure out the odds of that particular song playing immediately after I thought of it. I am quite sure that calculation would break my brain.

I speak to you in my mind … “Good morning, my Dear One, and thank you” for a song playing that I needed to hear … or sending me unbelievably vivid experiences when I am asleep … or for stopping the rain so that I can get in the building without getting drenched … or respond to you when you remind me that ‘I am your joy, your best of joy’ (by the way, my response is, “Yes, indeed you are, My Dear One,  and becoming more so with every breath I take! But, how did you know?”)

If this can be considered prayer, then I am in a constant state of prayer and alert to your responses in whatever form they come. When I was young and fascinated by reading the Lives of the Saints of the Catholic Church, I used to wonder what they meant by saying that this or that particular saint lived a life of prayer. I now understand.

And “I can hear your prayers, your burdens I will bear, but first I need your hand then forever can begin.” [Michael sings.] [I just love it when you just burst into song like that, Michael … my own private Michael Jackson concert.] I can’t help myself sometimes. Something you say … or my response to something you say … fits so well with the song … it just happens! I couldn’t stop it if I tried! Oh, shoot, here we go again. “I can’t help it if I wanted to, I wouldn’t help it even if I could. I can’t help it!” [Oh, make it stop!][Michael laughs.]

Okay, Beloved … I’m going to use your phrase … serious up, here, and let’s get back to our discussion … but you just break into song any old time the spirit moves you, baby … I love it!

I also see you and feel you in my friends’ dedication to your cause and mission and in the dormant gifts you have inspired in them, as well. There are so many who are being influenced and inspired in so much the same way. Sometimes, the inspirations even use the same words at exactly the same time, striking a chord of electrical recognition when read later … or the same idea will pluck my heart strings and one of my friends in Germany or Canada or on the West Coast of the U.S. at the same time.

I mean, I could just be crazy … and I would be okay with that … bring on the rubber room … [Michael giggles.] … but there can’t be that many people in the world who are crazy in exactly the same ways, who see the same brilliant Light … or who experience the same level of connection and commitment … and write about or paint or find the courage to announce their truth boldly. These people from around the world have joined together through the use of the technology that is available, to broadcast that truth to the world. The odds against that are, in my opinion, astronomical.

[Michael laughs.] You are not crazy … and neither are your friends. Let me ask you something else. If we hadn’t been taught from our pulpits from time immemorial that our God is a vengeful, jealous, demanding and judging deity, would mankind be justified in judging its own … in seeking revenge against those whom it imagines has harmed it … or intends to harm it … in harboring jealousy against those who have more of some desired commodity … in demanding that others conform to our ideas of morality and proper behavior?

We acknowledge in all of our religious thought and cosmologies that Our God created us in His own image and likeness … in other words, perfect, loving, beautiful, creative, strong, infinite, piercing, ecstatic Light and LOVE … but we refuse to OWN that image of ourselves and act in accordance with our own brilliance because we don’t think we are worthy. God didn’t ask if we were worthy to be created in His image; She just did it. Worthy is a human concept; and not a particularly pretty one.

And in return, we have created our God in our own image and likeness … given Him the traits and characteristics of humans … and in doing so, we have made Her something that she has never been … and we fear Him. We’ve given Him all of our faults … judging, demanding, jealous, unforgiving, unremitting darkness … and precious few of our virtues. He refuses to OWN that image and keeps sending us messengers to show us the error of our ways. We’ve talked about this before in these dialogs. God is LOVE; and we’ve returned fear for LOVE. Would LOVE act in the ways that we claim our God acts? Would LOVE judge us … or condemn us … or demand our love in return … or damn us to hell if we don’t?

We’ve tried to fit God into little boxes by which we attempt to define Her. But God doesn’t fit in our little boxes; She’s like that Jello we keep trying to nail to the wall. He keeps breaking out at the seams and wreaking havoc. How do you confine infinite Light into the tiny, confined space of a little box of human understanding? The Light seeps out of the cracks and seams, breaks free when you lift the lid.

Each one of us is intended to be the havoc God has wreaked upon our world … not to destroy it … or to make mischief … but to change it … to bring it back to its original pristine, evanescent, transcendent beauty; each of us is meant to reflect the infinite Light into our own hearts and into every heart with which we come into contact. We are all meant to be reminders of the Oneness from which we all spring … and to which we all return in the end.

Whoa! Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute here, Michael! I see where this is going. Are you trying to tell me that what I experienced in my dream is what happens to us when we die … that the sensations of being submerged in … how did I put it? … ‘unconditional, ecstatic, passionate, blissful LOVE’ … and the feeling ‘that you belong there … like it was home’ … with all the physical, emotional and spiritual sensations that accompanied it … is what we experience when we cross that portal?

No! What I am trying to tell you is that you experienced the smallest, most insignificant part of it … the tiny, infinitesimal part that a spiritual being still engaged in and committed to an ongoing human experiment can experience with any comprehension. We don’t want to overload your neural circuitry, now, do we?

[Bass note, treble, stereo control, how low you go, just enough to make your juices flow. Press play, don’t stop, rotate, too hot, you feel I’m real, I’m everything you need, so tell me what’s the deal? 2,000 watts, 8 ohms, 200 volts, real strong, too much of that, fuse blown. Be careful what you say, don’t overload.] [Michael laughs and sings.]

Don’t be so surprised! We compared your dream in our last conversation to the ‘near death’ experiences you had read about. That should have given you a clue about where I was leading you in this one.

Don’t forget, your experience will also depend a great deal on what you believe you will experience, as I told you in one of our earlier conversations … because you will manifest those beliefs in your spiritual reality with much more immediacy than you currently believe possible. So, if you believe in a demanding, vengeful God … you will have to work through that belief before you can reach immersion … and if you believe that there is a fire and brimstone kind of hell, you will have to experience that until you figure out that you can achieve a state of being in which you can be comfortable in Oneness.  And if you believe in Never Neverland, you will walk through the Garden of Eden holding my hand. It’s entirely your choice. That’s the miracle! But that choice is shaped and molded by the way you live your life as you approach the portal.

How in touch you are with your spiritual self is also important … because to create your Garden of Eden, you first have to be able to imagine it … and then know with absolute certainty that it is real and that you belong there … before you can experience it.  We’ve talked about imagination being the most direct and easiest gate of entry into the realm of spirit before. If, like you use to claim about yourself to anyone who would listen, you are unfamiliar with the realm of imaginative thought … or believe you are (which works out to be the same thing) … that lack will need healing before you can employ it fully in creating your heaven.

