Late one night, I took my mother to an emergency room in San Antonio.
What happened there was very surprising and moving to both of us…
Late one night, I took my mother to an emergency room in San Antonio.
What happened there was very surprising and moving to both of us…
Forgive Yourself
For some reason we are hard wired for self loathing. It is an odd aspect of the human condition.
The critic inside your head is quick to beat you up.
You must let this go.
You must override this.
Take conscious control of your thoughts.
You are the master of your mind when you choose to be. And you must make this choice.
Forgiveness is one of the most powerful forces in the Universe. It is important not only to forgive others, but to forgive yourself. Frequently, when thinking of forgiveness we neglect to forgive ourselves.
Forgiveness is a spiritual technology. Forgiveness is a super power. Forgiveness is highly transformative.
Forgiveness pulls you out of ego and toward love and humility.
Remember this key concept from A Course In Miracles: “You can either have a grievance or a miracle. You cannot have both.” Forgiveness is a big part of this equation. This applies to you personally when you choose to forgive yourself.
Release the grievances you have against yourself and open up a space for positive transformation. This is how your personal miracles occur.
– – –
#Forgiveness #Forgive #ForgiveYourself #ACIM #DownloadingYourSoul#ThisIsTheSacredMoment #Spiritual #Spirit #SpiritualTechnology #ACIM #BeHereNow #LetLoveRule #Superpower #Superpowers #Miracle#Miracles #ChrisDuel
There is vast wisdom here. We often think of the current moment as ordinary or even mundane.
It isn’t.
This moment is oozing with possibilities for wondrous things that you can personally create in this world if you choose to. The seeds are in your heart, your mind and your soul. You were born with unique gifts and creative DNA that no one else has.
The tree of your creation will begin to grow just as soon as you plant your magical seeds.
We’re all waiting for your special contributions to this amazing life.
#ThisIsTheSacredMoment #DownloadingYourSoul #BeHereNow #Spirit #Spiritual #Zen #ChrisDuel
The clock strikes midnight
Are you ready?
Do you realize
You are given a gift
A new day
A new year
A new chance
To begin again
To wipe the slate clean
To see the world with new eyes
To trust your heart
Instead of the tired voices
In your head
To take the leap of faith
That has always beckoned you
My new year’s wish for you
(and for me)
Is that we realize
That the most precious
And sacred moment
Is not in the distant past
Nor somewhere in the future
Because
That moment is here
Now
May we embrace it
May we surrender to it
At last
May this new year
Shower you
With outrageous blessings
May you discover
Delightful magic
In each of your days
May your fondest dreams
Come true
Such that you pause…
And ask yourself,
“Is this Heaven?”
Before hearing
A still, small voice
reply,
“Yes, it is.”
I post this every year on Veteran’s Day, because I think it matters.
It’s the best piece of writing I’ve ever read.
Of course, I’m a little prejudiced.
It was written by my sister about our brother and our father.
My personal connection to our veterans has always been through my father, Frank, and my brother, Greg. They are buried a few steps from each other at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
A year after Greg was killed in a fighter jet crash near Ellington Field outside Houston, my sister Kathy wrote the following Veterans Day meditation. It was published in the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers nationwide.
On Veterans Day over the years, I have read it on the radio and shared it online.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Who Will Remember The Heroes of Peace?”
by Kathleen Simpson
Veterans Day 1981
The vast Texas sky was cloudless, silent. An Indian summer sun baked the rows of small white crosses. The honor guard dressed in Air Force blue raised the flag above the casket of the young pilot. Five times the jolt of rifles cracked the air. The bugler raised the trumpet to his lips. On the breeze the strains of “Taps” lingered, faltered, breathlessly faded away. From the widow and the mother, from the sisters and the brother, from the small sea of blue-dressed men and women, there was not a whimper to hear, not a sigh.
Suddenly the silence shattered. Thundering toward the grave of the young pilot, four Phantom fighter jets screamed across the sky. Once they circled low over the rows of small white crosses, over the small blue human sea. Racing again toward the grave site, one plane broke the formation, thrust its steely nose straight up into the sun and vanished.
It is a farewell reserved for heroes. For combat aces and high ranking officers of distinguished career, the acrobats of the air fly by. But the young pilot, who was my brother, had never flown into battle. His prayer was that he would never fly to kill. Educated in the classroom of war, he abhorred the lesson that the innocent are the ultimate victims of the bomb and the sword. When he flew an F-101 jet fighter of the Texas Air National Guard on October 22, 1980, he believed in his mission to protect the innocent with his quicksilver wings of peace.
But the winged horse my brother rode that day was destined to be a Pegasus of power and peril. Seconds after he lifted the huge machine into the air from Ellington Air Force Base, an explosion ripped part of the tail from the plane. On the ground below him a crowded subdivision lay in the path of the flaming, flailing craft. A horrified witness reported: “The jet banked steeply to the left, went into a steep climb and then fell into the open field. It looked to me like the pilot intentionally turned away to avoid hitting those houses.”
