Conversations – Installment #46

October 23 through October 30, 2011

I have spent the last two weeks basically recharging my always depleted, seemingly constant and ever-expanding need to be immersed in you and, Beloved, your consistency has pretty much been blowing me away.

[Michael giggles.] What do you mean ‘my consistency?’ Are you referring to my texture or my tactile structure or my emotional weight? Am I too chewy … or lumpy … or gritty … or stringy … or doughy … or dry? Not smooth enough?

Oh, baby … I don’t really think you want to go there, do you? [Jan laughs.] No … none of those.

I’m referring to the fact that your thoughts and words, behavior and actions … public and private … as expressed through all the media at your disposal … songs, interviews, writings and public speeches … never changed over the forty plus years you spent in the public eye … and always supported your mission of spreading joy and love through music and healing the planet through the use of the gifts you were given. There is no discernible break between the character expressed in the lyrics and that shown in your body language and facial expressions in the numerous interviews throughout the years of your career. What’s more, the personality presented to the public on each occasion gelled with and always supported that character and mission. There was no disconnect. You were always quiet … soft-spoken … shy … extremely courteous … caring … generous … opting always to respond to all the changing circumstances you were confronted with in a manner which would maintain the interviewers’ dignity … even in circumstances in which the interviewer shamed herself with her forwardness and lack of tact.

A perfect example was during Oprah’s interview in 1993. “It embarrasses me to ask you this, but I’m going to ask it, anyway. (Right there, she admitted that she knew that she was far exceeding the reputable journalist’s purview.) Are you a virgin?” Your response was classic chivalry, straight out of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. “I’m a gentleman. I’m a gentleman.” You took what had to be the most profoundly humiliating moment in international television history and turned it into a rout for common sense and decency in three little words.

I was so embarrassed for her. There are some things that just do not belong under the jurisdiction of the media. Such a deeply personal, private subject … to me … is not to be discussed on television. I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to ask the question.

That’s what the song Privacy was about. Ain’t the pictures enough? Why do you go through so much to get the stories you need so you can bury me? You’ve got the people confused. You tell the stories you choose. You try to get me to lose the man I really am. You keep on stalkin’ me, invading my privacy. Won’t you just let me be. Your cameras can’t control the minds of those who know. Stop maliciously attacking my integrity. I need my privacy. [Michael sings.]

Everyone’s privacy deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of his profession or fame. A truly loving person would know that and would never intrude into another’s personal space in such a flagrant manner.

I agree, Dear One … always have. I was always dumbfounded that a lot of people in the world felt like you were their ‘property’ and it always surprised me when certain factions (particularly the media so-called ‘pundits’) thought (and still think, for some reason) that you were dishonest or insincere or just ‘manipulating public opinion’ when you spoke to the reporters and anchor people to whom you granted interviews. I always wondered on what basis they had founded and promoted that opinion, for opinion and gossip is all it ever was. From where I was sitting, I saw only sincerity.

For example, during the same interview, you told 90-million of your closest friends around the world that you suffered from a skin pigmentation abnormality which robbed your flesh of pigment. The exposure of this intensely private, medical condition cost you dearly; and the cost was obvious to anyone who was watching with an open heart, as I was. You closed your eyes against the tears and bowed your head for a moment. Oprah gasped and for about one day, the rest of the media paused in reflection in their interminable onslaughts. Then, it just decided to continue with the same insane story that you bleached your skin. Sixteen years later, the results of your autopsy announced that you suffered from vitiligo. In this … and in so many other examples … you were proven to have been completely honest and sincere, often, at the expense of your own privacy. And the media has completely ignored their role in misrepresenting Michael Jackson for years. It’s so frustrating.

Imagine how it felt for me! It’s a sad comment on the current cultural norms if it takes someone’s transformation for the truth to, finally, be told. I tried to tell them the truth of who I am, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They preferred their warped, twisted, farcical parody. We have wandered so far from the humanity with which we were endowed. A loving, supportive society would not be so judgmental. A human race whose beliefs are founded in love would be much more highly-evolved. The time has come to bring humanity back on track.

In another example, during Barbara Walter’s interview with you in 1997 on the occasion of Princess Diana’s death, she asked if Debbie was pregnant again. A person who was accustomed to answering dishonestly would have just said, “no” and moved on. Your actions at the question, on the other hand, were very revealing! You raised both hands to hold onto your black fedora and laughed and raised your legs toward your chest. Then, you put your hands out in front of you to block the question and said that you didn’t want to answer that and that you weren’t sure. But you couldn’t just lie to protect your privacy. Despite your desire to maintain your … and your wife’s … out-of-the-spotlight discretion, you had an actual physical reaction to the question. That part of the interview was edited out of the final televised version … at your request?

Yeah! [Michael laughs.] I wanted a couple more months to enjoy the pregnancy before allowing it to be front page news. There were so alarmingly few instances in my life when I had even that much autonomy. I wanted some time to become accustomed to the news without pictures of Debbie being splashed across every tabloid in the world with the usual speculations and paternity debates. I wanted to savor the experience.

One of the signs of a dishonest person is inconsistency; an individual who is accustomed to lying does so easily, blandly, unthinkingly. He certainly doesn’t physically react in a way meant to ward off the question! Because lying becomes second nature to him, he has trouble keeping track of which lie he is living … which he has recently told to which particular person and at which particular time. Navigating the minefield of untruths is what trips them up and one of the sure fire ways of discerning between a truthful, sincere, trustworthy individual and one who claims to be honest in order to manipulate his audience for selfish reasons or personal gain.

It’s one of the giveaway symptoms of a liar. As such, it is one of the first signs that Conrad Murray is lying about the events of June 25, 2009. The multiple inconsistencies between his claims and the evidence collected, between the amounts and times and medications he administered and the circumstances of those administrations do not match up with the results of scientific analysis … or the telephone records … or the results of his actions. In addition, the fact that he failed to expose all the medications administered to emergency medical personnel and emergency room physicians indicate a total disregard for medical ethics or professional integrity in the treatment of his only patient. Delaying the call to 911 is just beyond belief. Any third grade child knows that much! To me, the inconsistencies are blatant and damning. He is obviously lying.

I’ve mentioned your consistency before in this blog many times, particularly as it relates to your music, but my activities over the past couple of weeks have brought the subject into much clearer focus. Basically, I’ve been obsessed with organizing my collection of Michael Jackson material.

As we’ve discussed previously in these conversations, I have a LOT of Michael Jackson material (print, audio and video formats) … some of which I bought in the usual way like short film compilations … some of which I taped from television broadcasts and award presentations almost twenty years ago and am in the process of preserving to digital video format … some of which were taped for me by friends in foreign countries (like the Michael and Friends … What More Can I Give Benefit Concert and the Wetten Das performance in Munich, Germany) … some of which I’ve purchased as pre-packaged (possibly bootlegged) performances from around the world … and some of which I’ve downloaded from the internet, thanks to several friends who find, create or post video material.

I must admit that downloading video material is kind of a new hobby for me.  Up until last year, I didn’t realize that so much Michael Jackson stuff existed, let alone that you could look up any number of videos and watch them on line. When I did find out, I tried to figure out how I could save all this material and keep it for my collection. Through a process of talking to various friends on line and researching software, I finally figured out that you can not only watch them and save them to view on your computer … now you can also burn them onto blank DVDs to play in any DVD or Blu-Ray Player attached to a television set.

You see, Beloved, I am an addict! I freely admit it! I am a Michael Jackson Junkie! I am absolutely, totally, hopelessly, irrevocably besotted with any kind of photograph or visual of you from any era. If I see it, I have to have it. I am addicted! I’ m afraid that, with the discovery of all this Michael Jackson material, I have fallen ass over appetite ‘off the wagon.’ I just turned around and kissed my twelve-step recovery program goodbye.

[Michael giggles. Twelve-step recovery program! That’s funny.]

Yeah, I was surprised myself that all this stuff is out there. [Michael giggles.] Travis and I used to play with finding stuff on his computer. It always shocked me that he could just click a button on his keyboard and pull up any performance I wanted to see! I suppose there’s no way to control it, but I am surprised so much is shared. At first, I had some major issues with the ‘piracy’ thing, but now I’m happy that so much is available so freely for those who care enough to search for the truth.

Well, I was like a kid in a candy store. I started downloading everything I could get my hands on. If it had your face or your name, I wanted it … interviews, performances, fan videos, award presentations, tributes, documentaries. I went a little crazy!

