Music that Lifts the Soul

After last week’s post around the song lyric, “Don’t worry, be happy!”, I have been contemplating how music can relate to ‘better endings.’ Here is a list of ten more songs that come to mind as songs that foster ‘better endings”:

Over the Rainbow (esp. as sung by Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole)

Higher Ground (Barbara Streisand)

The Impossible Dream (from Man of La Mancha)

Imagine (John Lennon)

The Long and Winding Road (Paul McCartney)

The Highland Journey Home (as sung by MiMi Faithwalker and Amazonah Elam)

Winter Into Spring (piano, George Winston)

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Barbara Streisand)

Bridge Over Troubled Waters (Simon and Garfunkle)

Michael, Row the Boat Ashore (Peter, Paul and Mary)

Every one of these songs has an alchemical quality that transforms the state of consciousness of the listener.  When I reflect about what these sorts of songs have in common I realize they move me—often with motion themes, or they are emotionally moving—and they lift me, as a listener, to greater heights of vision, hope, healing, or love.

Music can be therapeutic, illuminating, supportive, freeing of our deepest heart’s desires.  We listen when we want to gain a higher perspective or to reinforce unconditional love despite the hardships and troubles of the boxes we may feel ourselves bound to in our day-to-day life. In those boxes we may learn the lessons, gain the experience we need to pursue our dreams and develop our Soul; but the music is available always, to lift us up, to give respite, to remind us that we are so much more than whatever immediate circumstances we endure.

images are from pixabay.com

So, find a song or music that helps you to find your Shangri-La, your better endings. Even as I write I am listening to my favorite, Loreena McKennitt celtic music station on Pandora. The song I am listening to, “Into the West” by Annie Lennox (theme song for The Return of the King), transports me. Have a listen!

Music that Lifts the Soul

Make a list of songs or music that transports you to ‘higher ground.’ Write in your Better Endings Journal (any looseleaf journal) about how this music inspires you. Listen to a song or two, reflect on how it helps you to find greater calm, contentment, or wisdom.

Cross the Threshold to Your Greatest Adventure

The greatest adventure is living life fully in the NOW (see “Alternate Futurescapes” recent post). Now then, the NOW is not necessarily but does include the Present of time-space. NOWness as well includes your own Past and Future lived and liveable experience (as arrays of possibilities) and the total range of possibility arcs in this lifetime, in parallel (e.g. ‘past or future lives’) and in the mulitiverse at large! Have I blown your mind yet? What the heck am I suggesting here? Yes, that You, as a Soul divinely gifted with a capacity for perception and vision–i.e., your creative, active imagination, not just your mental memory banks or existing synaptic networks–are free to explore, examine, and create forms from formless substances; you as Soul are indeed a Creator of and in your own worlds.

So, I encourage you to exercise your innate freedom of consciousness! You needn’t hesitate to daydream, and pay attention to your nighttime revelations as well as to those waking dreams that bring a message to you in the moment. If you were to lock your keys in your car, for example, how might that be a waking dream for you? Maybe it is telling you to pay closer attention, or not to close yourself out of a potential vehicle for moving forward. Take that job offer, for instance, when this sort of waking dream symbol occurs.

images are from pixabay.com

Crossing the threshold to your Greatest Adventure signifies living your life to its fullest potentials, Now, and Now too, and also NOW! In this sense the nature of your life event may be less important than how you experience, frame or respond to it.

Life is transitory: its constructs of imagery, form and emotions ebb and flow as your consciousness focuses or directs your attention (or else as we react, based on former constructions; so, far better the former).

So now, take heed and celebrate every blessed moment, not only in this lifetime you are creating but in the Wholeness of Life Itself.  The mystic sages tell us, and I do believe, that in the most ultimate awareness of truth, Life of Itself is only LOVE.

Love (or, Spirit) is: “…that thread, so fine as to be invisible, yet so strong as to be unbreakable — which binds together all beings in all the worlds of God, in all universes, throughout all time, and beyond time into eternity.” (Paul Twitchell, The Shariyat-Ki-SUGMAD, Book 1).

I enjoy and welcome your Comments. I also invite you to send your own stories on these themes that I will post or reblog with a byline for you, by sending them to my email at lwatts@uccs.edu.

