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Chris Duel

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One Year Ago Tonight

April 8, 2017 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Our beloved furry friend transitioned into the spirit world a year ago tonight.

The kitty statuette on the left of the above photo is an urn containing her ashes.

We didn’t really adopt Blackcat.  She adopted us.

She was a feral cat outside our window for many years.

She distrusted humans.  They almost certainly hurt her. An x-ray would eventually reveal she had been shot at some time in her life.

But we crossed paths. We fed her and earned her trust.  And we became a part of her life 15 years ago.

On a cold winter’s night, she needed a warm place to sleep and we had one.

Eventually she moved in with us and became part of our family.

Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is truly saying goodbye to a member of your family.

It is gut wrenching.

She brought us love, laughter and joy.

But on this night a year ago, there were tears, sorrow and grief.

On the evenings before she passed, I would gently pet her.

She purred, as if to say, “I understand. And I love you too.”

Just before midnight, after much reluctance and soul searching, Beth took her to an animal hospital nearby to humanely end her suffering. I was working a Spurs broadcast that night, so I met them at the hospital in time to say goodbye.

The 15 years we had with Blackcat had ended. Moments like these remind us of the fleeting nature of our time together.

When I started my car to pull out of the hospital parking lot, the dashboard clock glowed 12:00 midnight and a song began on a random satellite radio station I happened to be tuned to.

The song was “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri.

I would later learn it was from the “Twilight” movie saga, which I have never seen, and I had not heard the song before.

In the raw emotion and grief of the moment, it was as if a cosmic DJ, the Universe or Blackcat herself played this song just for me.

Here are the lyrics…

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I’m afraid to fall
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt, suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

I have died everyday, waiting for you
Darling, don’t be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything, take away
What’s standing in front of me
Every breath, every hour has come to this

One step closer

I have died everyday, waiting for you
Darling, don’t be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed, I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

One step closer
One step closer

I have died everyday, waiting for you
Darling, don’t be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed, I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

Tears streamed down my face, clouding my eyes and transforming the passing city lights, whirling by the windshield, into streaking translucent tears across the starry sky.

Souls cross paths. Human souls and animal souls.

We meet, we dance, we love.

And all too soon, we say goodbye. At least for now.

But that love is eternal.

And we will meet again.

For a thousand years. And a thousand more.

 

 

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Filed Under: Feeling, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Miracles, Music, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Chris Duel, Consciousness, Duel, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit

Equinox

March 20, 2017 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Equinox arrives

From the heavens
Amid the starry sky
Flashes of lightning
Illuminate awakening
To the season of Spring
And the end of Winter
With its loss and grief
Days growing longer
But for this moment
All is equal
Light and Darkness
Hope and Fear
Pleasure and Pain
Chaos and Serenity
The unseen world appears
Translucently amid the twilight
I open my arms
Gaze to the sky
Listen intently
To the music of the spheres
And I am equal
To the bliss
To the fear
To the love
Welcome Equinox

 

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Filed Under: Beginning, Bliss, Cosmos, Crisis, Dreams, Equinox, Feeling, Flying, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Miracles, Music, New, Opportunity, Poetry, Shadow, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom Tagged With: Chris Duel, Equinox

Let It Shine

February 20, 2017 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Let It Shine

You don’t fully appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Our power was out for nearly 23 hours.

Yeah, I know… “First World Problems.”

We were wondering if this would go on for several days.

But the moment when the lights came back on tonight, there was a feeling of hallelujah, liberation and rapture.

Something as simple as the lights coming back in your home becomes a joyous celebration.

If only I could remember to feel such gratitude every time I am privileged to turn on a light.

Let it shine.

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Filed Under: Dan Fogelberg, Life, Miracles, New, Shadow, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom Tagged With: #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Bliss, Chris Duel, Consciousness, Direct Experience, Duel, Guidance, Life, Love, Miracles, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom

Grievance or Miracle?

February 16, 2017 by Chris Duel 2 Comments

Choose Miracles

Choose Miracles

 

“You can have a grievance or a miracle.

You cannot have both.”

 

This is my favorite line from A Course in Miracles.

A lifetime of experience reveals the wisdom of these twelve words.

They speak to the power of focus, the power of gratitude and the corresponding power of dwelling on the negative.