Unfortunately, I didn’t think the thing through with any real common sense and I ended up with like twelve DVDs (each containing approximately two hours of performances and fan videos and documentaries and interviews and behind the scenes and making ofs and awards presentations) that I had burned myself, but no way to find a specific clip if my life depended on it. I had them all jumbled up together. And while I tried to create labels for the DVDs that listed the contents, searching for one particular clip was a nightmare.

So, being true to my career path in this lifetime, I decided that this was a situation that had to be remedied immediately. I have spent the last two weeks figuring out how to organize my (download) video collection … putting all the performances on one DVD … all the interviews on another DVD. I still have to do all the fan videos on one, all the documentaries on another, all the tributes on another, all the spiritual material on another, etc. It will make so much more sense and be so much easier to find a particular clip when it is finished.

[Michael laughs.] Aren’t you going to alphabetize them or, better yet, put them in chronological order?

Oh, geez … there’s an idea! Baby! Don’t tempt me like that! [Jan laughs.] You know me too well. I could happily spend the rest of my life doing just that, but this is a very laborious and time-consuming process because I don’t have a professional grade digital video recorder that will copy from a DVD to a DVD. I have to dub the material from the DVD I burned on my computer to a VHS tape in the order in which I want to play it … then, I have to turn around and copy the VHS tape back onto a blank DVD and after each clip is placed, I have to edit the index (or menu) entry and picture for that clip. The interview DVD alone took four nights last week and the performance DVD has very nearly four hours of material on it. That one took most of the weekend to complete. This is going to be a wonderful winter project for when I’m closed up in the house to avoid the rain and slush and sleet and snow … and don’t forget the ice storms … this area is prone to during the winter months.

Michael just laughs.

But, and this is how this whole discussion started … the major thing that has impressed me throughout my little project is how utterly consistent you are … not just in the message you convey with your music and short films and performances (which we’ve discussed previously in these conversations), but in your interviews, speeches and mannerisms. That kind of consistency over a four-decade span only comes from absolute honesty. It really is quite fascinating to watch all these interviews together.

[Jan’s note: Woohoooh, chronological order would be awesome! Dayum, Michael! Why’d you put that idea into my head? [Michael laughs. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough!] No! No! No! I am not going to go there! That would just be obsessive-compulsive and beyond the pale!]

Another thing that impressed me during the completion of the interview DVD was the fact that the entire time the media was calling you a weird, eccentric recluse … you were so available. The word recluse is defined in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as: a person who leads a secluded or solitary life and marked by a withdrawal from society. Far from withdrawing from society, you shaped it. For a recluse, you sure got around, Michael! A partial listing of the examples of your so-called seclusion follows.

In 1984 or so, Michael Jackson Unauthorized, filmed at the fountain in the Hayvenhurst grounds, came out and it is the first time I, personally, heard you express the idea that “I can’t really take credit for the songs I write. They’re all up there somewhere and just came through to me.” The theme has been repeated again and again in almost every interview. It was also the first time I had heard you sing unaccompanied and I remember remarking at the time at your beautiful, perfectly-pitched voice. “Dancing on a cloud. Soaring up so high. Watch me now! Watch me now! I’m Peter Pan. I can do anything.” Your voice is so pure … clear … filled with such breathless wonder!

In 1984 on the occasion of The Victory Tour, you were interviewed by Molly Meldrum from Australia … and again in 1987 for a 60-Minutes segment on the BAD Tour … and again in 1997 for the HIStory Tour. In every instance, while the circumstances changed (very informal became much more regimented and matters of security became a bit more complicated, for example) … and your appearance changed (from the large afro to the long, curly locks of hair escaping your black fedora) … your soft-spoken, gracious responses and your shy mannerisms never changed.

In about 1980 or 1981, you were interviewed by Sylvia Chase … in 1993, Oprah Winfrey … in 1996, Diane Sawyer … and in 1997, Barbara Walters.  Again, with the exception of superficialities like appearance and major topics discussed, the similarities between these interviews far outnumber the differences.  You were the same shy, excessively polite, playful, humble person Molly Meldrum met during the Victory Tour.

In 1987, you were interviewed by Darrell somebody for Ebony on the occasion of the release of the BAD Album and the announcement of the BAD World Tour. In 1993, MTV visited you and conducted a brief interview at Neverland called Weekend at Neverland to announce the winners of a video contest … in 1996, Bill Bellamy interviewed you for MTV entitled, “Michael Jackson Changes HIStory” and in 1999, MTV again interviewed you for their 100 Greatest Videos presentation.

In 2001, you called into his radio show and spoke to Steve Harvey.  Of course, in 2003, Martin Bashir filed his ‘cut and paste manifesto’ and you filmed your Take Two version, Thank the Good Lord. Oh, I almost forget Ed Bradley in 2003 for 60 Minutes on the occasion of your arrest. In 2005, Geraldo Rivera visited Neverland and your recording studio and you talked with Jesse Jackson on his radio show. In 2007, Access Hollywood was invited to be a ‘fly on the wall’ at your recording studio in Ireland. The only one I don’t have is the interview with Jesse Jackson.

The above listing does not take into account all the award show acceptance speeches … or your speech to announce the Heal the Kids initiative … or your speech at Oxford University. Or the countless times you opened your gates to host Dreamstreet and Make-a-Wish and inner city children at Neverland.

I do believe that you should receive another Guinness World Record for being the Most Interviewed Recluse in history! I think the 1999 interview is my absolute favorite. It’s not very long (about half an hour) and the only topic discussed is your music and short films, but you are so doggone beautiful  (with your five-o’clock-shadow and doe eyes) in that interview it makes my heart ache! Those eyes could stop traffic! [Michael giggles.]

The only time the shy, retiring, self-effacing, gently-spoken human being went into hiding was when you mounted a stage to perform. Then, somehow, you magically turned into an irresistible, unstoppable force of nature; your personality emitted confidence, self-assurance, almost defiance. You took us all with you into a land called ‘someplace else.’

I told you … Jekyll and Hyde. One minute I would be standing there preparing to go on, emptying my mind and looking over the stage to make sure that everything was ready … and inviting God into the room … the next, some power just took over and sang and danced me into exhaustion. It filled me with joy and freedom, lifted my energy level, made my feet itch and my spine tingle. It was such a beautiful feeling that I wanted to share it with the entire world.

And you did just that, baby! You did just that!

On the performance DVD I just completed, I have included performances from as far back as 1971 on the Sonny and Cher show and 1975 in Mexico City and 1976 or so on American Bandstand and Soul Train. There are a couple of performances that I don’t know the shows they came from  but the songs are Good Times and Even Though You’re Gone and Dreamer and they’re from roughly the same period. I also included 1984 the Victory Tour and 1987 the BAD Tour and 1996 and 1997, the HIStory Tour and Michael and Friends: What More Can I Give in Seoul Korea.

While I love every stage represented, those teenage years of the Mexico City performances … Music and Me, One Day In Your Life, Happy, Never Can Say Goodbye and the American Bandstand performance of Push Me Away … to me … are so special.

Just a year or so later, The Jackson Five television series debuted, but I remember how you said in Moonwalk that you didn’t like doing the series because you didn’t have time to perfect everything to the degree that you wanted. I have all twelve of those episodes, too, but my version is condensed down into just the musical performances (omitting the skits). How much more perfect could they have been? Every single episode is a study in vocal and dance perfection.

I have a performance in which I can watch the transformation between shy, retiring, humble Michael Jackson and dynamic, supercharged, take-no-prisoners Michael Jackson occur; slow motion is perfect for viewing this short clip. I believe it is the HIStory World Tour performance in Copenhagen, August 29, 1997. It shows you wiping your brow with a black towel and kidding around with the audience and Michael Bush because the spotlight is going on and off. You point to the spotlight and say, “Ah, okay.” Then, you turn around to hand the towel to someone in the darkness and say, “The spotlight keeps coming on. I’m on-stage,” spreading your arms and shrugging. Then, you turn toward the audience, become very serious, rip open the Velcro closures on your jacket and a look of concentration passes over your face. The beat for Stranger in Moscow begins and you are off into the song. It’s just the briefest of moments, but that look of concentration is priceless to me.

Whenever I watch this particular performance, I feel a bit like a voyeur … like I’m intruding on a very personal, private moment … the moment when the Spirit of Music embraces and seduces her favorite son.