THE HOLOGRAPHIC ADVENTURE OF YOUR LIFETIME

Where do you go when you imagine following your Call to Adventure? What image or scene comes to mind when you envision feeling a sense of utter fulfillment?

Your Call to Adventure may come as an IMAGE that beckons and pulls at you like the “thin biting call of Soul.” Ron Neary’s vision of the Devil’s Tower butte in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for instance, or the memory of Shangri-La that won’t let Robert Conway be happy anywhere else after he has found his fateful oasis of the Soul in Lost Horizon are two great fictional examples.

I remember from high school and early college years that I would often close my eyes and imagine rowing a boat to the middle of a lake, then I would set the oars to rest and settle back to read a good book while floating on the lake, listening to the rhythmic lapping of the water under the calm blue sky. Sometimes in this reverie I would nap and my boat would drift until it came to moor on a deserted island shoreline.

Many years later I will soon enough be retiring to a lakeside community. I intend to explore the lake with a kayak and maybe a rowboat. Was my youthful daydream then a trip in spacetime to a future I could already imagine?

Your Call to Adventure evokes more than a desirable place or a future activity, though this vision might signal the context of your greater Life Dream.

This past week I had a thought while walking university halls to teach yet another class, this time a five day, 40 hour “winterim” with 33 students that turned out to be a delight because of our combined enthusiasm for the material. The thought that came through one morning was:

Is my life a hologram?

The more I consider this profound possibility, the more probable I find it to be. Quantum physicists have been entertaining this notion, too, it turns out. Some venture so far as to suggest our entire reality is but a holographic projection along the event horizon of a black hole!

If my life is a hologram, what this means to me is that every Moment (as only Now is Real and therefore All of life experience is “in the NOW”) is a microsegment of the Whole projection of a lifetime. Remember that in a hologram, the Part is embedded in the Whole such that the Whole is always present in every fraction (or, fractal) of Itself. I “live” (have my physical attention and sense of ‘being’) in the “present” projection of our illusionary three dimensions of timespace, yet from higher dimensions (4th and beyond) I can perceive the Whole of my complete lifetime and perhaps zooming further Beyond with spiritual awareness I can even see the broader context of THIS lifetime in multiple lifetimes, multiple universes, and a limitless expanse of Cosmos.

So then future and past and present are all ONE, and the Whole is so much greater than the sum of its luminously integrated Parts.

all images are from pixabay.com

I realize with this Life is a Hologram perspective, then, that I/you/Soul can EXPLORE the Whole from ANY location within the holographic Whole, at any “time.”

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the Stream;
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is BUT A DREAM.

Try it, I invite you. Close your Eyes and DREAM! I welcome your Comments and Story!

The Beatles On LOVE

I’ve been to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show in Las Vegas. As a Beatles fan from the beginning here in the states–I was about 12 years old when they made their first visit to the US–, I loved this show!

The Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show tells the story of the Fab Four’s journey in the context of world history and as a phenomenal energy that transformed the world, not just the world of music but their lyrics and BEAT expressed the values and ideals of a transformative generation.

When I was a teenager, I was grounded once by my father for defending the Beatles’ music as being “all about love.” “So, what do YOU know about love?” asked my conservative minded father. Actually that question of his has stuck with me always. What DO I really know about love?

But love is not necessarily something one needs to know about, right? We FEEL our way through life via love. I now believe love to be the very essence and the progressive, healing substance of life Itself. When life goes forward (is not static or in decline) it is love that propels that advancement of purpose, awareness, or of love itself as its own blessing.

So how can you use love, or your current version of archetypal LOVER energies, to “Live Your Dream, Now,” which is this month’s theme here at Better Endings? Let’s turn this over to the Fab Four for insights.

• Love is all you need:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy

There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn to be you in time

It’s easy

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Beatles – All You Need Is Love Lyrics | MetroLyrics http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-you-need-is-love-lyrics-beatles.html

• Let It Be

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Read more: Beatles – Let It Be Lyrics | MetroLyrics

• It’s a long and winding road that leads us HOME:

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/the+long+and+winding+road_10026544.html

   And in the End…

The love you take

Is equal to the love

You make.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-end-lyrics-beatles.html

All images from pixabay.com

Envision Your Dream, Daily

There’s a principle referred to in many meditative traditions called “Dying Daily.” This means that every day as you practice contemplation or meditation you SURRENDER. In a way you are surrendering your ‘old self’ to be reborn to the ‘new’, daily.

