Wedding Tribute

All I know of angels

I can see in your eyes.

The deep blue of heaven

Moves me like the sea.

Lifts me up with wings

Of unending possibility,

Into the depths of my soul.

Your love guides and protects me

Like a steadfast guardian,

Sentry at the threshold of my fear,

Banishing all potential harm

Allowing light and love to fill me,

Your golden glow surrounds me

Like a pocket of tender safety.

Your hands reach out to me

And reveal your sacred gift,

So simple and so elegant,

Merely all that I AM

And all that I can be,

Because you love me enough

To let your eyes lead the way.

And so my humble heart opens

And reaches for you in kind,

With an overwhelming desire

To move you completely,

To move you with me in tones,

In the rhythm that is ours

And ours alone.

Within that glorious rhythm

We connect to all creation,

Your angel wings enfold me,

Your gentle spirit infolds me,

And we become the divine creator

And all that is our good experience,

In truth, in love, in faith, through you.

--  Molly Brogan

The Soothing Power of the Spoken Word

I was honored to be told by my friend Dr. Brenda Carson, that she reads poetry to her mother, Mardine Carson, from my book A Blaze of Light.  Dr. Carson owns an Alternative Health and Wellness Clinic in Detroit, MI, and reads to her mother regularly to facilitate her speedy recovery.

Mardine Carson is 87 years old, and began writing poetry in her 60s.  She has always been a home-body, and very involved with family, friends and church.  Dr. Carson tells me that she knows her mother is enjoying the poetry as she reads it to her by the serene smile on her face.

As a writer, I think there is no greater honor than to hear a story like this.  Thank you both, Brenda and Mardine, for sharing it.  Good health and God bless you both.

Forgiving or Giving For Love

There seem to be many faces to the process of “forgiveness” being worn these days. Many books, lectures and workshops are available to help us contemplate and adopt forgiving behaviors. We are all taught as children that forgiveness of friends and family is an important part of social life.

The poet William Blake tells us: "In heaven, the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving."  This leads us to the notion that forgiveness is key to finding heaven on earth.

It can be difficult for us to understand that forgiveness cannot happen when we are focused on the tangibles, on what we feel we have lost, on our injuries.  No matter what has occurred in our experience, what happens is an invitation for greater self awareness.  It is an invitation to understand that by bringing our awareness of the spirit in our experience into focus, we can forgive and create harmony.

To complete the process of true forgiveness, whatever our actions, we must be willing to let go of the memories that create anger and resentment. And we must be willing to hold all others in our heart with love.  The paradox here is that as we learn to live with unconditional forgiveness for ourselves and all others, we no longer experience the conflict that requires forgiveness.

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan

All About Living With Our Fears

You need only watch the evening news to see how fear driven humanity has become. So much of what the media presents displays and exacerbates our fears that we have to wonder, how much of our daily individual experience includes fear? Do we need fear? Can we live without it? 

From my experience, I can tell you that the longer I treat fear as a signal to feel my total connection to life, and have faith that what will happen next will be in accordance with my highest potential, the less fear I experience. Things that triggered fear 5 years ago do not now. By not allowing the feeling to become emotion, (feeling becomes emotion by including memories of other fearful experiences or dread of future difficulties,) the fear is quelled. What comes up more and more now instead of fear, is a mild interest, sometimes amusement, but always faith that what is occurring is reflecting to me what I need to recognize in the moment.

It is not possible to find harmony in our lives when it is filled with fear.  Sometimes letting go of fear is as easy as taking a deep breath, and finding our faith or compassion in the moment.  Sometimes it is as difficult as a dark night of the soul, where we face our fear by understanding that what we fear is a part of us, and accepting the divinity of all that we are by letting go of every ”thing” in our experience. 

The emotion of fear needs to be recognized and released, so that we can feel our harmony.   Life with an unattached and fearless viewpoint allows us to live in tune with the infinite.  

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Rachelle.   Many thanks.

Remembering Dr. Peggy Zellner

I had my birthday this year at MIX in Las Vegas, remembering all of the other birthdays in Las Vegas and my friends there.  Among them, was my good friend, Dr. Peggy Zellner, who passed away unexpectedly on my birthday one year ago.  Peggy was an intuitive Naturopath who was very gifted and had a large practice in the valley.  She was also a genius of spirit, and able to speak fluently, the language of the unseen.  Over the years that I spent in Las Vegas, I watched her touch many people, professional and gifted in their own right. She led us all to the spirit we commonly share, and showed us how to express it. She taught me many things and I find myself still unpacking some of it every day.  I love and miss her, bless her soul.  Rest in Peace my friend.