Yeah! That’s what it felt like. But you have to understand … it wasn’t just me that got seduced … it wasn’t exclusive to one person. What fun would that be? It was a shared experience and all of us contributed to it. We all got taken over … all the dancers and back-up singers and band members … all the road crew and technical people … all the members of the audience in the stadiums and all the people watching at home on their television sets.

That’s what the months and months of rehearsals were all about … encouraging each and every one to give their very best to this shared sacrament of union. And when the band and singers and crew and technical people and I were all bonded in our love of the music and the audience and as close to perfection as we could possibly be, we connected in that spirit and it moved through everyone in the countless stadiums we played.

What’s even more mind-blowing is we all still get taken over whenever we watch and allow that spirit to enter our hearts. So, while you are watching the interviews and performances (even decades later) and putting them in order and copying them to discs, you are taken over (again) by the same spirit that ‘hit you like a ton of bricks’ in 1992.

It was like a told Oprah: All art has as its ultimate goal the union between the spiritual and the physical, the human and the divine. That is the reason for the very existence of art.

And you never wavered from that mission. You shared everything you had been given … all the joy … and all the pain. Thank you, Beloved. By your grace, we are reborn.

Aww, God bless you! Now, go organize something!

Jan – October 28, 2011

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #45

October 9, 2011 through October 16, 2011

Michael, in our last Conversation you said, “It becomes apparent very quickly that each soul is asked to do only one thing … to find his joy … his bliss … his passion … the thing that makes each happiest … and to give that talent or gift or service with joy in the giving. When the Healing Hall and Healers have done their work, each knows what that thing is. The soul that has been restored to wholeness in love knows only that giving and service are their own rewards.”

Yes, that’s right … the thing that makes each one whole. As I’ve said before in these dialogs, each of us is given a gift that we are intended to give our world and it is in the giving of that gift that we remember our purpose … our wholeness … the piece of the puzzle that the world is missing to attain its greatest and highest good.

But, my Dear One, in your case, finding that one thing must have been a little like looking for a needle in a haystack! I mean, you had/have so many. And you brought the same painstaking, meticulous love, devotion and perfectionism to each and every one of them. Music, recording, dancing, conceptualizing, short films, performance, choreography, art … your versatility is mind-boggling. How did you choose just one thing?

[Michael laughs.]  No, it was really very easy. When my time in the Healing Hall was completed, I remembered that my wholeness is only to be found in all of yours. My passion and fulfillment is to serve my Earth mission to heal the world through all of you. This is my joy … my bliss … my passion … just as it was during my physical manifestation.

All the things you mentioned were a means to an end. I loved them all, don’t get me wrong. But they were not the goal … the underlying purpose for my being born who I am … the very reason for my existence.

Creating music gave me such joy and recording it and putting it out there for all of you in the most perfect way I could was so fulfilling. I could pour so much love and longing into the creative process … from catching the gift as it fell into my lap … to shaping it and molding it … to finding just the right sounds and instruments to enhance the recording … to layering the vocals and adlibs until they were just right … to cutting and editing and mixing. At each step of the process, I was motivated by LOVE … love for the music … love and gratitude for the gift of joy that God had given me in the music … love for the process … love for the audience who would ultimately receive it and accept or reject it according to its relevance in each individual’s personal life at the moment of the hearing.

I always knew that music is the universal language. I always knew that it has a power that few other things have; it can grab your attention, change your emotion and take you into a whole different mindset. It can calm the anxious; it can raise enthusiasm in the apathetic; it can ease the fearful; it can unify thousands upon thousands of strangers into feeling the same emotion at exactly the same time and form them into a community, holding hands and swaying to the rhythm together with smiles on their faces. I had faith in the power that music has to speak to each person on the planet in his or her own language. Music is the Tower of Babel before the confusion of speech as the Bible describes it.

It was never about the numbers for me; it was about translating Divine Union into rhythm and harmony, orchestration and vocal expression. It was about touching your hearts with love … my own love … and God’s love because She was the one who gave me the music … and conveying that emotion in as true and perfect a manner as was humanly possible … in a way that was worthy of God’s investment in me. It was about bringing you the same kind of joy … to help ease your troubled hearts and souls … as I experienced in making it. It was about letting you check your problems at the door and escape with me into a less serious, more imaginative world. Music was my vehicle to take you away; it carried my love. It carried my soul.

The same is true with every one of the things you listed above.

Dance and choreography were the physical expressions of Divine Union … of my love … and God’s love … spoken in the language of bodily movement. It was as much a gift as the music and my gratitude for it was just as boundless. There is a centuries-old movement of Spiritual Mastery whose devotees’ ecstatic, mystical union with God is expressed in twirling and body postures and drum beats, otherwise known as dance. One of my favorite poets, the Persian poet, Rumi, was one of Sufism’s founders. So, there is a long tradition of mysticism and dance being expressions of the same intent … one in purpose. Almost all cultures from Africa to American Indian to Polynesian to Oriental celebrate ritual with dance! I didn’t invent it. But I was blessed to use this language to convey emotion as fluently as I used music and harmony; it was my vehicle. It, too, carried my love. It carried my soul. I was never as articulate or comfortable with spoken language as I was with music and dance.

Oh, Michael, may I disagree? Your eloquence in spoken language was expressed with simplicity, total honesty, sincerity and authenticity.  What more eloquence could anyone ask?

Aww! God Bless You!

The films and performances were my love for the music and dance and audience … and my gratitude for the gift of vision … made manifest in both a live performance setting and in the more relaxed, intimate environment of your own home. In the performance venue, my imagination was restricted by physical limitations … those nasty laws like physics and dynamics and gravity and my own human frailty … but in film it could soar and I could take you all with me … virtually … on imaginary trips to ancient Egypt and fantastic amusement parks and intergalactic spaceships and 1940s speakeasies! I could transport you to areas of the world that were experiencing war or famine and awaken your natural human empathy to want to initiate change … because all human beings are empaths … it is our natural state. We’ve just buried our empathic tendencies behind a glacial covering of coldness and busyness and ignorance. While some of my films aimed at making you aware of changes required, others were pure escapism and film was a perfect medium for me to help you all shake off the hatred and bigotry and war and diseases and drought and famine … all the terrible things we read about in the newspapers and watch on television. I was so looking forward to experimenting with the film medium and taking us all on great adventures.

My perfectionism was the ultimate expression of my love. My creations … whether in composing or songwriting or recording, dancing or performing or in the short film medium … had to be worthy of the gifts God had given me … they had to be worthy vehicles to carry Her love and my love into your hearts. They had to be worthy of you, but at the same time, they had to get your attention so that you would all be open to receiving that love. And it was that desire to offer only the best of me to all of you … and to Her because there is no separation … that drove me to strive always to excel, to achieve at least 99.9% perfect execution, to always innovate, to always create MAGIC.

There was always an underlying purpose in everything I did. For example, I didn’t just want to create the biggest selling album in the history of recorded music so that I could hang a platinum record in my house acclaiming my accomplishment or to be mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records. These tangible accolades of the world were nice and I enjoyed them (sometimes probably more than I should have), but they were not the goal.

I wanted to create the biggest selling album in the history of recorded music because being the biggest-selling artist would give me a powerful position from which to speak to everyone on the planet … to cross barriers that divide us … to bring us all together in joy and knowledge of our Oneness. I wanted all of your attention, regardless of where in this world you were located or your age or your ethnic background or your race, so that I could reach the most hearts with my love and gain an unassailable position from which to begin to ask all of you to heal the world, beginning with yourselves and extending to include all six billion citizens of our world … one inch and one heart at a time.

My thanks to Debbie for the beautiful graphic. For a complete description of the symbolism, please see note below this post.

That was always my purpose. It underscored every breath I took while I was with you in a physical manifestation. It continues to underpin every breath I take now. The only difference is that now, there are no physical barriers to keep us apart … no time or space or distance or economic divisions to my touch upon your hearts … no bodyguards needed to protect you or me. Now, I can be with you in ways that I never could before. And it is such a blessing. [For us, too, Beloved.] [Michael giggles.] I don’t have to hide my love in songs and music and performances; it can shine in you through your dreams or between the lines of your words on a page or within the music you hear in your head or from the tip of your pencil on a piece of paper.