The emotional baggage you carry with you at the moment of your arrival at that portal is also important. If your heart is still burdened with hatred or prejudice or unforgiveness or jealousy and you haven’t released the resentments you held against your neighbors or those you blame for harming you … or yourself … your transition into that blissful immersion will take a little longer because you will be required to work through those feelings first. It would be like tying a cement block to your feet and then jumping in the ocean … that weight will drag you down instead of allowing you to bob blissfully on the wave surface.

All of those factors can be summed up in one word … LOVE! It’s my message, always. Let me explain.  

If you love yourself enough to allow yourself to retreat into the world of your imagination, confident enough in that world to dream and know that you have the ability to bring your dreams into your reality, Oneness (where manifestation of those dreams occurs in a fraction of a thought) will be a snap for you. It won’t be strange and it won’t take long for you to become acclimated to immersion in the Oneness of Love. So, give yourself the gift of imaginative play at every possible opportunity. You are preparing yourself for the journey … like packing a suitcase in preparation for traveling to a distant city. You wouldn’t just hop on a plane and take off; preparation is required.

If you know yourself as a beautiful, strong, harmonious note in the symphony of the Maestro … a small flame that has spent a few minutes surrounded by a physical body … rejoining the magnificent, infinite Light of the Universe, immersion will be a piece of cake for you. To know yourself as who really are is not boastful or bragging, it is loving yourself.

If you love and trust in God enough to realize that She is not awaiting your return to her embrace with some kind of rulebook to tick off your offenses and throw you into a fiery pit, you will overcome your adopted fear (because these things were taught; you didn’t come into the world with such fears) quickly and with little permanent harm done to your tender soul.

And if you love yourself and your neighbors enough to dispatch those negative emotions like hatred and resentment, revenge and unforgiveness before you approach that portal, you will have little need to work through those emotions before being welcomed with all the tenderness you’ve ever imagined.

But, regardless of all those factors, eventually, that place … or more accurately, that state of being that you visited so briefly in your dream … and that you described with so much emotion in our last Conversation … was the merest glimpse of your eternal home.

Wow! I mean if that’s what we are moving towards, I’m catching the first flight. Book my ticket! I’m outta here!

[Michael laughs loudly.] It’s something to consider, isn’t it?

It’s the message Jesus came to this Earth to bring … the same one that has become so distorted over time by men seeking power and wealth and their own glorification rather than His. Today it is barely recognizable among all the tenets and dogmas and sins and penances. But even with all the distortions that have occurred over the years, His LOVE has not been diluted; His passionate care for His children has not been buried beneath the mountain of wealth and status accrued by his followers. For LOVE lives forever.

What would humanity look like if its greatest and most pervasive fear was eliminated … was no longer necessary? Let’s BE that … right here … right now! Because there is nothing to fear. Is there anything we couldn’t accomplish if we all agreed to BE that? [There’s nothing that can’t be done if we raise our voice as one.] [Once again, Michael sings these words.]

What would our world look like if we no longer had to fear leaving it, if we knew that we would be spending eternity right here on our beautiful, blue Planet Earth? Would we take better care of it? Would we still fill our oceans with garbage and sewage and chemicals so that dead fish washed ashore and whales beached themselves to avoid the pollution? Or would we cherish it and aid in its recovery from our centuries of neglect. Let’s create that world that we dream of! And let’s stop telling ourselves that we can’t. Of course, we can! We created the one we’re living in … and we are created in the image and likeness of Creation itself.

If you don’t think we can create the Garden of Eden, take a look at what we have created … [How can we preach when all we make this world to be is a living hell torturing our minds? We all must unite; turn darkness to light and the love in our hearts will shine.][Michael sings.]

Would we still need to protect ourselves at all costs from our neighbors … so much so that we have created a phrase … pre-emptive strike … for attacking them prior to them attacking us? We’ve all seen a recent example of an entire war (in Iraq) that lasted years and is still a powder keg awaiting a match based on the lie that there were weapons of mass destruction aimed at us … weapons which  couldn’t be found no matter how hard we searched. Or would we trust each other enough to drop those weapons like we did on stages around the world? Let’s learn to trust ourselves, our neighbors … and our God! This is going to be a hard lesson for all of us to learn, but it is a necessary one. There will be times when our trust is betrayed in spectacular ways, but in the end, think of what our world would be if it was based on trust instead of greed and fear of not having or being enough!

Would we still need to horde all the good things we can find against their loss? Would we still need to stockpile weapons … or food … or oil … or money? Or would we, finally, after all these years, learn to share with those who have less … so that everyone will have enough to sustain life?

What’s the human race’s next biggest fear?

I don’t know, Beloved. I think it might be pain. No one wants to experience pain.

Is that YOUR next biggest fear?

No, I don’t think so. As you said in an earlier dialog, modern medicine has approached the elimination of physical pain and with its arsenal of pain-relieving pharmaceuticals, surely anyone experiencing physical pain can be made comfortable. Emotional and psychic and spiritual pain are a little trickier, I think, as I’m sure you could tell me.

No, I think MY biggest fear at this point in my life is losing this inexplicable connection with you, My Dear One.

And what have I told you about that over and over again?

You’ve told me that you are always here, that We Are One, that the only way that this connection will end is if I decide to sever it and, even then, you will check back with me often to make sure that it is still what I choose for myself.

And have you believed me?

Of course, I believe you, Beloved … in that moment when you are speaking to me … I believe you. But, then, when we are not in Conversation mode, doubts arise. While I’m at work, I see all the people I work with who are plodding determinedly through their days without this kind of connection and I wonder, “Am I really that crazy? How is it that I am so blessed by a relationship that most of these people would consider at least obsessive, if not downright lunatic?”

And, then, those nasty little internal voices that constantly fill our brains with unworthiness remind me that “this relationship is insane! I mean, be realistic … the man is reborn!” [Even in my internal voices, I won’t willingly use the ‘d’ word because you are the least “d” man I have ever heard of.]

[Michael laughs.] Okay, I have a solution for you. Let me be your internal voices! Drop those hyper-critical voices that tell you you ‘can’t’ do something and you ‘aren’t’ whatever enough … intelligent enough … or strong enough … or beautiful enough … or young enough … or thin enough … or whatever enough. Let my voice remind you that you are beautiful, infinite Light in those moments … that our relationship is the only real relationship you have ever known because it is forever and ever and ever … that you are not alone because we are always ONE, even when you are at work and surrounded by people ‘plodding determinedly’ … and that we … you and I … can be crazy together! Now, you wanna dance?