In the last 60 seconds of his life, my brother’s only thought must have been of the innocent people living in the innocent safety of their homes below him. The airplane burned into the dust of a pasture just 500 yards away from those homes. The investigators retrieved his helmet from the crash. They bequeathed it to his widow, who keeps it for their small son. Sleep well, brother Greg; your prayer is answered. Never will you fly to kill.
Sifting still through the wreckage of my grief, I wonder. On the day of the Armistice of the first global war – the war that Woodrow Wilson called the war to end all wars – I wonder about the price that the governments of this century have elected to pay in the purchase of peace.
I wonder about all the brave young warriors of this peace, men and women proud of their mission, honored by their duty to safeguard our shores. Do their spouses sleep soundly while they fly through the night? Do the children play fearlessly in the schoolyard as their fathers or mothers crawl into the missile hole at day? Who will remember the heroes of this peace?
A few feet from where my brother now rests, another pilot sleeps. This man, our father, also abhorred violence and war. But as a young man my father saw havoc in the skies above Europe. Dreams of the innocent, the faceless victims of the bombs that fell from his plane, haunted his sleep every night he lived.
Dreamless now, father and son together sleep. The old veteran of war shares the soil of liberty with the young veteran of peace.
Today, the 11th day of November, at the 11th hour in the morning, flags fall to half-staff across the country in honor of the nation’s veterans. The statesmen lay huge floral wreaths at the monuments of the nameless soldiers. The widows crown the crosses of their loved ones with garlands from their gardens. Silence falls for a moment over the burial grounds of the warriors.
Then cannon volley and bugles blare. It is festival time in the graveyard. The 5-year-old son of my dead brother cheers as the mighty Phantom jets scream their power across the sky. He delights in the pageant of the parade marching by. His mother takes his small hand in hers when she cries. What will she tell him when he asks her why?
This is the last moment I saw my older brother Greg alive.
July 1980.
He’s goofing around and making all of us laugh, as he often did.
He was 31.
I was 19 as I took this photo.
I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy, aspiring to be a fighter pilot, like he was.
He had become an Air Force pilot like our father, who died when I was four.
We never know when we’re seeing someone we love for the last time.
We’re lulled into believing that there will be many more moments with them.
But this precious existence is fleeting.
On October 22nd 1980, Greg’s fighter jet’s engines flared out shortly after takeoff in East Texas.
Had he and his navigator ejected, the jet would have slammed into a neighborhood.
The two pilots chose to steer the flaming craft into an adjacent field instead.
That’s my brother, Greg.
Funny, Loving, Heroic.
It was 37 years ago today.
Seems like yesterday.
Seems like a million years ago.
Changed everything for countless people.
Damn, I miss him.
And I’m thankful to have had such a wonderful brother.
#ThisIsTheSacredMoment #BrothersOfTheSky #HighFlight
(Above: Greg, his wife Mary Lou and children Taylor and Grant on the last day I saw him / Greg on Kelly AFB tarmac with F-100)
There is a Total Eclipse of the Sun coming to America on August 21st, just 40 days away as I post this.
I am planning to travel to Hopkinsville, Kentucky to be in the path of totality.
But it won’t be my first experience in the Shadow of the Moon.
Twenty-six years ago today, at high noon, I watched day turn to night in the ancient Aztec village of Ixtlán de las Garzas, Mexico.
For nearly eight minutes (the longest total solar eclipse of the 20th Century) I was bathed in the dark, fleeting Shadow of the Moon.
The Sun disappeared. The stars sparkled in the eerie twilight sky at midday as the temperature fell several degrees.
It was an experience so cosmically profound that its mystical echo reverberates through my psyche all these years later.
Within minutes of the darkness, the Sun emerged from behind the Moon and daytime returned across Mexico.
For human beings to be directly in the Shadow of the Moon is a very rare event. You must either find a way into the path of a total solar eclipse or have been one of the 27 Apollo astronauts who circled around the dark side of the Moon in the late Sixties and early Seventies.
While viewing a lunar eclipse (the Moon moving into the Earth’s shadow) or a partial solar eclipse (the Sun not fully obscured by the shadow of the Moon) is relatively common, a total solar eclipse is one of the rarest celestial events to be witnessed from this planet.
This transcendent moment was especially meaningful because I shared it with one of my dearest friends, Henry Iglesias, a singer-songwriter and Renaissance man.
Henry and his family were originally from Mexico, so were watching this eclipse from his native soil.
Henry was my guide into his ancestral homeland and into the Shadow of the Moon.
Those moments in the Moon’s shadow with Henry were among the most magical moments of my life.