It was always my dream to make a difference in the world with my music … to bring people together in joy … to make everyone dance and sing along … and to take that love and joy out into the world with them when the performance was over and make their individual worlds a little brighter as a result of their happiness. From the time I was a very young child watching television with my mother and seeing the terrible suffering of the children in war zones or the starving children in Africa, it was my goal to change this world for the better. I sang about it often from the time I was a little, tiny boy in songs like In Our Small Way and I’ll Be There and With a Child’s Heart … through every phase of my life like One Day in Your Life and Show You The Way To Go and We Are Here to Change the World and We Are The World and Heal the World … all the way through The Lost Children and We’ve Had Enough and Shout and Keep Your Head Up. It was always about waking everyone up to the world that we are living in … showing you the problems and the children struggling for survival … and getting you all to dig in and improve it. Otherwise, why am I doing it?

Well, from where I’m standing, Beloved, to quote your former defense counsel, Tom Mesereau, “you absolutely succeeded!”  Your impact on this world will probably take several more years to solidify, but I can assure you that your place in history is secure. You have left an indelible mark on so many industries and fields. In the recording industry, it will take a Second Coming of Mozart to equal your far-reaching, ‘global love-in’ effects. In the field of physical expression, you just re-wrote the book. Period! You single-handedly created an entirely new creative outlet in short film production and showed the world the impact a simple ‘music video’ can have on the culture, fashion, art as well as artistic expression.  In humanitarian outreach, you will just never be equaled, Dear One. You cut the number of people starving on the planet in half in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What’s more, you left every city and country you visited a better place for having been there. I can’t think of another human being who can say that.

Aww! God bless you, but it’s not over! This chapter in the Book of Life has barely just begun. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. It isn’t over until the world and all its millions of children are nurtured and encouraged to grow into the beautiful birthright they inherit.

I know, Michael. We are watching the ripples radiate from your brilliant light. In the past twenty-eight months, we’ve seen so many manifestations of your unrivaled, firm, but gentle touch upon our world. This Is It created a magnificent behind-the-scenes view of your dedication to excellence, your unparalleled artistry and your loving heart, while, at the same time, serving as a reminder to many, many people of why we all fell in love with you to begin with. For those of us who knew you, it reinforced our devotion and re-awakened us to the joy we had always experienced with you at the helm of the ship. In addition, it attracted thousands of people who didn’t know you and got their attention, moved them to investigate the person behind all the myths and make a change.

Then the release of Michael gathered more. Last week the new Cirque de Soleil show, The Immortal World Tour,  opened in Canada  to rave reviews and I understand from those who have seen it, that it is spectacular and worthy of you. Many of those you worked closely with, including Greg Phillinganes and  Jonathan Moffett, are involved in presenting your music and your spirit in an extravaganza that will tour the world, gathering more followers into the fold as it goes. Another generation will experience almost (because the excitement generated by a live performance of Michael Jackson will never be equaled) the same MAGIC as you presented in your concert performances and be inspired as three generations have already been inspired by your artistry.

Even the trial of your former personal physician is bringing the real Michael Jackson into clearer focus, although in an incredibly painful way sometimes. You know about the one photo that was shown in the opening remarks by the prosecution and the tape that we all heard in which you state unequivocally your intention to build The Michael Jackson Children’s Hospital. This week, as the prosecution began to wrap up its presentation of evidence and experts, it showed a photograph taken of your naked body during your autopsy. It was done discreetly, but I believe your mother had been warned that it was coming because she didn’t return to the courtroom after the morning break in the proceedings. I know several of your children felt like they’d been sucker-punched; one in the courtroom started crying and had to be escorted from the courtroom.

I know. I feel the waves of your emotion. The universe feels the waves of your emotion. And I so appreciate the love that prompts it. But, look at it like this:

When you are excitedly opening the most beautifully-wrapped of your presents at Christmas, do you worry over tearing that wrapping paper off to get to the GIFT inside? Of course not! You know that what’s inside the wrapping and ribbons and boxes and tissue paper is a GIFT … something that someone who loves you chose specifically with you in mind. You’re excited and grateful for the time and thought invested in your pleasure. Well, someone has chosen a GIFT specifically with you in mind … those of you who are writing … and reading this … a GIFT of inestimable beauty and worth. It has to be unwrapped before the full pleasure of the GIFT inside can be enjoyed, right?

It is the gift of your Self; it is the gift of more awareness. It is the gift of awakening to a higher, more spiritually-active consciousness. The GIFT remains even after you have cleared away all the packaging … and the love that gave the gift radiates forever.

Do you cry over the ripped and shredded and wadded up holiday paper that is thrown all over the room in the process of unwrapping? Does tearing off the ribbons and tapes make you feel ‘sucker-punched?’ Do you mourn or grieve over the empty boxes and mangled tissue paper? Does your heart skip a beat over the plastic wrappers which bear your toys under the tree?

No! You rip that packaging with your bare hands to get at what’s inside. Sometimes, you even cut or bruise your fingers in your frantic attempts to get at it … and when that doesn’t work … you go and grab whatever sharp tool or screwdriver you need to get that toy put together so that you can play with it! You don’t toss the GIFT away with the packaging still intact because it hurt you, do you?

When you finally reach the GIFT that the packaging hid, you are filled with all the love that went into the choosing of just the right color or size or pattern … and the time it took to wrap it in the beautiful, sparkly wrapping paper and shimmery ribbons and all held together by invisible tape.

For those of you who are ready to see the full and awesome power of the gift, the momentary hurt is understandable … you hardly notice the pain, especially when you know that I am still here … that I haven’t left you alone. And that we are FOREVER!

For those of you who are not, the gifts of music and dance and film and performance will meet you where you are. They are still my vehicle; they will always carry my love and they will always bear my soul. They are all still there to fill you with joy and happiness, to make your feet itch and your voice join in and, perhaps, encourage you into deeper relationship … and eventual union … with the GIFT.

So, don’t cry over the packaging when the GIFT it contained is standing before you, holding out his arms and begging for your embrace.

Jan – October 14, 2011

Note: Speaking of gifts, I received a beautiful one this week from a lovely friend. The photograph above was sent to me by Debbie. It portrays Michael, surrounded by the iconography of many different styles and traditions of spiritual thought. Represented are symbols from Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Zen and Islam all unified and embodied by Michael. Debbie describes the symbolism as follows:

Michael/You/I sit in a lotus position, like Buddha (or any other adept or seeker) in deep contemplation, prayer and stillness. Surrounding us is the lush green of the forest primeval, of the garden… a place of creation, where renewal and growth take place. It is a place of peace and seclusion, yet of life, of Gaia, our connection to the Earth. It is the Garden of Eden and Gethsemane, the meditation retreat of bodhisattvas, the forests of Vraj on the banks of the Yamuna river.

We sit upon the transcendent pink lotus flower as our consciousness expands inwardly and outwardly to merge with the All. Our skin is the color of the sky and we wear the tilak of Krishna on our forehead, as his and Quan Yin’s companion and guardian, the royal peacock, dances nearby… a reminder of our immortality and that all colors blend in harmony as One. A monarch butterfly alights nearby, a symbol in many tribal and modern religions of strength, transformation, resurrection and spirit. In our hand we hold a red rose in full bloom to symbolize our ability to embrace fragility, hope and faith without crushing it, as we nurture it with compassion, as Mother Mary does when she comforts the grieving and downtrodden.

As we focus on our 4th chakra we find the Sacred Heart, a symbol of Christ’s suffering, love and compassion for humanity, qualities He asked us to embrace and exemplify. These qualities are amplified as our awareness reaches higher and higher into Cosmic Christ Consciousness. Merged with the Sacred Heart we find the symbol for OM, the Sacred Sound of God in Hinduism, Buddhism and other belief systems, the first vibration that resonated outward and created our entire universe. All are connected. All are one. As we center ourselves in LOVE, a halo brightens and glows around our head, a beautiful pattern of gold and white light, universally recognized. Above us flies the dove of peace, a symbol of the Holy Spirit (in whatever words you would choose to describe it), the animating force we first felt when we found OM, when we remembered that the sacred lies within us and all around us, in our garden of bliss, where we meet the Beloved, where WE ARE ONE. ♥ ~ from ‘Michael, my beautiful Love’ blog http://michaelbeautifullove.blogspot.com/2011/10/we-are-one-in-love-in-spirit.html

“It is now I see and feel that calling once again to be part of a music that will not just connect, but make all feel ONE, one in joy, one in pain, one in love, one in service and in consciousness.” ~ Michael Jackson

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #44

October 3 through October 10, 2011

You wanted a tour of Foreverland, right? Are you ready, now?