So, here’s a thought. Remember to DREAM daily. By this I mean, envision your Life Dream every day, knowing that your Present exists in relationship with this desired future condition! Then every day you are living INTO your “dream come true.”

Many years ago I made a huge transition when I moved from Buffalo, New York (a lifelong Easterner til then) to Phoenix, Arizona (Out West). Every night for the year preceding this big move, I contemplated and asked questions inwardly  about this momentous turning point.  I work spiritually as many do with an Inner Guide figure, which helps me to focus on gaining higher awareness.  And every night, my question would be answered in a dream. One night, I woke with an actual song jingle and melody:

“I’m leaving, but there are a few doors left to close before I get over there.”

For the rest of the six months or so before my Great Adventure West, I sang this song frequently every day. Meanwhile I also taped pictures from SEDONA LIFE Magazine, a wonderful photojournalist sort of magazine depicting the amazing red rocks and canyons of Sedona, Arizona onto my office wall.

I was PREPARING, both outwardly and inwardly; orienting toward the new life I was about to assume with this trip upon which I was about to embark. The song lyric helped me realize every day that every action I was taking was movng me in the direction of this transformational life experience.

My move from Buffalo to Phoenix was indeed transformational! I became an anthropologist and experienced the Southwest and Native American cultures like I never could even have imagined as an Easterner.

So, what is YOUR DREAM around the horizon of some major departure? IMAGINE it daily; place PICTURES of your destination in your mind … and on your walls.  LIVE your dream now, in your imagination. Contemplate it, meditate about it. Surrender to its amazing potentials.

Now as I approach returning ‘back East’ for transitioning into the next stage of my life in 3 years, on my computer desktop I have a sepia postcard of the lake I will relocate near. Along the right of my screen is the lakeside  shoreline, winding up and around toward a clock tower that represents the very town I will be moving to. So, I have copied and pasted a little rowboat icon onto the base of this shoreline. Now every time I take some action in my daily life that moves me somehow closer to realizing this Big Move, I move the rowboat icon up the shoreline just a bit, closer to my Dream destination.

What are you doing or what might you do to ENVISION your future Dream come true? I welcome your insights and stories!

 

FOR A LIFE OF ABUNDANCE: Follow Your Heart

Envision a future of life fulfillment and abundance that you are already “living INTO,” Now! PLease go ahead, I invite you and I entreat you to take some time out from whatever busi-ness you are about right now; to close your eyes and dreamily, freely:

I M A G I N E 

So just think of it: Life IS a Bowl of Cherries. Okay then, what does YOUR “bowl of cherries” contain in your imagined dream of life fulfillment? What relationships or conditions, behaviors, activities, locations, etecetera comprise  the cherries filling your bowl of abundance in the parallel reality of your future dream come true?

I encourage you to contemplate, journal, walk and muse, paint or write a haiku or poem about your life of abundance.

And as always, I welcome your response in any form of sharing.

Now then also, would you need to make any specific sorts of changes or tweaks to your current life course in order to bring this abundance about? Consider how you might make such adjustments as simply and effectively as possible from your present vantage point.

My dear sister whom I am visiting has a refrigerator magnet that reads: THERE IS NO PLAN: FOLLOW YOUR HEART! Yet what if, after all, following your heart truly will fulfill your “plan”, even if you didn’t know you have one? The question remains the same by either viewpoint: How to ‘truly’ follow your Heart?

Some speak of nudges, others pay attention to their dreams and “intuitions;” still others stay centered on their current course, neither expecting nor desiring change. And you know, it’s all good: Life is Good, no matter what.

Myself, though, I enjoy creating or composing my life actively as I go along. I love adventure and creating some measure of change and flexibility to bring about variety as that “spice of life.” I enjoy the Present Moment of Nowness, yet I also enjoy musing inwardly and reflecting lightly on the Past, and I enjoy looking forward to creating a future of my own choice and design. All of that involves listening to the Heart and ALLOWING the Moment to unfold yet being an active, mindful participant.