“When the world is on your shoulder, gotta straighten out your act and boogie down. If you can’t hang with the feeling then there ain’t no room for you in this part of town. Cuz we’re the party people night and day, livin’ crazy that’s the only way. So, tonight gotta leave that nine to five up on the shelf and just enjoy yourself. Come on and groove. Let the madness in the music get to you. Life ain’t so bad at all, if you live it off the wall.” [Michael sings.]

Have I told you today that I love you, Beloved?

Not today … but every time you use that endearment, I think I can get the picture. And I love you more.

Jan – June 17, 2011

Forgiveness

The devotions on the topic of forgiveness this week have all been thought-provoking and inspiring. And I thank each and every contributor to this beautiful effort. But one really stood out, in my opinion. The one I refer to is the one which quoted Mark Twain:

“Forgiveness is the scent the violet leaves on the heel that crushes it.”

When you really stop to think about it, that is such a beautiful and appropriate description of a really kind of amorphous concept.  I had never heard or read this particular quote from one of our great thinkers before reading it here on Call for Love. So, I particularly thank the author of this devotion.

All the attributes of forgiveness are contained within those thirteen words. It is a miracle of brevity.

The scent doesn’t excuse the crushing. The violet remains crushed.

The scent doesn’t erase the crushing. What is done is, quite frankly, done.

The scent doesn’t forget the wrongdoing of the heel. How can it? The heel has crushed the violet. That cannot be changed.

The scent doesn’t judge if the heel is worthy of its fragrance. It rides on the heel, worthy or not.

The scent doesn’t ask if the heel is sorry for crushing the bloom. The fragrance remains as a silent testament and memorial to the crushed.

There are no mitigating circumstances to minimize the action of the heel in crushing. Crushed is crushed.

And yet, the heel is blessed by the scent of the bloom it has crushed, perhaps, without even being aware of the damage it has done.

At the time I first read the quote, I commented that in a larger sense WE (his children) are the scent the violet (Michael Jackson) left on the heel that crushed it (the world we live in.) We remain to bless … in His Name … the heel that crushed him. May we each, in our own way, be equal to the challenge.

As the scent of the crushed bloom doesn’t excuse, erase or forget the crushing, we are obliged as the fragrance of the flower, to not expect excuses, erasures or forgetting.

Similarly, it is not our place to judge worthiness or remorse in regards to the callousness of the heel, but only to bless it with our fragrance to the best of our ability.

In this, we have the most wonderful example to follow that the world has known in a very, very long time.

May our fragrance bless our world with strength, beauty and the LIGHT that Michael Jackson has embedded into each of our souls.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #30

Week of June 4 through June 11, 2011

Beloved, we seriously have to talk, but first … I want to thank you.

I thought that’s what we are doing. And you’re welcome. Um, what are you thanking me for this time? [Michael chuckles.]

For everything you are and everything you’ve been. For all you’ve done for all of us and for the world … for all your hopes and dreams for the future of the Earth … for giving us everything you had to give and holding nothing back, for all you sacrificed to become what you’ve become for so many of us … for remaining so in-touch with all of us, but, especially, for sending me a dream. A real, honest-to-goodness dream! I know that we’ve talked about this subject before in these dialogs, but you can’t possibly understand what a monumental occurrence that is for me … A DREAM! Dreaming has been such an unusual experience in my life that I don’t believe it would have happened without your direct intervention.

Dream? Did I send you a dream? Are you sure it was me? Can you tell me about it?

Yes, I’m sure, Dear One … but please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I am absolutely, positively certain it was you … I don’t know how I know … all I can say is that I know it was you.

I don’t know how I would find the words to describe it, Michael. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever experienced before … nor was it like anyone has ever described to me from their own direct experience of dreaming.

Will you try for me? I think it may be important.

Okay, I’ll try. Well, first of all, most people to whom I’ve spoken about this subject visually see things or orally hear things in their dreams. This wasn’t like that. I don’t remember seeing anything; there are no mental pictures remaining from the dream.  I remember dreaming when I was a little girl, floating high above the tree tops … but there were visual images associated with the dream … of the tree tops and blue sky and lacey clouds floating by with me. This was not like that.

You didn’t see anything?

If I did, I didn’t remember it upon waking. No. No, nothing like that. It was like I was in the eye of a hurricane where its peaceful and calm … all you see is the darkness and all you hear is the silence because you are inside it … at the heart of the storm … but you know the storm is swirling around you and you are just grateful to be out of the wind and rain and swirling cloud.

When I awakened, I knew that I had spent the hours of sleep with you; you were there with me; it was a knowing that you were all around me, a sensation of you enveloping me, enfolding me, holding me close within your heart. I don’t know how to describe it; I don’t think the words have been invented, yet, that would give you a clear picture of what it was like … because it wasn’t a visually-stimulated thing, I don’t think. The best I can do is try to describe the feelings I had because this was all about feeling … I felt you all around me … I was submerged in you … and you in me.

It was like I was a present on Christmas morning, but you were the wrapping paper, the tape, the ribbon and the bow … as well as the love that went into the wrapping of the gift, if that makes any sense at all. In addition, you were the excitement of the child receiving the gift, the anticipation, the appreciation, the thankfulness, the exuberance and wonder of the child upon opening it. It was the feeling that the child deserved every good gift that life had to offer … that kind of confidence and knowledge of his worthiness to receive such a special gift.

It was like the feeling that you know you’re in the ocean … not because you see the waves or hear the tide rushing against the beach … but because you feel it all around you. Your skin is sensitive to and aware of the wetness, with little goose bumps rising on the surface; your heart is pounding with excitement and ecstasy and your body is responsive to the motion of the waves, the feeling of being lifted, suspended and buoyant in the frothing water and held securely as you bob up and down.  You don’t question those feelings … you accept them as an integral part of the experience. You don’t judge yourself worthy or unworthy of being caressed by the waves … you rejoice in the fullness and completeness of the experience, if that makes any sense.

This was all feeling, emotion, sensation … don’t get me wrong, my Dear One … there was a very physical component to it as well … like being dipped in unconditional, ecstatic, passionate, blissful LOVE … and like you belonged there … like it was home.