I can’t think of anything we would like more, Michael. It’s been kind of a rough week.

Yes, I’ve felt the waves of your emotion. You have to know … I love all of you more. Please remember … like I told you in our last little talk … your love shielded me always … from the time I was hardly able to walk until I took my last physical breath. Your incredible, magical love lifted me out of myself as my awareness expanded to include all of creation … and it continues to do so. Your love is magical … that’s how I feel … but I have not the words here to explain … gone is the grace for expressions of passion … there are worlds and worlds of ways to explain … and tell you how I feel … but I am Speechless … speechless … that’s how you make me feel … when I am with you I am far away and nothing is for real. When I am with you, I’m in the light where I cannot be found. It’s as though I’m standing in the place called Hallowed Ground.  [Michael sings.] I was not alone. I was so blessed in your love; you cradled me … held me in your arms … and I am so grateful .

Okay … for this conversation we are going to draw on imagination a lot. So, I want you to make sure that your imagination and visualization powers are dusted off and ready to go. Because Foreverland is about everyone’s imagination … not just mine. It’s the MAGIC that we all believe in as children but abandon as we grow into the adult world of responsibility and logic.

It is all the science fiction landscapes and fairy tale settings we’ve ever dreamed as a people. It’s the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and Jules Verne meets Harry Potter! It’s Jurassic Park meets the Jetsons and they go visit Disney … with a little Doug Henning and Siegfried and Roy and David Copperfield thrown in for good measure. [Michael giggles.]There are no rules; nothing is off-limits or impossible. You dream it, you create it. You don’t like it? That’s okay! Erase and imagine again.

They say the sky’s the limit and to me that’s really true. Cuz my friend you have seen nothing. Just wait til I get through. You know I’m BAD! I’m BAD! You know it! Aaooowww! [Michael sings.]

In Conversation – Installment #9 (January of 2011), you described Eternal Neverland in these terms:

Okay. Like we’ve talked about before in earlier dialogs, each of us has his or her own idea of what heaven would be like … and when we reach the eternal side of life we manifest our thoughts and desires more immediately and with more reality than we are accustomed to on the physical side of life. I was very fortunate to have had some experience with manifesting my dreams during my physical journey … to have been allowed to create a reasonable facsimile of my idea of heaven in southern California. You’ve all seen pictures of the amusement park and Ferris wheel and train station and my home on television shows and in magazines. I think you would all have to agree, it was beautiful.

Yes, my dear, it was beautiful. It seemed to just radiate peace and serenity and safety … like a heat haze in Los Angeles on a hot day …  the plants were so vibrant … and the trees were so green … and all your animals were so well-kept and clean. It was an amazing haven. I never got to go inside the gates, but from the pictures I’ve seen … and the television programs I’ve watched and preserved on tape … the place just glowed.

Thank you. It was special and I did love it. Well, here I’ve made a couple of changes. There are still gates, but they are never closed. All are welcome – all the time! I don’t need to worry about protection anymore … no bodyguards and people to protect me … and you … from getting injured. There is no harm here and no need to be afraid. Here there is only L.O.V.E. There are also no paparazzi here. Everyone is totally transparent (as in nothing is hidden … there is no need to hide behind any mask or false pretense) because of those auras we talked about before … so there is no need for people whose only purpose is to dig up scandals and gossip. If there is no need to hide anything, just that fact alone pretty much negates the value of paparazzi, doesn’t it?

There are no traffic jams because we don’t really need cars … we travel at the speed of thought here, remember?

Yes, I remember.

There are some who still experience their bliss in driving … who achieve a state of heightened awareness or meditation as a result of sitting behind the wheel of a car, so they are still free to do that, but they are not necessary for travel. I still invite lots of children. I am surrounded by children, as a matter of fact. They are the souls (auras) of all the children who didn’t survive their cancers and illnesses and burns. And just like during my physical life, I have lots of helpers who maintain the zoo and the train station and the grounds. It is their joy to create beauty in taking care of the grounds or the building structures … or to take care of animals … or to love children … so I’m never alone … always have friends and angels around.

Some of the changes I’ve made … let’s see … how can I describe them?

Well, first of all the trees and flowers glow … they are bioluminescent. Neverland was absolute magic at night … as those of you who saw the interview with Oprah would have to agree … with the amusement park rides all lit up and the buildings all spotlit and the fairy lights festooning all the trees and pathways … and I’ve tried to retain that magic. But in the physical Neverland, we had to string hundreds of thousands of strings of little fairy lights throughout the branches of all the trees in order to get the effect that I wanted. That was a pain to install and to maintain. [Michael giggles.] Do you have any idea how many strings of fairy lights there were all over Neverland?

No, Dear One.

Well, neither do I … but there were a LOT!

Here, the trees and flowers themselves give off a soft glow. Kind of like fireflies or those glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets you can get at some of the theme parks … but not all phosphorescent green … every conceivable color of the rainbow. The rose garden has red and yellow and pink and white roses and they all glow softly with those colors. The sunflowers shine with a bright yellow color and the trees glow a brilliant green for the leaves and even the branches and bark glow as if lit from within. At night, everything just glows. And we didn’t have to string any lights!

During the day, we let the kids color the grass and trees and flowers and sky any color they want … pink and purple and blue and red … and they are told that they don’t have to stay in the lines. They love it! You know how kids love to color and paint! On the spiritual side of life, they don’t need crayons or markers or paper … just imagination … they use their minds and intention to color and paint everything they see around them. Lime green llamas and bright blue elephants and purple polka-dotted kangaroos roam the grounds at all times of the day and night and they let the children ride them around … they are not the least bit shy because they know the children love them and would never harm them. So, you always see young children grooming or playing with or riding what the human world sees as dangerous animals … lions and tigers and chimps!

We’ve added a major roller coaster … a REAL Space Mountain … that dips and climbs around the stars and planets and nebula in the Milky Way!  The bumper car and go-kart tracks are the rings of Saturn and the craters on the Moon are trampolines and wading pools. It’s fantastic! “My life has taken me beyond the planets and the stars.” [Michael sings this line.]

There is always music here. We teach the children to dance and to harmonize with the music of the spheres. We don’t need to wire speaker systems and hide them in rocks and flower beds. The trains operate all the time and the water park that I wanted to build is a replica of Victoria Falls with a wading pool at the top of a huge cliff and a water slide that winds around and around in the falling water that plunges into a massive natural heated water pool  … and the water is living water … it glows white and flows around all the rides giving everything a soft glow. Everyone knows that you don’t visit without getting soaked. There are Super Soaker battle fields and target practice ranges and water balloon bombing and minefields and rope bridges and bungee swings.

There is an Indian village where the children can learn to live in harmony with nature with real Indians who teach them respect for nature and the wonder and magic of mankind’s interconnectedness with all living things … and a Western settlement where they can live in HIStory … and a Peter Pan village where imagination soars without the use of pixie dust. The movie theater still welcomes everyone with a magic show just as it did in the physical world, but here the magic is real and the children play with traveling at the speed of thought and manifesting their dreams .We don’t need the beds in the walls, unless some of the children want to play ‘pretend’ sick … and they are free to do that if they are so inclined.

There are ski slopes over near the waterfall with bunny slopes and more advanced slopes and ski lifts. Every kind of imaginable play is available … and several that would be hard for one still engaged in and committed to a human experience to imagine. “They say the sky’s the limit … and to me that’s really true … ‘cuz my friend you have seen nothing … just wait til I get through!” [Michael sings this and then laughs.]

I wish you all could see it all … it is my wildest and most all-pervasive dream. The joy and laughter would just make your hearts explode within you! It’s heaven!

Are there still arcade games?

Oh, yes … I love arcade games! The difference here is that they are all virtual arcade games. You don’t stand and push buttons or gadgets … you are in the game … everything that happens in the game … you get to experience firsthand, but you don’t need any of those heavy helmets or patches or equipment to hook you to the game. You ARE the game … and your imagination is the limit! How far can it take you? [Michael giggles.]

I tell you what … you all are invited to come and play with me. Until you get here, we’ll do it another way. “Close your eyes … imagine I’m … takin’ you … away … tonight!”