The Here and Now is multidimensional, resplendent, full of potentials and possibilities! So take a peek into the byways of your Heart’s own rhythm and pulse, and… Follow!

Finish A Dream: Your Goal Fulfilled

(Re-blogged from The CrazyBagLady@BulanLifestyle)

Some twenty years ago I dreamed I was hiking along a high mountain trail. Several others were also on a trek to reach the top of this peak. It was a hard trail with a steep, rocky incline in hot weather that seared the skin. Many turned back; only a handful reached the top, singly. I was among these, arriving at the apex after a long, winding ascent.

Finally at the top, I see there is a canyon chasm between the edge of the mountainside I have scaled and what I know to be my true destination: an even higher peak separated from the one I am on by a huge divide.

At first I believe I may be able to cross, for there are steps, suspended in space, hovering between the two peaks. One of the other climbers starts across these floating steps, but they become narrower and further apart as the aspirant attempts to bridge the gulf. He turns back, returns; the steps drop into the gorge as he steps back onto the ledge at the top of the canyon.

The others leave, descending back down the mountain. I stay, alone, gazing across to the realm I desire to reach. I am passionately aware that I have worked so hard to reach this plateau, only to find my deepest goal seemingly impossible to attain.

There is a picnic table at the canyon edge. I sit at the table, not wanting to give up, not knowing how I can go forward. A woman appears and comes over to stand next to me at the table. She seems an Ancient one, yet ageless. She has salt-and-pepper hair, dark eyes, light skin—she reminds me of a person I know to be highly enlightened in my outer life.

“How can I ever get over there?” I implore of this woman whom I know to be a Guide.

“How would you get to another planet?” she replies.

Then, I am alone again; the Guide has disappeared.

I awaken in bed, bemused by the dream, saddened to learn it “was only a dream”. It felt so real, like I was finally “almost There,” to the fulfillment of a spiritual Quest.

Now, many years later, I recall this dream. The feelings are still potent, the desire as ardent as it was then.

I sit for contemplation, return to the picnic table AS IF I have never left.

“How would I travel to another planet?” I ask inwardly, suddenly aware of the obvious solution.

“Direct projection,” I utter in silence. Assume the destination-state accomplished; be-here-Now.

I walk to the edge of the cliff, sit tailor fashion; appreciate the rarified atma-sphere, quiet serenity. I close my eyes, open inwardly, sing a mantra syllable as pure as the air is high: Hu. I become this Sound, resonate with its pulse as a warm, glowing Light.

I open my Heart to just BE. Feel… SHIFT.

Open eyes: a Temple nestled in a misty enclave. Light forms come and go from round platforms surrounding a domed spire. Blues in magenta, iced in golds and white.

Approach. Friendly beings exchange silent greetings as we pass. Enter temple—Door always open, an archway. Inside is still open space, nature, gardens, rooms that appear as I imagine a purpose: library, classroom, stables with horses. I explore, unlimited. See a fountain, sit at a gossamer bench around it, close eyes to listen to the Flow.

Open eyes: sitting tailor fashion, looking across the Canyon. See? A picnic table, across the gulf, far from where I AM.

************

               Complete a dream according to your deepest desire. Imagine life as you assume it to Be, your Heart and Soul fulfilled.                 – lw

Better Stories

Have you read (and/or seen the Ang Lee film based on) The Life of Pi by Yann Martel? While the film version’s treatment of the dual story-line ending presents the final twist, the novel version goes into greater depth and is more layered so as to highlight the meaning behind the message. This dual-story ending exposes differences in the psychological construction and interpretation of reality itself.