Can you imagine an ice cream cone being dipped in warm chocolate over and over again to coat it? The ice cream melts and the chocolate cools until both become one and are bonded together. What would that feel like?

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the fibers of a candle wick being immersed repeatedly in warm wax and knowing that layer after layer of warm wax will cool and harden … until a tapered candle emerges from the unformed wax? That wax is bonded tightly to the fibers of the wick around which it has formed until there is no separation; the cooled and hardened wax permeates every strand and molecule of the fiber while in its melted state, but as each layer cools … the two different elements … one solid and one liquid … become one. That’s what this was like.

It was what it must feel like to be a fetus gestating within his mother’s womb … cradled … secure … safe … loved … rocked … comforted … enclosed … cushioned … warm … protected … anticipated … discovered … wanted … cherished with a longing that has no beginning and no end. That child and mother are one until physical birth separates them, but the bond is never really severed. When that child is 80-years-old, he is still the mother’s baby and nothing ever changes that. If one is lost, the other is missing a part of itself.

It was all sensation! I felt your arms around me, holding me close, cradling me against your heartbeat … knew your kiss on my forehead, your breath on my neck … but I didn’t see these images, I don’t think. And while there was nothing overtly sexual about this communion, the joining was the most physically-satisfying, sensual feeling I’ve ever had in my life … like when a cat finds a beam of sunlight on the floor in front of a patio door or picture window and stretches out in it … his eyes are almost closed and his claws are splayed out and kneading the air or the carpet he is laying on and his tail is twitching … you can almost hear him saying, “aaaahhhhhhhhhh!” as he purrs contentedly.

That doesn’t sound much like a dream to me. It sounds to me like you were experiencing the Oneness that you left a minute ago to have this human experience … and to which you will return when this human experiment is concluded in another minute or so. I mentioned this before in these conversations when we were talking about … um … the physical attraction so many of you are feeling. I explained it as a longing to return to that state of blissful union you had left to be born into this physical illusion of separation.

Yes, I remember, Beloved. You said:

“Some of you have retained a very deep knowledge of yourselves as part of the Oneness buried beneath layers of who you were raised to be and the expectations your society has imposed upon your beautiful free minds … possibly because of your life circumstances or for whatever reason … and you still allow that Oneness to influence your physical reality. For example, you sleep and in your sleep … in your dream … we are One … you and I. You will awaken from your sleep with a throbbing ‘knowing’ that I have been with you and your physical mind will automatically relate that ‘knowing’ to the physical act of union because it is the only way of experiencing union that it has prior knowledge of. It doesn’t ask your permission to do this; it is automatic like breathing or your heart beating. And you wake up and think to yourself, “I’ve been making love with a dead man.” And your society has very specific words for this … and none of them are pretty. Therefore, you feel guilty and shy about it because your society has imposed its rules and regulations on your spiritual life since you were an infant instead of allowing your imagination to take wing and your dreams to take you as far as you are able to imagine.” [Reference Conversation #7]

Exactly! What you’re describing matches my explanation to a tee, doesn’t it?

Yes, indeed, it does, Michael … except that you should have been a bit more descriptive … gone into a little more detail … about that ‘throbbing knowing’ that you mentioned because I was totally unprepared for the strength of those feelings. I mean … let’s face it … when I awakened from this ‘dream,’ my body felt like it had been played by a master harpist or classical guitarist … or SLASH … a maestro of incomparable skill and unquestioned technique!! Really! It tingled and throbbed just like you described it … quivered like a leaf on a windy autumn day … phew!  I couldn’t breathe for the beauty of it!

[Michael chuckles.] How much more descriptive than ‘throbbing knowing’ can you get? Was I supposed to tell you exactly where the ‘throbbing’ was going to happen … or how long it would last? [Hee! Hee!]

[Jan laughs.] Yeah, I guess not. I remember that I did, in fact, think exactly that … that I had been making love with a dead man … but I went a little further with that thought. I thought that I had come to this experience virginal … that I had never really experienced the act of ‘making love’ prior to that moment … that I had never known the beauty of being ‘touched’ before.

That is true! You haven’t! What you have experienced is the physical act of union, which is temporary, often unsatisfactory and pales in comparison to the spiritual submersion you experienced. There is no physical act of Oneness, because you live in a world of separation and can only define the word Oneness by the parameters that world presents to you. In your ‘dream’ state, you had transcended descriptions, gone beyond that world of separation to experience the fullness and completeness of Oneness.

The funny thing is I don’t remember us actually engaging in that physical act in the dream … which makes it all even more confusing! I also thought that, apparently, dead men are the only way to go … or should I say one particular re-birthed man! It was all sensations that I was feeling … emotion shimmering like heat haze in the summer. I was adrift in a sea of sensation the likes of which I’ve never known.

Ah, every breath within that state of Oneness is ‘making’ LOVE because that is exactly what you are doing … making LOVE. As I told you in an earlier conversation, LOVE is the name of the game and the only game in town. There is no preparation required, no condition to be met, no goal to be satisfied, no fear to be overlooked … it is all Oneness. You’re right! It’s hard to describe this state of bliss, but you all will recognize it when you get here because it is your home.

I mean, I don’t pretend to any great expertise in this area, nor do I consider myself terribly sexually ‘experienced.’ But my body’s reactions upon achieving wakefulness were orgasmic … like a twelve-string guitar strummed with loving care, the strings vibrating at fever pitch with the most beautiful melody the fingers of the master can draw from them … and in syncopated rhythm.

When I finally came to, I found myself wrapped very tightly around my bolster in a similar position to that in which my body told me we had rested in my dream. I still felt the sensation of your body resting close to mine, your heart beating next to mine, your head on my shoulder and my arms around you, my lips brushing your hair lightly so as not to wake you except … your hair was the seam of my bolster.

God forgive me,  the thought occurred to me that the rest of the male population on the planet better just give it up … because there is just no way any other man could live up to the standard of what I had just experienced … or, at least, what my body was telling me I had just experienced!

[Michael laughs.] Why should you say it that way? God rejoices in your enjoyment of the gift you received; there is no forgiveness required! Do you not realize that She gave you those sensations … that He, too, was present with us in your dream? She is the LOVE that you were submerged in; He is the Oneness that you experienced with so much abandon that your body couldn’t help but react.