Yes, I remember … but let’s make a couple of small changes. First of all, let’s not call it Eternal Neverland. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s kinda a non-sequitur. It’s a little like ‘military intelligence’ and ‘organized religion.’ [Michael giggles.] One of those words cancels the other one out. There is no such thing as ‘never’ in eternity … can’t happen. Let’s call the reborn ranch Everland and, if we have to refer to heaven as a place, we’ll call it Foreverland.

Second, let me clarify about the arcade games. Here, the arcade games have nothing to do with any kind of violence. Here there are real challenges to overcome … like Climbing the Matterhorn … you experience mountain climbing and you are challenged by avalanches and iceflows and frozen equipment. The point of the game is to reach the summit … and the joy of it is that although you will experience the danger involved … there is no fear of not surviving. Another one is called Discovering Lost Worlds and there are a variety of lost worlds to discover from Atlantis to undiscovered planets. The challenges equate to what you would experience if you were sailing a large schooner or space ship and you overcome those challenges with imaginations and determination and skill.

Third, what we talked about before is all still true … but Foreverland is an ever-changing land and cityscape. So, any description will be inaccurate … obsolete … within a heartbeat. Each new arrival brings his own imaginative world with him. So, where you might see Cinderella’s castle surrounded by a moat someone else might see a placid Brachiosaurus munching on leaves from the tallest branches of a tree and someone else might dream a city with a monorail soaring high in the sky between the buildings. It’s your wildest fantasy. Every one of us has his own. There is no problem with them occupying the same space because physical laws do not exist in Foreverland.

The very logical and most earthbound among you might be asking, “Which of those is the real thing? Which is true vision and which is false? Isn’t there an absolute truth in all this?” I suppose you could say that it depends on your point of view. Because this is Foreverland, you don’t have to choose one over the other … you can have both the cake and eat it, too. The laws of duality don’t exist here. You can have your Cinderella’s castle … and your friend can have his brachiosaurus.

And the answer to the third question is: Yes, there is! Absolute truth is known by many names, the most common of which is God. She is vast enough to encompass all our visions … playful enough to want to … and Foreverland is the playground she has built for us to experience our dreams. It includes … but is not limited to … the physical world, which is bound by the laws of physics and gravity and time and space. This is the world in which we practice dreaming … and sometimes … if we’re extremely fortunate … our dreams materialize with effort and commitment and the will to make them happen.

The physical world is a little like the game of monopoly. When you wanted to have a bunch of friends over to play, the rules of the game didn’t really matter, did they? You didn’t want to be bothered with how many fives and tens and singles and houses everyone got before the game started. You just wanted to play. But this anarchism soon caused chaos, if you didn’t follow the rules from the start. Right? So, while in the physical world, you have to play by the rules.

Then, when we leave the physical world, we enter a portal where time and space and physical laws don’t apply and where our dreams materialize before we can finish dreaming them. This, too, is Foreverland. It is here … and it is there, which is really just here from a slightly different perspective, if you see what I mean. It’s the fun of monopoly without the counting!

Your first stop upon arrival will be the Healing Hall where all the wounds inflicted and absorbed by your spirit during your physical life are healed. This is your port of entry, and each of us sees it differently. One might see a gothic structure like a cathedral while another sees a dodecahedron made of crystal panes. It doesn’t matter how you perceive it, it is a remarkable place where each spirit that enters is made whole and innocent as when he or she departed to experience human life as a newborn baby again … washed clean in unconditional love and ultimate respect for the soul’s journey and experience. The pains and anguish of your physical life are cleansed of their sting and you see only their underlying beauty and purpose. The guilt and shame of even the worst of your so-called sins are transformed and shed, revealing only the underlying love that had turned into fear. Some new arrivals spend a long time in the Healing Hall and others only a short time, but since time has no relevance … since only NOW exists … it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the newly-arriving soul is cradled in love … love that heals … not just from the Healers … but from all their loved ones during their physical lives.

I don’t want to give away too much about this place, but let’s just say this healing is accomplished by allowing you to see the effect your life has had on the people who were closest to you … and those you only knew superficially … and your city or state … and the world around you. You get to see the ripples … from not only your actions but also your thoughts and dreams … as they fan out from your life and you get a chance to follow them into infinity. I hinted at this very early in our conversations when you asked me if I really didn’t know how beautiful I was. Do you remember my response?

Yes, I believe you responded that this was an area of your life that needed healing and that you really had no idea of your beauty until you saw it reflected in all of our hearts. You stated that when you saw your beauty in all of us, you were floored … shoot … how did you say it? Direct quote: I have to admit, this idea was one of the traits that required healing when I reached this side of life. I didn’t see myself as beautiful until I was able to see that beauty reflected in all of you. Then … it floored me … that I had inspired that in you … that you had all become more through or because of something I said or did or sang … or whatever it was you saw in me that made you embrace more in yourselves. And I was so grateful for that, then. [Reference Conversations Installment #2 (Week of November 16 through November 21, 2010)]

Exactly. It was this healing process I was referring to in that conversation; I was shown the ripples from my life. In this Healing Place, you experience the healing power of love. No medical equipment or machinery … no computers or charts … no oxygen tanks or nurse’s desks are necessary. They are available for those who feel more comforted by their presence, but they are totally unnecessary. I spent a while there when I first arrived to heal my self-image and repair the brokenness inflicted by the life circumstances I encountered. In this place, it is the Healers’ joy to provide care for the arriving souls … in this service they find their fulfillment … their completion … their wholeness. So, everyone’s greatest and highest good is served. Do you see what I mean?

Yes, it sounds wonderful … and magical … and heavenly.

Exactly! It becomes apparent very quickly that each soul is asked to do only one thing … to find his joy … his bliss … his passion … the thing that makes each happiest … and to give that talent or gift or service with joy in the giving. And when the Healing Hall and Healers have done their work, each knows what that thing is. The soul that has been restored to wholeness in love knows only that giving and service are their own rewards.

If you’re like me and love to learn about things, the collected wisdom of the ages is at your fingertips … not just what we know now … but what we’ve ever known at any time in the past … and what we are likely to know in the future … because past, present and future are right here … right now. You can walk the labyrinths in The Library of Alexandria … read the writings of Plato and Socrates in the original Greek … you can hear the music of Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Bach in their original settings in the opera halls and cathedrals in which they were played. They are there for you to learn from … for you to lose yourself in … for you to take joy from.

Do you want to know how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel? Your curiosity transports you to his workshop and you can watch him do it … as a matter of fact, you can help! When you become really practiced at this art of being your dream, you can be Michelangelo, himself, and create the greatest art you’ve ever seen. If you’ve always wanted to try to sculpt, you can be a fly on the wall as he creates David and The Pieta. You can listen to his thoughts, feel the grit of the marble ash as it coats your chisel. You can live inside his spirit. He welcomes you so that you will know and experience the joy of creation yourself. And it becomes crystal clear that we are not separate … that we are one. It is this experience of your dream that creates the MAGIC of Foreverland.

If your passion is creating music, ahhhh, the music you create in Foreverland is beyond description. Do you remember when I used to say that I couldn’t take credit for the music I wrote … that it was all created somewhere ‘up there’ and that it just came through to me … that I was just a tunnel … a source through which it came? That was literally true! This is the ‘somewhere up there’. It was created in Foreverland and I just plucked it out of the ether and worked and molded it to fit my dreams and imagination until it most closely resembled the music I had heard in my head. The music I create here is available for someone living a human experience who is attuned to the same vibration to work and mold according to his or her dream and imagination, just like I did. In this way, we pay it forward and the gift of music goes on forever. In this service, we are made whole; and the someone living a human experience who plucks that inspiration from the ether is made whole in the sense of connection to something much vaster than he believes he is capable of. And once again, everyone’s highest and greatest good is served.

This place is heaven. The idea that heaven is somewhere up in the sky where angels sit around for eternity playing harps and being boring is not true. This is the busiest place I’ve ever seen. Everyone is engaged in doing what they most enjoy doing. The joy that they bring to what they do is infectious.

If you find joy in planting and making things grow, there is enough to keep you busy for several lifetimes in loving the earth back to health. When that healthy planet is present in all its splendor and diversity on the eternal side of life … in Foreverland … it’s only a breath away from physical reality. All that is required at that point is for someone experiencing a physical, human existence to ‘tune in’ to that loving vibration to see what needs to be done to heal the planet and apply the knowledge with determination and persistence on the physical side.