Since character drives fictional outcomes–again with thanks to Rebekah’s writerly Guest Blog last week–but perhaps also since the reader’s own character drives their perceptions of these outcomes, I prefer the version of Pi’s story–about how he survived the sinking of an ocean liner–wherein Pi must cope with a fierce Bengal tiger and benefits from divine intervention whenever he surrenders to and accepts his human limitations and his mortality. I love the scene where Pi throws up his arms in utter despair, awaiting his immanent death, and thanks God and the vast expanse of the universe itself for all the experience he has been privileged to endure in this earthly life, only to be answered with a school of flying fish dropping sustenance onto the raft he shares by that point only with Richard Parker, the tiger. By my readerly view, it is a more pragmatic, less believing sort who prefers that Pi’s tale of surviving with animals is but a metaphorical account of a more gruesome expression of human animality. Is Pi compensating with his ‘better story’ through psychological denial of his observations of the brutal murder of his mother by the Cook? Is his very faith a coping device for self-delusion about the atrocities he witnessed?

Which Life of Pi story version do you prefer, and more importantly, why?  If you haven’t read the book, go watch the movie (or, read; it is beautiful writing!), and journal, talk about or contemplate your own response to the ideas and emotions represented. How does this story relate to your personal narrative?

I invite you to send in your Comments or submit your personal story about ‘fictional endings’ this week. Imagine a Better Ending, or a better story about ‘what really happened’ from one of the characters’ viewpoints or from your own retelling of the story according to your own life experiences.

Also for a Guest Blog this week, please answer and send in your answer of ANY LENGTH or format to the question: What is an example of a Better Ending from your own life?

 

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• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (kittykatkoni.wordpress.com)
• LIfe of pi By Yann Martel (lostinwords12.wordpress.com)
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Crossing the Threshold… Better Endings as a Bridge to Parallel Worlds?

 Artwork by Cougar Sangria, Resident of Second Life

This sublime picture by Cougar Sangria appears in her blog, classiccougarstyle.com. She has graciously allowed me to reproduce the artwork here.  Much of Cougar Sangria’s art shown on her blog refers to pathways to or to residence at an other-dimensional paradise (which may also be at an earthly location she has established). Cougar relates this beautiful haven for wisdom and retreat to Shangri-La, depicted in James Hilton’s Lost Horizon and often today associated in Tibetan Buddhist circles with the fabled city of Shambala.

The re-visioning of personal decisions we are focusing on this week to flex our creative imagination functions like Cougar’s bridge to a parallel world or to an “altiverse,” in science fiction terms.  Many contemporary quantum physics books–including Michio Kaku’s Parallel Worlds and Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe (also several of his TV mini-series segments on that topic)–present the idea that for every possible decision option we COULD make, there may in fact be a parallel universe wherein that option actually plays itself out.

The idea of parallel dimensional lives suggests that our power to decide is an immensely important faculty! We are wending our own Life Path with every choice we make; this means we have tremendous opportunities at every crossroads, at every turn.

Whatever your beliefs might be about “free will” or “destiny”, certainly we each have the capacity to create the “better endings” we desire to manifest in our lives, although no one is saying that is easy. When we reflect upon our past choices and their alternative possible outcomes, we can learn from the life lessons associated with each possibility.  Our decision to act on the basis of our highest consideration is a means by which to Cross the Threshold to our next vista of opportunity for learning and experience.

How have you dealt with significant transitions in your life? Are there patterns? Would you change anything at all if faced with not the same but similar choices today? What future transitions do you anticipate (e.g. a move, a career shift, a relationship development, retirement)? How can you approach a future transition as a bridge to fully realize the life of your dreams?

Related articles

• Parallel Worlds exist and will soon be testable, expert says (ieet.org)
• Are there any Parallel Worlds? (nadinemay.com)
• What we perceive as reality is only the tip of the iceberg (nadinemay.com)

Transformations and Turning Points

A funny thing happened while blogging this week. Guest Blogs are usually published on Thursdays; I posted Rebekah Shardy’s “Better Endings…or Better Character?”  yesterday, instead of today. Only last night did I even realize I had varied the schedule. It felt right to post Rebekah’s insights yesterday about how character drives endings in fiction, especially after sharing about my own personal decision to finish college instead of moving to NYC to chase a youthful fantasy.

Today then I will share a Wednesday post: a bucket list of possible types of decisions we can reflect on that could have led to ‘alternate’ life conditions.  Let me add one idea here from my Life Paths Mapping practice: Isn’t it interesting how decision points are so often the Life Chapter punctuation marks that become Turning Points in our own Life Stories?  Like a classic myth–or any good fiction–the protagonist, which can be you or me, comes to a crossroads and is faced with a choice: either continue on our established path or make a mindful new decision that can alter the course of our destiny. (Or, third, tweak the established course to be in better accord with our current awareness.)