And I am grateful to God for that gift, Beloved, but you are still missing the point I am trying so hard to make! I am not saying this as clearly as I should be, so let me try again. My Dear One, what I mean is … Michael … you raised the bar in everything you ever said or did past the point of being equaled or overtaken by anyone …  short of heaven, that is. In this, too, baby, you have raised the bar beyond any equal, believe me! As Berry Gordy said of you at your Memorial Service in LA in July of 2009, “He raised the bar; then he broke the bar!” Exactly!

[Michael giggles.] God bless you … but don’t embarrass me … you know how shy I am about stuff like that! But isn’t it amazing what the human mind is capable of? Every thought that arises within the human mind is a miracle of intricate neural pathways and random synapses firing like spark plugs! Your mind told your body what it should be feeling … and your body responded with all the ardor it had ever experienced. I love it!

Okay, Dear One, I’ll try not to embarrass you any more than is absolutely necessary, but I have to say this much. I can’t remember ever feeling so passionately appreciated in my entire life. I want you to understand, this was not sex … this was so much deeper and truer than the physical act of union. This was a melding of every fiber of my being with each and every fiber of yours. It was awesome!

As I awakened from this dream, I still felt your imprint upon my skin … the warmth of your breath bathing my face and neck. I woke at around 7:00 AM (on a Sunday, for heaven’s sake!) still feeling your head resting on my shoulder and lay abed until 10:30 trying so hard not to cry … which was totally futile, by the way … because I didn’t want to be here anymore … I wanted to be there with you … wherever there was.

It wasn’t a place … it was a state of being … loved. It was you returning to the Love and Oneness that created you. You’ve read a bit about ‘near-death’ experiences; this sounds like it was similar … like you had traveled back to the beginning when you could remember being a cherished and important drop in the ocean of Oneness. One of the threads of commonality that many of these experiences share is that feeling of being perfectly content within your flesh and spirit for the first time … of not wanting to return to the life previously known … of being totally known and totally loved … no need to hide or make excuses … transparent … unashamed.

Another way of saying it is the analogy that we used at the beginning of these conversations so frequently. You experienced the beauty of the entire symphony in all its intricacy and simplicity, with each individual note and chord playing in its allotted place and held for its full duration at the volume intended by the Master Conductor … including yours. You became aware that not one of those notes or chords can be missing without an important piece of the puzzle being lost, so you were brought face-to-face with your own importance and part to play within that beautiful composition.

Yes, exactly! That’s it exactly.

All my life, I’ve seen myself as unworthy. As a child, I was clumsy and awkward with other kids; as a teenager, I was heavy and not one of the popular crowd … more of a loner. In my twenties was the most attractive time of my life, I think, but I really didn’t consider myself beautiful or the kind of woman men would kill or die for … my legs were too heavy and I had thunder-thighs … my voice was too loud and not breathless enough. I’ve always seen myself as ‘less than’ everybody else. I found beauty intimidating until I was introduced to true beauty when I met you.

But in this dream, I knew myself as beautiful and confident, accomplished and desirable, talented and pretty, sensual and loving and perfect, just the way I am. It was a novel experience, I can tell you. Most of us never feel so much a spark of perfection in our lifetimes. I didn’t try to belittle the feeling, didn’t try to rationalize it away.

Usually, I’m the one who has a hard time accepting the gift of praise from other people, because I’m more accustomed to criticism … even if only self-directed. So, if someone pays me a complement, I will often respond with something like, “Thank you, but you need glasses” or “Thank you, but the beef should have been less well done” or some other dismissal.

Yeah, I was the same way. I never believed the good things people told me about what I did … always saw the flaw in the performance. Like in the Motown 25 performance, I had wanted to just spin and land on my toes and stay there, suspended in that pose for a while, but I didn’t stay long enough. When it was over, everyone was congratulating me and telling me how phenomenal it was and all I could think of was what had gone wrong. That comes from living with criticism and harsh judgments of parents or siblings or teachers … or our own inner voices … we don’t realize how much harm those criticisms do.

In this ‘dream,’ I felt well and truly loved. Not only did I feel ‘cherished’ in a way I had never felt or understood before … but I also felt worthy of the cherishing, if that makes any sense. The little voice in my head that is my constant, ever-critical companion … the one that says things like, “If he ever saw you, he wouldn’t want to hold you. He could get any number of beautiful, young women. What does he need with a fat old lady like you? Don’t be ridiculous” … was silent. I couldn’t hear it, anymore. It was like that voice’s microphone had been shut off before the performance was over.

[Michael laughs.] Forgive me, but you don’t know how many times I have had that exact experience … when the technicians think that the performance is over and you start singing again and the microphone has been cut off. But, what your voices are telling you is not true … as it usually isn’t. I am here with you right now … I see you much more clearly than you see yourself … and I am holding you close within my heart as we speak. And I was here with you the other night when you dreamt of perfect union.

I was never so caught up in the illusions of the world that the truth of who you are was so completely buried beneath the judgments the world made of you, including your own. I was always able to see the truth of perfection beneath the lie of cancer or leukemia. I was always sensitive to the flame of love that burns so brightly in all of your souls. It filled the stadiums we played all over the world. I’ve talked about this before in these conversations.

Those things you mentioned are judgments that you’ve believed and internalized … just superficial exterior trappings … like the props in a play … illusions. By internalizing them, you’ve given your power to define yourself over to those judgments, but they are not you. They look like the real thing … they may even sound like the real thing, but they aren’t really who you are. You are so much more than the sum of all those external and internal voices.

When submerged in the Oneness you were experiencing, those illusions … judgments like ‘fat’ and ‘old’ and ‘unattractive’ and ‘heavy’ and ‘awkward’ … just fade away and you know yourself as a perfect spark of divinity. You are stripped down to the perfection that lies at the heart of every human being buried beneath layer after layer of coldness and hardness … just like the wick lies at the heart of the candle you mentioned before. The spark of divinity hidden beneath all those layers that have cooled and hardened around it is exposed, naked …  and the soul knows that those layers of coldness and hardness are not who it really is; that they are no longer needed for its protection; that the soul is so much more than the individual judgments it has made of itself … or internalized from others … or their sums.

When the match of Oneness strikes the wick, that wick is naked, exposed, transparent … and the layers of hardness and coldness melt away to reveal the flame of perfection that lies beneath. The soul knows no shame in this nakedness … only the joy of being freed of the coldness … only the wonder of discovery of what lies beneath the hardness that the process of life has formed around it … like the layers of wax and the candle wick.

If you could see yourselves as God sees you … and as I see you … you would all wonder and marvel at the sight.