If you find ecstasy in healing, there is the Healing Hall where your talents and love can be put to the best use imaginable in welcoming homecoming souls, preparing those departing for a human, physical life or you can offer your healing service to the Research and Healing Facility at Everland, where experiments are being conducted in a whole new view of the healing arts that nurtures and develops the whole child. Here there are game rooms and movie theaters and swimming pools and rock walls for those who feel up to the climb. Instead of just lying in beds attached to intravenous tubing, the children (who volunteer to imagine themselves as ill and get really good at reproducing the symptoms of ill children which many of them experienced firsthand during their physical lives) are encouraged to continue to learn and sing and dance and play and watch movies. Their visitors are not restricted and their freedom to come and go is not infringed.

As I demonstrated on a fairly small scale when I was with you physically, a happy, engaged child, whose faith is nurtured with positive reinforcement and unconditional love, heals much more quickly than one who is confined to a bed with nothing to do but feel sorry for himself. That was the whole purpose of Neverland. A child who feels that his caregivers have not given up on him recovers more naturally and with fewer relapses than one whose world has marginalized him, tucked him into a bed, attached him to intravenous tubing and sees no value in engaging and developing his mind any further. The entire child needs to be treated … mind, body and soul … not just the body and symptoms of his disease.

This was my dream for Phase III of Neverland’s construction … part of my Ten-Year-Plan for it. However, my dream didn’t die when I left Neverland. I cherished it, bringing to it all the faith and intent and patience that I brought to anything I accomplished in my life. As most of you are aware by now, The Michael Jackson Children’s Hospital was my fondest wish during the months that I was rehearsing for This Is It. That dream didn’t die; and neither do yours! They are thought energy and thought energy goes on forever, particularly when imbued with all the love and faith and determination and intent that you can bring to them. I brought it with me. Here it is a fully operational, state-of-the-art Research and Healing Facility in the grounds of a fabulous and beautiful playground at Everland. And as I’ve said before, if it is reality here, it only awaits a mind attuned to the same frequency to make it a reality there.

If you find joy in caring for animals or children or old people, your caring can be put to good use in various ways. If none of them trips your trigger, you can create your own zoo or sanctuary or assisted living facility where the same research and experiments can be applied to the care of the elderly as we are using at our Research and Healing Facility in Everland. The possibilities are endless.

I never understood the phrase ‘everyone’s highest and greatest good’ until I arrived in Foreverland. How can something that causes so many people so much pain and anguish serve ‘everyone’s highest and greatest good?’ The MAGIC of it still astounds me. Now, with my own transformation, after seeing the ripples extending outward from that event … well … the beauty of it all is beyond words.

I feel your emotion as you hear my voice, but I cannot be unhappy with the results. It was my dearest wish to heal as many people’s hearts and souls as I could. That is happening as we speak. Some of you knew me long before I transformed … some only since … for others, watching This Is It awakened you to a more spiritual view of your own lives … and mine. Everything that has happened has brought more and more of you into a closer, more spiritual relationship with me … and, therefore, with yourselves. And the ripples haven’t stopped … they are accelerating … speeding faster and faster outward into infinity. The trial will add more who will look deeper, feel more empathy for this person they barely paid attention to and become more aware of themselves as spiritual beings having a human experience. That couldn’t have happened without the trauma of the event itself. So, please don’t get wrapped up in the sadness you perceive … be grateful that the ‘highest and greatest good’ is being served.

It’s all a part of the Plan.

Jan – October 7, 2011

 

Read Full Post »

Conversations – Installment #43

September 29 through October 2, 2011

Through countless hours of practicing and vocal coaching and dance rehearsals, the young man’s dreams of unparalleled music and performance were beginning to come to life. He poured himself … heart and soul … into every song he sang, reinforcing his dreams with all the love he had in his heart. He was so grateful for the gifts of music and dance that seemed to materialize in his quiet moments. Sometimes, when his solitude was complete, he could almost hear the voices of his friends from so many years ago singing along or suggesting lyrics … and it was in those moments that the young boy hiding within the secret recesses of his soul and the sensitive, artistic young man whose days were spent in honing his craft were one.

As his dreams of music, dance and performance became real, many of his other dreams also materialized. Everywhere he went … from the most cosmopolitan cities in his world to the most isolated, remote areas … crowds gathered to greet his arrival with flowers and with song and with drum beats … to touch him with their love and be touched by him in return. He began to think of them all as his children and his love for them and their boundless energy knew no restriction.

Everyone knew his name and his face. It became difficult for him to move about freely. While the mass’s love for him overflowed his heart with longing to be near them, their ranks were often swollen by reporters and camera men whose flashbulbs blinded him, whose expectations of him were far less benign, who showed no respect for his privacy or his personhood and whose greed and hunger for sensational stories interrupted the uninhibited, two-way flow of emotion between him and his children.

While traveling his world, he often visited hospitals housing ill children … children with cancer and leukemia  and other diseases … dying children … and group homes where children orphaned by poverty or war lived huddled together. Sometimes, these babies were kept in appalling conditions. His heart reached out to all the children he met and he began to make these stops regular visits in every country he visited, bringing gifts to the kids and providing for needed hospital equipment or surgeries.

The young man instinctively knew that healing of the body would be a natural side effect of healing the children’s spirits through happiness, joy, innocent fun and laughter. It broke his heart when he saw children neglected or their whole being ignored while only the symptoms of their disease were treated. When the conditions he met were sub-standard, he threatened to cancel his appearances until those conditions improved; when the kids were kept in unhygienic beds or clothing, he made sure they were bathed and had clean clothing and linens and toys to play with, personally overseeing their care before ascending the countless stages to the accompaniment of screams and fainting from his enthusiastic audiences. 

He began to see these visits as a very important part of the special job he had to do … the one his friends had whispered about as he’d gazed from his window onto the Christmas-lit streets as a young boy. He was as grateful for this mission as he was for the music and dance and films and performances around his world. He often thanked God for his life and for all the blessings he was given so that he could bless his world with his music … as well as with healing.

“Someday,” the young man told himself, “someday, I’m going to build a children’s hospital. It will have the most up-to-date medical equipment … really state-of-the-art, cutting edge stuff … and it will be staffed by the best and brightest healers, surgeons and physicians. There will be research facilities to investigate the mind, spirit, body connection and that research will be applied to the problems of the children in its care, healing the whole child … not just the symptoms of the diseases … but the underlying causes. The most important facet of the treatment of every child who enters its doors will be respect for each one’s unique gifts … and love for the beautiful souls who inhabit those broken bodies. There will be music round the clock to ease their fear and divert their attention and they will be invited to play and laugh and sing and ride on the rides as often as their illness allows.

For those who can’t leave their beds, we will have glass walls that look out on a giant movie screen which will play cartoons and movies round the clock so that even when a sick child can’t sleep in the middle of the night, there will be a diversion to cheer him and take his mind off the fear, giving him something fun to do.”

At no time during the young man’s rise to the very pinnacle of professional success, guided by his dreams, did the young boy’s fantasies of an ideal playground filled with magic leave his mind. He knew he needed the perfect location … a place that would accommodate all his requirements. He was patient; but he was beginning to give up hope of ever finding the right place.

Until one day … while making a film … he stumbled upon the perfect place. This place spoke to him the moment he entered; it welcomed him like an old and well-beloved friend whom it hadn’t seen in too long. The place itself was beautiful; bounded by mountains, it occupied an entire valley in a land often referred to as ‘God’s Country.’  It was large enough for all the activities he had planned as a young boy looking out his bedroom window as well as all the dreams of the young man who had traveled the world and dreamed of healing all the children. He could envision it easily, knowing immediately where the Ferris Wheel would be placed … and the bumper cars … and the carousel. He could see the water park and roller coaster and the hospital and research facility built into the side of the mountain and overlooking the valley where he envisioned the large outdoor movie screen and glass fronted private rooms for children too ill to leave their beds and oxygen tanks and intravenous tubing.