So, here are some common decision points you may have encountered or might yet in the future. Can you imagine–journal about, write a story about, or visualize, talk about or contemplate–a Better Endings scenario? What is your decision, either now or as re-visioned, based on? How does your own inner character inform and motivate your choices?

• Who to be best friends with in childhood?
• Which group to sit with at lunch in the school cafeteria?
• What extracurricular clubs or activities to take part in during high school?
• whether to go to college or to what form of work?
• what major to pursue in college?
• whether to marry your first ‘true love’?
• whether to pursue a romantic connection with someone you did not pursue or whose advances you declined?
• whether to take a risk (you fill in which)?
• whether to follow a whim?
• where to live when a clear choice presented itself; whether to move/ change jobs/ travel?
• what to believe in, and how?

Please feel free to Comment (Leave a Reply in the box below) with additional prompts for flexing our skills at creative re-visioning. Please also submit your stories; the deadline for the weekly topic stories to be shared is Saturday.  And please, I hope you have seen by now that Better Endings is a Safe Space for all. I respect all perspectives and encourage all points of view to be shared as we dialogue and learn from each other. Have fun exploring this weekly topic of Personal Decisions. What might have happened IF/ WHEN/ or COULD if you only IMAGINE?

And as always, please FOLLOW to receive daily Better Endings by email, and Share with your Friends!

Related articles

• Then and Now (averyjans.wordpress.com)
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My Parallel Life as a Nanny

I was 22; it was the summer before my senior year at college in Buffalo, New York.  I had been working as an usher that summer at Artpark, a then newly established performing arts center in my beloved home town of Lewiston, New York.  This summer I was serving as head usher.  Somehow connected to that role, I met the world-renowned conductor of a visiting symphony orchestra.  After chatting a bit with him and his wife, they invited me to come with them the next day (!) to New York City, to become a nanny for their two young boys.

There’s a backstory to relate.  I had long wanted, since my early college years, to go to live in New York City. I wanted to be a writer there, hanging out in dimly lit coffeehouses, writing poetry and stories on copious napkins while sipping tea and tuning into the folk music scene of emerging NYC artists. The sudden offer to move to NYC as a nanny to a famous conductor’s family seemed like manna from heaven; a golden ticket to the life of my dreams.

I didn’t go.  I told myself it was because I needed to finish my last year at college and to go on from there to graduate school; both of which, I did.  But for several years I wondered, what might have happened, if?  If I had answered ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ to that once-in-a-lifetime offer? So let me imagine now, in this Better Endings blog, what might have followed if I had been adventurous and brash enough to ‘seize the day’ back then?

Johnny and Marcelo grew up to become a folk musician and a chiropractor, fulfilling their own personal ambitions and well supported by their loving parents. Though they had been privileged as youngsters, their parents’ values and my own as their nanny had taught them the value of self-reliance, hard work and altruism. They matured to become not only well mannered but also kind, considerate, thoughtful human beings who were also quite generous, each in their way.  Johnny married a songwriter and formed a musical family of his own; Marcelo moved to San Francisco with his longterm partner, a ballet artist, and he established a thriving chiropractic firm.

Through the years as the conductor’s family nanny I was able to travel to many wonderful cities and countries around the world. I finished my B.A. in English by taking night classes at Columbia University. Eventually, after the boys were grown, I earned an MFA in creative writing. I became a journalist and a part-time writing teacher and coach, author of a regular column for over a decade in The Village Voice that promoted and researched the offerings of up and coming NYC writers. I published a small book of poetry of my own when I was thirty, and I landed quite a few stories in The New Yorker and in the Atlantic Monthly magazines, among others, over the years. I never wrote the Great American Novel, although I reviewed quite a few promising young authors aiming to succeed in that direction. I never discovered my now seemingly inherent passion for science fiction or quantum physics, nor for anthropology or linguistics, much. I did explore spirituality and discovered the very approach that I practice today. I never lived in Arizona or in Zuni, New Mexico or Colorado, so I never met the friends I have been close to there.  But I improved my fluency in French and in Italian and I aim to retire to Arles, where Van Gogh found such vibrancy in the quality of light and in the interconnectedness of a community from which he himself, however, felt removed.