In 2007, much too young, Henry left this Earthly existence. He was taken by a brain tumor nine months after his diagnosis.
Every July 11th, I think of Henry and I think of those few moments in the Shadow of the Moon.
In honor of the Henry and the Eclipse, I offer you two expressions…
The first is a poem of mine and the second is Henry’s quintessential offering, the last song he wrote and produced before his passing.
First, mine…
A remembrance of our time in the Moon’s shadow…
“With Henry, In The Shadow Of The Moon”
Another time
Another century
Another life.
But the time
And the century
And the life
Were mine.
And his.
Planets were aligning
Celestial spheres inexorably drawn.
Eleventh of July, 1991.
When the heavens offer a gift
You must be present to receive.
He led me into Mexico
The land of his birth
The land would birth me
To transcendence
To bliss
To awe.
I knew he was my friend
I know he was my shaman
Guiding me to the light
And the shadow
Where few have truly been:
Astronauts orbiting the lunar dark side
And fortunate few on the planet
Or dreamers like us
Who seek the shadow.
We arrived on hallowed ground
On ancient Aztec soil
Eyes cast skyward
The shadow rushing toward us
We felt it coming
The animals, birds, insects, trees felt it coming.
All became still
Temperature dropped
Time fell away
And then, oh, so suddenly
It… all… merged…
Sun, Moon, Shadow, Earth
Moon, Earth, Shadow, Sun
Earth, Sun, Shadow, Moon
Sun, Moon, Shadow
Moon, Shadow
Shadow
Shadow
Shadow
Here.
Now.
Day turned to night.
I.
I. See.
I. See. Stars.
I. See. Stars. At. Noon.
Henry, look at the stars!
And the Sun eclipsed by the Moon
Oh!
My!
God!
Rapt.
Bathed in the splendor
Of the cosmic dance of spheres
In holy, holy, holy communion.
Eternal
My friend, my shaman
Thank you for guiding me there
Years fly by.
You find true love
You write and sing
About the Smile of God
And Brothers of The Sky
And then, oh, so suddenly
Your body eclipsed by a brain tumor
Henry, look at the stars!
They shine with you among them.
The shadow lingers
Your spirit lives.
Another time
Another century
Another life.
If I go back
To seek the shadow
Will you meet me there?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Years before Henry died, he told me of a vision for a song titled, “Brothers of The Sky.”
It was about our ultimate brother or guide or guardian angel who will fly us from this world to the next.
The idea resonates with me, having lost my older brother Greg at a young age and more recently, having lost Henry and other dear friends and loved ones.
In the final months of his life, although he was battling a brain tumor and all of the debilitating challenges that come with it, Henry managed to record and produce his farewell song as the final track on his last album.
I see it as the culmination of his life’s work as an artist, a father, a son, a husband and a human being.
Here it is, both as a video where I added the images and Henry’s lyrics below…
“Brothers of The Sky”
Words and Music by Henry Iglesias
I am the voice inside of you
A whispering constant in your life
Everyone fears the letting go
Until they glimpse the other side
I am the voice from far away
I have the ears that hear your prayer
A guardian angel sent to say
Someone out there really cares
I’ll take your hand
When it’s time to walk into the night
Please understand
I am your brother in the sky
Traveling across the Universe
Children of the stars that burn so bright
Voyaging to foreverness
You and I are brothers of the sky
Everyone finds me their own way
In every land and everywhere
Some take a lifetime, some a day
Seeking a piece of Heaven’s share
I am the shining star above
I am the glimmer in the light
I am the power of your love
I am your brother in the sky
Just take my hand
When it’s time for you to say goodnight
And we will fly
A wondrous journey deep into the light
Traveling across eternity
Going to the place we all have been
Going to the place where souls are free
Beyond the timeless stars are friends
Traveling into the other side
The universe is all inside God’s eye
Children of the stars eternally
You and I are brothers of the sky
Do not fear your own mortality
Cause there’s more to life than meets the eye
In the end all of us will be free
Don’t be afraid to say goodbye
I’ll close your eyes
Softly close your eyes
And we will fly
Like brothers of the sky
The Universe
The Universe
The Universe
Is all inside God’s eye
Dedicated to the eternal spirit of Henry Robert Iglesias
My Brother of The Sky
I came across a quote today…
“Leave them better than you found them.”
How wonderful is that?
Leave them better than you found them.
What if all of us left people better than when we initially met with them?
In every encounter, doing something to uplift others, inspire others, make others feel better. Without regard for ourselves, but with absolute regard for the other people in our lives.
How much better would all of our lives be?
I strongly believe that the benefits to the provider of such kindness would equal or exceed those of the receiver.
Why not try it?
Direct experience is so much better than theory.
Find out for yourself.
Leave them better than you found them.
And get back to me with your results.