Miracles rarely occur when we are mired in grievances.

Yet when we appreciate our blessings, they somehow multiply.

There’s the old adage, “What you focus on increases.”

This is a transformative idea.

Do you want to focus on grievances or miracles?

Miracles are everywhere.

All around you.

Your next breath is a miracle.

Start there.

Miracles snowball.

And so do grievances.

The choice is yours.

It’s a big, life altering choice.

You are empowered to choose every moment of your life.

Choose wisely.

Choose miracles.

 

 

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Filed Under: Bliss, Fear, Feeling, Life, Love, Miracles, Opportunity, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom Tagged With: #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Bliss, Consciousness, Direct Experience, Guidance, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom

Many Paths To The Mountaintop

February 9, 2017 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Many Paths To The Mountaintop

So many times you’ve been told

There’s only one way to get there

And for so long you believed

The admonitions of those who spoke with authority

As if their chosen path were the only way

Yet somehow their directions did not ring true

Something inside you whispered otherwise

Their maps weren’t meant for you

Your navigation comes from within

An internal guidance

Revealing the way

That only you should travel

Knowing that even if you drift off this path

There’s another

And another

Even the perfect path

That is always a breath away

When you release the māyā

And feel

Your one true path

Of many paths to the mountaintop

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Filed Under: Beginning, Cosmos, Heaven, Life, Love, Miracles, Opportunity, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom Tagged With: Chris Duel, Many Paths, Poetry, Spiritual, Spiritual Poetry

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

November 24, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

GivingThanks

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving.

Break it in two…

Thanks + Giving

Flip it…

Giving + Thanks

While we rightly recall the holiday’s origins of a feast between the New Americans and the Native Americans,

We can also internalize it

Make it our own

In our modern lives

And give thanks

For all the blessings

We often miss

When we are clear

We can see those blessings

Everywhere

And realize

This Is The Sacred Moment

And give thanks

For this recurring

Yet one and only

Thanksgiving.

Thank You

For crossing my path

And being a part

Of my life.

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Filed Under: America, Autumn, Opportunity, Soul, Spirit, Thanksgiving Tagged With: Giving, Thanks, Thanksgiving

Who Will Remember The Heroes of Peace?

November 11, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

frankgregforveteransdaymeditation

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?

 

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Filed Under: America, Flying, Love, Spirit Tagged With: Veterans Day

The Last Time I Saw Greg

October 22, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

Greg

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 36 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

 

36 years later, Greg's flight jacket hangs in my closet

36 years later, Greg’s flight jacket hangs in my closet

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Filed Under: America, Dreams, Flying, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: #BrothersOfTheSky, #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, Flying, grief, Soul, Spirit

And Still I Grieve

October 22, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment

october22nd

 

A father.

A husband.

A son.

A brother.

A friend.

A man.

A hero.

October 22nd 1980.

Everything changed.

In the blink of an eye.

His life ended.

And still I grieve.

 

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Filed Under: Autumn, Flying, Ghosts, grief, Heaven, Life, Love, Soul, Spirit Tagged With: grief

We are Ghosts, Sleepwalking in the Dreamscape

October 1, 2016 by Chris Duel Leave a Comment


I was randomly flipping through a journal from last year and stumbled upon the passage above.

The word “ghosts” reminded me of the final track of Dan Fogelberg’s 1981 album, The Innocent Age.

The song is “Ghosts.” It’s mystical, haunting and evocative. On many levels, it’s my favorite Fogelberg tune and most people have probably never heard it.
It’s one of those songs that can take you into another dimension.

It’s fascinating that dimensions ranging from Heaven to Hell, from despair to bliss, are accessible in virtually every moment.

Here is Dan Fogelberg’s “Ghosts” via YouTube.  I didn’t create the video, but it’s not a bad visualization of the song…

 

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Filed Under: Autumn, Bliss, Cosmos, Dan Fogelberg, Dreams, Feeling, Ghosts, grief, Heaven, Life, Music, Shadow, Soul, Spirit, Wisdom Tagged With: #ThisIsTheSacredMoment, BeHereNow, Bliss, Breath, Consciousness, Cosmos, DanFogelberg, DownloadingYourSoul, Dreamscape, Fogelberg, Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Spirit, TheInnocentAge, Truth

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