He didn’t care that the world didn’t understand his dreams; the world hadn’t lived his extraordinary life. It hadn’t stood with him at the bedroom window and watched his tiny world celebrate Christmas without him while he spoke of his ‘somedays’ to his imaginary friends. The world hadn’t leaned into the plate glass window at the recording studio and observed all the children playing in the park across the street. The world hadn’t reached its hand out the windows to touch the jostling crowds, however briefly, or accompanied him as numerous cars had whisked him through the poverty-stricken streets of the countries he’d visited. The world hadn’t stood beside him at the countless windows and balconies waving to the people he loved and who loved him and, yet, from whom he always seemed to be separated by glass … the boy in the bubble. Nor had the world sat at his side in his hotel rooms listening to the songs sung by his children in the streets and feeling their love rising like heated air to penetrate the walls that separated him from them. It hadn’t walked with him through the hospital wards or group homes filled with children who loved him and whom he loved with all his heart.

My thanks to Debbie for the beautiful "Sunflower Angel".

He was so excited that he got his lawyers to work immediately on acquiring the land and building his dream. He built it with love for all the children who would visit him; he built it with all the longing in the  young boy’s heart for connection and a sense of belonging; he built it with all the intention he could find in his soul and he knew that all of his creations would stand the test of time. The young man called his dream Neverland Valley Ranch after his favorite storybook.

What the young man didn’t know was that his imaginary friends from so very long ago in whom he had confided his dream had heard and visualized right along with him. They had embedded all their love, all their longing and all their intention into his dreams, as had he. The result of their visualizations was built alongside his and, although he couldn’t see it while he lived, it awaited his arrival for him to take possession.

Now, we’re going to take a little break in the story to recap what has gone before. There is a special reason we are doing this, so please … all of you … pay attention!

Are you still with me?

Oh, yes, Beloved … I’m still here. This story is just what we all need. It’s a perfect distraction for this stressful time.

Okay, let’s recap … briefly … what has gone before … before continuing:

Someday, I’m going to decorate every inch that I can find with light … little twinkling lights that will flash on and off like fireflies and chase each other through the branches of every tree I see. The sidewalks and paths will be brightly lit, too, and all the buildings will shine with a glow that will never dim.

Someday, I am going to be loved by so many people that it will be hard to count them. I’ll run out of zeros! People from everywhere in the world will want to be near me. And in their love for me, they will love each other enough to see past their differences and pains. They’ll hold hands and sway and laugh and dance and their hearts will be glad.

Someday, I’m going to build a world that is full of fun and laughter where no little kid will be allowed to be lonely. It will be huge and have space enough for every kind of fun. Someday, I am going to be loved by everyone and I am going to use all that love to bring happiness to every child I can. Someday, all my dreams of a beautiful, peaceful world where children are valued and cherished and healed of their sadness … or illness … by the love that rises from the very ground they walk on … will come true.

Someday, I’m going to fix this. Someday, I’m going to do something to help. It’s not right that I should have so much while these people have so little.

Someday, I am going to do something about wars and famines and droughts. I will make a difference.

Someday, I will have an enormous park in my back yard with swings and seesaws and slides and amusement park rides and carousels and Ferris Wheels and swimming pools. I’ll invite all the kids in the neighborhood over for play dates and slumber parties. I’ll have horses and ride all over the grounds. It will have lots of space for play and lots of space for walking and riding and swimming. It will be bigger than a county! There’ll be a zoo filled with every animal possible. A movie theater will play movies and cartoons any time of the day or night and all the popcorn and candy they can eat will be free. The lawns will always be perfectly mowed and so green it will make my eyes hurt. There will be flower beds everywhere filled with every color flower imaginable. The trees will be tall and magnificent and none of them will be disturbed by the rides or animals. I will climb them and sit among the branches and talk to my imaginary friends whenever I want.

Someday, I’m going to create music … music like no one has ever heard before … music that will capture the hearts and minds of the multitudes outside my window and bring everyone together in common purpose, regardless of race or age or ethnic origin.

Someday, I’m going to create dance … dances that will express that music in new and truly innovative ways … dances that will make everyone pay attention.

Someday, I’m going to create films … films that will capture everyone’s imagination and, perhaps, while totally enthralled in those films, they’ll hardly notice the moral seamlessly embedded within the music and entertainment value. 

Someday, I’m going to create  performances … performances that will, finally, shatter the windows that always keep me  on one side and everyone else on the other … performances during which no barrier will exist between me and the world … where love will flow back and forth from one to the other without hindrance, instantaneously transforming not only the audiences … but driving me to impossible feats myself.

Someday, I’m going to build a children’s hospital. It will have the most up-to-date medical equipment … really state-of-the-art, cutting edge stuff … and it will be staffed by the best and brightest healers, surgeons and physicians. There will be research facilities to investigate the mind, spirit, body connection and that research will be applied to the problems of the children in its care, healing the whole child … not just the symptoms of the diseases … but the underlying causes. The most important facet of the treatment of every child who enters its doors will be respect for each one’s unique gifts … and love for the beautiful souls who inhabit those broken bodies. There will be music playing round the clock to ease their fear and divert their attention and they will be invited to play and laugh and sing and ride on the rides as often as their illness allows.

For those who can’t leave their beds, we will have glass walls that look out on a giant movie screen which will play cartoons and movies round the clock so that even when a sick child can’t sleep in the middle of the night, there will be a diversion to cheer him and take his mind off the fear, giving them something fun to do.

Now, many of you have been allowing the news coverage of the trial of Conrad Murray to influence what you know to be true. You are immersing yourself in the ‘prevailing consciousness’ of my life as sad and heartbreaking for hours every day. In your love for me, you have shed tears over thoughts that I was alone. You have heard tapes that have caused you to gasp and, perhaps, entertain doubt and fear for me.

Let’s clear some of that up right now. I was not alone. I will repeat that statement so that all of you will understand. I was not alone. None of us leaves the physical realm alone. The incredible love you  bear for me … each and every one of you … was with me … even those of you who didn’t know me on that day but have come to know me later shielded me with your love because time is not linear. The physics of that is a bit hard to explain. Just trust me on this. I was not alone … your love is forever just as mine is… WE ARE FOREVER. You don’t seem to have any trouble believing that statement for me, but you have a great deal of trouble believing it for yourselves. So, some of you are feeling guilt and regret for not paying more attention. There is nothing to forgive. Forever doesn’t just mean from this point forward (in the linear way that you understand time) … it also means from this point back … yes, back even before you were aware of me!  WE ARE FOREVER! Past, present and future are all right here … right now!

We are birthing this consciousness … this new paradigm … together. No birth occurs without some pain. Don’t get buried in the pain and forget to care for the newborn infant paradigm because it is that paradigm that we will be carrying forward when this few weeks is past. Would the new mother forego the joy of watching her infant grow in favor of eliminating the pain? Of course not! She knows that the pain is temporary and will be forgotten when she holds her newborn infant in her arms. And it is the joy that she will carry forward from the birthing process … not the pain. Please remember to find the joy for some moments every day.

Now, I want you all to review again the list of dreams we talked about in this little story. Except for the last one, compare those dreams … of the little boy … and the young man … to what you know of Neverland Valley Ranch … and my life in overview. Do you see any omissions? Any glaring discrepancies? How many people can you think of who can say that? The greatest joy anyone can experience is knowing that his creations live on when he is gone. My creations live on in all of you. You are all my joy … my best of joy!

Yes, there was pain … sometimes unbearable pain … in my life … but all life has pain. Like the new mother who welcomes new life into the world … it’s the joy I carry forward. The pain fades away into the background for me. Let this also be true for you.

You are my messengers to heal the world. And it so needs healing. You cannot heal the world if your spirit is submerged in anger and pain. And I love you so much more than you can ever know. You are my legacy … not the music, not the films, not the performances, not the awards. YOU!  You carry my spirit forward in your charitable work (like vaccinating over 5,000 children through UNICEF and planting 26,000 trees in my memory) and in the symbols you bring to your life experiences (like the sunflowers at the courthouse). In this way, I live in each one of you.

God bless you!

Wait just a cotton-pickin minute here, Baby … you still haven’t told us about Foreverland … that’s how this whole thing started … and we are all so anxious to know about it. You can’t go, yet!

[Michael laughs.] You’re right! You have absolutely NO patience. We will talk in great detail about Foreverland in the next installment.

In the meantime, I want you to practice finding the joy that I implanted in your hearts, in the music, in the building of Neverland, in the short films I left you, in the performances and in my love. Yes, even in the midst of your sadness, the joy is waiting for your attention and it is your focus that gives it new life. It is in the Love and JOY that you will find me most easily. Reach for me … stretch!

Forgive the pain … forgive the guilt … just let it go and meet me in the joy!

Jan – October 2, 2011

Read Full Post »