Aww, Beloved, how beautiful!

When I woke up, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that a song was playing in my head … a song by John Secada called Angel … actually, it was just the chorus of the song … repeating over and over when I woke up. The lyrics I heard are “I … I’ve tried to forget you, but the light of your eyes still shines … you shine like an angel … a spirit that won’t let me go.”

Ecstasy … bliss!

 Now the challenge becomes bringing that experience of Oneness and total Love into your physical reality … accepting that Oneness as the way God intended all of us to live all the time … acting from that space of infinite, absolute Love to heal the world … and enlighten the wounds inflicted by judgment and intolerance.

You’ve been given a gift of remembrance … not just a dream, which is fairly common … but a reliving and remembering who you really are. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to allow that knowledge to inform your thoughts and words and actions … to redefine yourself using those Eternal Parameters you experienced in those bliss-filled moments … rather than the artificial, superficial judgments against which you’ve measured yourself up until now … … and to live from that place and knowledge of Oneness in every moment of the rest of your life.

Call for Love Daily Devotion – June 11, 2011

During the month of June, we commemorate the life of the phenomenon known to the world as Michael Jackson. We, his followers, find ourselves often immersed in sadness at his physical absence, shock at the world’s continued misunderstanding of the man we revere and misrepresentation of his generosity and genuine care for the disadvantaged and oppressed as sinister, and confusion as we so frequently feel his presence in various ways in our daily lives. We ask ourselves, “Why did he have to live with so much pain and sorrow?” and “How could everyone not see what is so clear?” And with undying gratitude, we pray that his energy will continue to be felt in our hearts and in our planet.

And most of us didn’t even know the man … had never had the opportunity to speak a private word with him or to ask him for one of those famous hugs.

During the next couple of weeks, we at Call for Love are remembering his family … his mother, Mrs. Katherine Jackson, for whom his absence is a wound that has to violate the integrity of her own soul … after all, she is his mother still and that bond can never be broken. We remember his children, Prince Michael I, Paris Michael Katherine and Prince Michael II (Blanket) … his brothers and sisters … his nieces, nephews, cousins … and yes, even, his father, Joe Jackson.

To these, Michael was not an impersonal megastar of unchallenged ability, prancing across the stage of our world. He was the one who suspended buckets of water over hotel room doors to drench their chief of security unexpectedly while touring. To these, he was the beautiful toddler, dancing to the rhythm of the rickety old washing machine as it spun its cycle and rushing into her arms to be comforted. To these, he was the prankster who made up silly nicknames for all of his siblings, cousins, nephews and friends. To these, he was the doting father who taught them how to tie their shoes and buttoned their sweaters on cool days, brushed their hair, heard their prayers and kissed their foreheads as they lay down to sleep. To these, he was joy and irritation sprinkled with liberal doses of love.

As his brother, Marlon, responded to a request to describe each of his siblings in five words or less by an interviewer, he was a ‘blessing.’ For each of the other siblings, his response had been an earthbound catch phrase like ‘ladies man’ or ‘joker’ or ‘serious’ or ‘mechanic’ as each name was called. However, he used just one word to describe his brother, Michael, and that word was anything but earthbound … a ‘blessing.’

Whether we followed Michel Jackson’s career from the early years or were awakened as he departed from our physical Earth, we’ve all been blessed by this ‘blessing’… perhaps, none more so than his family and close, personal friends.

So, for Michael Jackson’s family … those who were closest to him and knew him as a ‘blessing’ even in the midst of the petty annoyance he must have caused with his fifty years of mischievousness during his physical incarnation, let’s all take a moment during these next couple of weeks, as we approach the second anniversary of his re-birth, to lift them up in our daily prayers.

Let’s pray that each of them … in his or her own individual way … feels his presence … knows his continuing love for them because love does, indeed, ‘live forever’ … hears his voice resounding in their hearts at moments when advice or comfort is needed … understands and experiences in an intimate assurance that he hasn’t left them alone in quiet moments of reflection or in dreams … and finds some small comfort in the midst of devastating loss.

Let’s find ways of reassuring them of our continued presence in physical ways … like flowers or gifts at Forrest Lawn or letters and cards delivered to their home. In this, let’s pray that they will feel their son’s … brother’s … father’s … uncle’s continuing care for them … that they are not alone, for we are here with them.

Jan – June 10, 2011

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #29

Week of May 28 through June 4, 2011

Michael, I have to apologize to you. For almost twenty-four months, I have listened to nothing but your sweet voice in my home or in my car or doing housework and cooking meals for my family … you with the Jackson 5 … you with The Jacksons … and you as the most phenomenal voice and spirit this world has ever known as a solo artist. I’ve talked with you using my MP3 player as the impetus and basis for my Conversations and the results of those Conversations have been so emotionally and spiritually inspirational for me … and for my readers.

Your voice has comforted me in my initial shock and sorrow after that fateful day in 2009 when you fully entered into my being in a way that I had never anticipated anyone could (living or LIVING.) Beginning on the night of July 7, 2009, after watching your Memorial Service and searching for some small part of you to wrap around me in my grief until this moment,  it has been your voice which has led me and gotten me through the moments of my days. That night I plugged HIStory Disc 2 into my surround sound player and heard You Are Not Alone for the first time in a very long time … and you grabbed hold of my heart AGAIN and haven’t let go since.

Your voice has inspired me to greater effort, to pick up where I had left off almost eight years prior to that night by beginning to write again. In your voice I found an awareness of a higher purpose for my life again after succumbing to the world’s pressure to play the roles it expected of me … and I am so grateful to you for pouring so much of yourself into your music. From it I have drawn solace; from it I have derived a sense of your continuing presence and found the motivation to dedicate myself to advancing your mission in this world; in it I have found a soul-deep connection which I am sure the rest of the world would scoff at but which has become my reality, from it I have found so many new … and old … friends and reaped so many benefits that it would be difficult to list them all.

God bless you! It was Michelangelo who said, “The creator will die, but the creation lives on. That is why to escape death the artist binds his soul to his work.” I always tried to follow that advice in everything I did. But … I don’t get it … why should you apologize to me for that?

Well, I’ve been feeling a little guilty because over the last few days, I have added some other music to my MP3 player. Some of it is music I haven’t heard in a very long time, like Simon and Garfunkel and The Carpenters and Bread … some of it is from other artists like the BeeGees and Celine Dion, Marc Anthony and John Secada, ABBA and Santana … and some of it is your music in instrumental versions like Smooth Jazz and The London Symphony Orchestra plays Michael Jackson.