It was a good life, one parallel to the life I might have lived had I answered ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes’ to an offer to be a nanny.

—–

Please, if you want to contribute to this weekly topic of Personal Decisions with your own comments or story, just Submit Your Story. You can subscribe to this blog by clicking FOLLOW. And please, I invite you wholeheartedly to share this blog with other like-minded friends on Facebook or by email who might enjoy contributing here, too! – Linda

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Personal Decisions…Better Endings?

Imagine how might your own or someone you are close to’s life be significantly changed if some on-the-spot (or even well deliberated) personal decision were altered?  We’ve all heard stories about how one’s parents would never have met were it not for some split second decision to walk into a particular coffee shop or to take a particular bus on a particular day.  The movie Serendipity explores this premise as a romantic comedy where, after a couple does accidentally meet, they spend most of the rest of the movie trying to find each other again.

What if you had accepted some job you were offered rather than the one you took instead? Or if you had chosen to attend a different college or move to a different town when you had the opportunity? Some of our life-altering decisions were made by others, such as by our parents while we were young. I am more interested for our weekly topic to explore those decisions you made yourself.  How might things have turned out differently?  Now, of course, it could very well be that the decision you made resulted in the ‘better ending’ pathway that has brought you to where you are, quite happily, today. Or, if as they say, ‘hindsight is 20/20’, maybe altering some decision might have created a very different set of outcomes, maybe even with a ‘better ending’ scenario possible along a path you did not choose.

This topic of Better Endings in light of Personal Decisions is not meant to be merely a futile exercise in hindsight or a matter of second guessing yourself. Certainly we all usually aim to make the most we can out of any decision we have committed ourselves to, and it is important to consider all we have gained and learned from any decision on which we have followed through.  The value of exploring–through journaling, writing an autobiographical memoir, contemplating, or just sharing with a friend about–our earlier life decisions, is to remind ourselves of how we have approached major or minor transition points in our lives. This way, when a new opportunity arises or when we envision a new opportunity, perhaps we can act with a bit more mindfulness or clarity of intention while considering which path to take. Reminding ourselves of how our decisions have empowered us to establish life-changing new directions shows us how much flexibility and awareness we are capable of as we navigate our life choices. So, have fun with this one!

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Movies I Love, Except for Their Endings!

Movies I Love, Except for Their Endings!.

One Small Step at a Time

Today’s installment will be brief. I just realized that in order to have our Better Endings Story of the Week publish on a Sunday, I mighta should have launched the blog on a Monday! So I will slow down a bit from now til Tuesday to let you and newcomers get up to speed with the layout presented in yesterday’s “launch” post: Welcome to a Year of Better Endings! All I will do for today and tomorrow is to offer a list of some possible topics for our Rewrite History week. Here are some possibilities:

• The Supreme Court awards Al Gore the presidency, 2000.
• Amelia Earhart lands in Hawaii after a two hour delay.
• Columbus is murdered by a mutinous crew; America remains aboriginal.
• In early 1900’s, the People vote for mass transit (street cars) over individual automobiles.
• December 21, 2012: Asteroid on a collision course with Earth!
• DNA experiment clones T. Rex at Denver Museum of Science and History
• JFK evades bullet
• RFK survives assassination attempt; is elected President, 1968
• John Lennon heeds warning, avoids attack December 8, 1980
• Earth’s polarity shifts, 2016
• Hilary wins DNC nomination and presidency, 2008
• Fossil fuels are globally banned at 2015 Global Sustainability Summit

So, here are some writing prompts, or of course choose your own! We have a couple of extra days this week, so please let me know you are out there! You can post your COMMENTS below, perhaps with some of your own historical rewrite suggestions, or with your welcome insights, or go ahead and submit your stories and guest blog entries.  So, set a date on your Time Machine and we’ll see you when/where you land!

Related articles

• Amelia Earhart Plans Transcontinental Flight – Really (mashable.com)
• Underwater search for Amelia Earhart’s plane will resume in 2014 (nbcnews.com)