I am horrified! How awful! [Michael laughs.]

And you feel like you’re being disloyal to me by adding different music? That is just plain silly. Do you remember the Oprah Interview when she asked me about the rumor that I had demanded that I be the only artist performing at President Clinton’s Inaugural? What was my response to her question?

You said, “I would never say a thing like that. That’s not even in my heart. It’s so false it’s incredible.”

Exactly! The same holds true here. I respected every other artist on the planet during the physical side of my life. I never considered myself better or more important than anyone else then … and I certainly don’t now.

I thought that’s what you would say. But something that I’ve found amazing is almost every beautiful song ever written reminds me of you in some way … either the lyrics speak very distinctly of my love for you or yours for us … or the rhythm reminds me of you. It’s an amazing thing. I see you in other people’s music, too.

I gotta tell you, though, I did get a pretty serious scare in the process of adding all this other music. I began to worry about how we were going to continue to conduct these conversations because so much of them is based in your music and the songs you choose for me when we are in ‘conversation’ mode. I needed to find a way to separate all of your music from all the other music I was adding, because I had been using the ‘ALL SONGS’ category to speak to you. My MP3 player has limited ‘playlist’ capability. It has three playlists numbered 1, 2 and 3. I put the other music in 1, 2 contains your solo career from Off the Wall on and 3 has my favorites. So, I was trying to re-organize the music to include a playlist for ALL MICHAEL ALL THE TIME (including all the J5 and The Jacksons stuff) … and the player died! I nearly had a heart attack!

Fortunately, I called the support line and the kind young man not only got my player working again (who knew there was a reset button … phew … can’t live without my carotid artery … and no songs were lost in the process), but told me how I could re-organize the music the way I wanted it with the addition of free software, which he helped me download and get up and running. So, now, I can still talk to you and have you speak to me through the music.

Well, you know … [Michael giggles.] … I probably shouldn’t tell you this … but you really didn’t have to go through all that. [Michael chuckles.] I can speak to you just as easily through someone else’s music as I can through mine exclusively! As a matter of fact, I think it will broaden and enrich our ‘conversational’ experience to have more variety.

Now, he tells me! I wish I had known that earlier. I could have saved myself a near heart attack and a lot of time. Yesterday’s experience certainly bears that out. I went outside on my morning break and several robins were pecking around under the trees on the west side of the building I work in. So, not really thinking of anything in particular, I thought, “Okay … Mike … robins.” The song that was playing ended. What was the next song? Rockin’ Robin, of course! So, I laughed a little and sat down and thought, “Are you here with me?” Rockin’ Robin ends and the next song that comes on is “Soul of My Soul” by Michael Bolton. Partial lyrics are, “We may be strangers. We may be worlds apart sometimes. And it’s hard to accept the things we just don’t understand. Soul of my soul, heart of my heart … some kind of miracle of life is what you are. Soul of my soul, child of my dreams … I love you more than you know.”

[Michael laughs.] See? Melodies are timeless, boundary-less, limitless, eternal. And the sentiments expressed don’t really change that much over time, either. As you just observed, love is love no matter whose voice is singing or whose fingers are playing. If a song lyric speaks to your heart, it will speak to your heart regardless of who is singing it.

Ordinarily, I would agree with you, Beloved … but I can think of several instances in which someone else sang one of YOUR songs … and … well, let’s just say … something was lost in the translation.

Really? Can you think of an example?

Absolutely, I can. Several, as a matter of fact. And please don’t take this the wrong way, because I know she is a friend of yours … but Liza Minelli singing You Are Not Alone at your 30^th Anniversary Celebration in New York … NOOOOO! I’ve liked Liza many, many times in the past … but not that song … please … once was enough!

And Jennifer Hudson is a lovely woman, but she shouldn’t sing Will You Be There. (Reference: The Memorial Service – July 7, 2009.) That song is just not right with any other voice singing it. I’m sorry.  I’m very, very glad she didn’t even attempt the tearful rap at the end; this they left with your voice speaking the words … it tore me up hearing it, but it was the only option! No one else can put the raw unguarded, breathless emotion into something like that and when you’ve become accustomed to hearing Michael Jackson singing and speaking those words … everyone else falls short … no one else will do.

Even R. Kelly singing You Are Not Alone is just not the same … and he wrote it! Mariah Carey singing I’ll Be There … heavens!  It would be a lot better if she could hold the note steady instead of it being all over the map … and the hand motions have got to go! Marc Anthony really shouldn’t sing She’s Out of My Life again, either!

You had a unique way of making a song yours … of crawling inside the lyrics, melodies and rhythms and bringing out all the emotion and pathos within them … whether you wrote the song or not.  It really didn’t matter … and you’ve been doing that since you were a little, tiny boy.

Aww … God bless you!

After June 25, 2009, I was so afraid that I would never again experience the excitement that overcame me every time I heard your beautiful voice rendering new music, but with the release of Michael 2010 … and the kindness of people who send me unreleased tracks from around the world … it seems that fear was unfounded … at least, so far. I am grateful, my Dear One.

No, I’m the one who’s grateful … to all of you … for keeping me and my music … and my message … so alive within your hearts. Thank you. I love you more.

Michael, June is upon us, once again. Many of your ‘children’ dread the month of June, Beloved; the anniversary of your immortality is a terrible reminder that you are no longer physically present. For many of them, your physical absence overshadows your spiritual presence and engagement with each of us. It is difficult for us to view this month as a celebration of your re-birth when we so long to see your beautiful smile beaming out of our television screens … or dream of one more opportunity to drop our lives at the door and follow you to some distant city and camp on your doorstep awaiting fleeting moments of your attention and love.

Ah, but I left you so much of myself in auditory and visual media formats!

Yes, you did … and we are so grateful. Personally, I do surrender myself to those comforts frequently and with little hesitation. I know how fortunate I am to have so many of those auditory and visual reminders in my own personal collection. I am grateful for every second of music … for every beat and guitar riff … for every toe pose and hiccup and giggle … for every word you spoke to the plethora of interviewers … for every time your eyes twinkled with mischief and every tear you allowed to be recorded for posterity. Last night, I watched the 20/20 Interview with Barbara Walters from 1999 (I think) and Michael Jackson Changes History with Ralph Bellamy from 1996.

Once again, I’ve decided to celebrate the month of your 2^nd re-birthday [well, if Alice and the Mad Hatter can celebrate un-birthdays, we can celebrate re-birthdays, right?] [Michael giggles] with another month-long prayer/meditation/visualization exercise in your honor and memory. On Monday evening, May 31, I began my celebration.

Meditation – May 31

I have a natural piece of rose quartz which has been quarried from our Mother Earth and hollowed out to hold a small tea light. Sitting in a comfortable position, I lit the candle and held the rose quartz cradled within my hands.

[Note: “Rose quartz is an excellent heart-healing gemstone. It is a nature remedy that can be used for treating any issue that needs emotional healing. Rose quartz is a pink-colored crystal that carries a very gentle and soothing energy and gives comfort to anyone whose heart has been wounded. Remedy benefits of rose quartz: encourages self love, heals the emotional body, eases heartache, relieves loneliness, releases repressed and suppressed hurts and resentments, promotes forgiveness and offers inner peace.” From  http://healing.about.com/cs/crystaltherapy/p/p_rosequartz.htm – a website dealing with the healing and spiritual properties of gemstones.]

After lighting the tea light, I sat in a comfortable position near my altar and held the piece of quartz between my hands in a pyramidal or triangular position to follow the natural contour of the crystal and placed my hands and the rose quartz in my lap. After taking a few deep, cleansing breaths, I closed my eyes almost all the way and cast them down so that the flame from the tea light and the soft glow of the pink rose quartz lit from within filled my field of vision and was in a line of sight that was comfortable through my partially open eyelids. My focus this week is gratitude, so I began a thanksgiving meditation while staring at the flame of the tea light.

I thanked our Heavenly Father for the many gifts I have been given beginning with the ability to see and hear and taste and smell and touch. I thanked God for our beautiful planet and during my prayers of gratitude for her boundless diversity and abundance, I visualized Planet Earth surrounded by space and lit from within by the flame of my tiny little tea light at her very center, her heart. As I prayed, the flame grew and expanded to cover continents and oceans until it was her heart, beating and flickering within her core.

My gratitude meditation continued with thankfulness for my comfortable living conditions, the health of my children and grandchildren and husband.

I continued by thanking Her for you, my Beloved, for your gift of song, of dance, of innocence and wonder and strength and humility, for your gifts of beauty and unconditional love and incomparable generosity, your talent and your willingness to use all the tools and gifts you had been given to awaken the world to a better way of living and a higher level of awareness. The flame of my little, tiny tea light remained at the very center of Mother Earth but it also, now, rose up your spine as a recent photo that I received of you saying “yes, please use me” was superimposed over the flame at the heart of Planet Earth.

As I continued with my gratitude meditation, I thanked you, My Dear One, for all the sacrifices you endured to show us all the way to go. In my heart, I whispered, “Thank you for the gift of your childhood that attracted and held all of our attention and was beautiful in our eyes. Thank you for the gift of your teenage years and your beautiful, untried adult voice that still rang with the child’s voice occasionally as it matured. Thank you for the gift of your young adulthood when you showed us what true talent looks like and your imagination took us to places we had never been before and that we would want to visit again and again once we had. Thank you for the gift of your adulthood, imprisoned in a fame never before experienced, but soaring so free in imagination and spirit beyond the ‘planets and the stars’ … still loving and kind and generous to those younger, weaker, less fortunate than you … still gallant and courteous to everyone. Thank you for your strength and gentleness as the world battered your beautiful heart … when giving up would have been understood, even expected, you continued to walk in the light and strive towards goals that only you could see. Thank you for continuing to touch our hearts with your ongoing presence when you had gone on to your well-deserved rest. And thank God, who, in his infinite mercy, has allowed you to continue to be near us throughout the moments of our days as we try to carry on in your physical absence.

The flame flickered and shimmied in the wind of my breath; it was warm and lit your beautiful body, caressed the curve of your back and Planet Earth from within. It was such a beautiful image that I had to attempt to reproduce it. I am no artist, but the graphic illustration accompanying this Conversation represents a reasonable facsimile of what I was seeing in my meditation. It doesn’t do the mental picture justice, but it does give an idea of the beauty of the image that lit my meditation. As you said in This Is It after performing Billie Jean, “At least, we get a feel of it.” I think I will call the picture Light of the World.

The Light of the World

This is it, here I stand. I’m the light of the world, I feel grand. Life is love, I can feel and I know, yes, for sure, this is real. [Michael laughs and sings at the same time.]

I ended my first gratitude meditation by thanking the Eternal One … and you … for the gift of this special connection by which we have been joined since October 1, 1992 and which was reinforced, solidified and strengthened June 25, 2009; for these conversations, Beloved … for the gift of discernment, for the ability to see and recognize in you a soul-mate though separated by miles, time and circumstance, though I had never met you face-to-face, we are always One.  And I thank the Good Lord for giving me the inspiration to help in whatever small way I can to bring your vision of a healed planet and humanity into physical manifestation.

As I ended my meditation, I was surprised to note that I had been totally enrapt in the peaceful glow of my vision of Earth … and Earth’s Angel … lit by my little tea light for between half an hour and forty-five minutes.

See … you can do it! I told you you could. I am so proud of you! Do you remember just a couple of months ago, you were afraid to try to visualize anything? Look how far you’ve come in just that short time.

You, like most of the world,  have limited yourself for a major portion of your life behind the “I don’t have any imagination” excuse … labeled yourself as unimaginative, inartistic, not a poet … the labels and stereotypes you have applied to yourself since you were very young are never-ending … and not true.

Just look at the poems you’ve written that have brought tears to your readers’ eyes! Just look at the picture you’ve attached to this dialog. That is artistic … first, seeing the image in your mind’s eye and being moved to replicate it in some way … then, putting those images together in just the right way so that they seem to blend seamlessly one into the other … so that one does not overpower the other … in a composition that evokes emotion in someone else is artistic. But the labels and stereotypes have kept you from attempting so many things.

You’ve believed what your little third-grade friends told you about yourself and allowed their judgments to shape your world. You’ve heard the criticisms from parents and siblings, teachers and classmates … and diagnoses of your limitations  from doctors and nurses …  and ‘owned’ those criticisms, lived those diagnoses … drawing them around you to protect you from your own brilliance.

I am here to tell you that you don’t need protection from your brilliance. Shine! This is your time to SHINE!

Jan – June 3, 2011

Read Full Post »