Reconciling the Problem of Evil

There is a wide variety of opinion on the existence of evil. Some see any opposing force as evil, while others think that to be termed evil requires an act resulting in an injury to life of some kind. What are your thoughts? How does your belief about evil affect your life?

I think that "evil" is much like fear. Overcoming fear doesn't mean that I will never experience it again in my life. It means that I understand it differently and process it differently than I once did. Overcoming evil is much the same. Once we understand that evil is a value judgment of negativity in our world, and that judgments assigning positive and negative value are a function of mind, but we are much more than our minds, we can transcend our dualistic mental constructs. When seen at this viewpoint, the world is in balance; what we value as good and evil can be seen differently, as aspects of the same experience.

We sometimes take identity in holding ourselves separate from others as we judge and value the differences. Not good or bad, it is something we humans do as we identify ourselves. This is a function of our ego, which is limited to duality because it creates our identity separate from the world. Here, good and sometimes evil is established as we explore the "I am not" of I AM. This exploration is important to raising consciousness and expanding awareness.

Who we are and what is possible is reflected to us in the moment. We can live these moments in a separate string, or in the eternal moment or both - the one and the many. But however we choose to live these moments, they are a reflection that invites us into spirit and the possibility of more, all ways.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Val Jean.   Many thanks.

We Dwell In Possiblity During Deconstruction

Sometimes, when things seem to be falling apart in our lives, it is happening to allow us to move on in ways that we would not otherwise, because we would hold on to what we have now.  Our will is to keep something the same, divine will is to allow change.  What we don’t see is that the change is wonderful and so we get wrapped up in the bad feeling that things are falling apart.  Resist not!  It isn’t easy to enjoy deconstruction.  But when it starts happening to me, I have begun to notice it now, and I can have faith that something wonderful is about to occur in my life.

Deconstruction is a difficult process for all of us.  As we create, we are reaching within to experience God and feel our oneness with God and all his glory.  As we deconstruct, we are bringing the energy of God back to the world, and making room for divine will in our experience (the deconstruction.)  When we have fully embraced both processes, creation and deconstruction occur simultaneously. As we reach within and connect to all creation, we express creation as divine will makes it “more” than ever before, adding the possibility that is ours in the moment.  This is the crux of coherent integration. There is joy in feeling the connection and honoring the individuation.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Andy Kehoe.   Many thanks.

Living the Change

Change happens. It is part of the human experience. It can be a wonderful gift, if we understand the process. There is a great deal of information available about skills for managing change. But the most important skills that we can master are the ones that give us an understanding of ourselves, and how we, ourselves, facilitate change in our lives.

Our capacity for paradox is probably the most important factor in our ability to change...In every paradox, what seems to be opposing can be seen as complimentary and in fact, part of a larger spectrum, from a wider viewpoint...Determining the spectral nature of paradox might require an ability to develop and sustain relationship. If the change you are experiencing affects not only you but a larger group, your understanding of the nature of relationship may be the key to successful change.

Another critical element of change is anamnesis, or the remembrance of our own essential being, that part of us that we bring to manifestation, our own spirit...This change in viewpoint is the crèche of experience manifest. This, is essential change.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork:  Newton, By William Blake

The Art of Being is All About Living

OUR BEING NATURALLY INCLUDES OUR PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL ASPECTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS

I think that our “being” covers every aspect of who we are, including the trendy "who we really are."  Essential being - that part of us that is infinite, that holds our absolute truths, grounds us to the universe, is our awareness, moves the Logos - is just as important as finite and changeable aspects, such as our cellular components, ego, sacral, or consciousness.  

The art of being may just be recognizing finite aspects of being while creating experience in harmony with the infinite aspects of soul and spirit.

If we have the wisdom to see it, our experience presents us with opportunity for the possibility of becoming, and leads us to our own infinite nature if we do not resist.  What parts of us are finite and which infinite can be presented in a clash of light and shadow, or in the whisper of the cool wind on our face. Recognition tells us which is which.  If seen from the non dual viewpoint, there is no division between. 
All material copyrighted 2010 All About Living, Molly Brogan
Artwork by Jean Delville   Many thanks.

Age of Ethics

extending us at once internally and externally, technology ushers us into the age of ethics

The transition into the age of ethics has just begun and will take decades to emerge.  It will be, I think, a fascinating transition.  Our notions of trust will, out of necessity, become central and evolve.   The transition from the information age to the age of ethics is a dynamic dialectic.  Trusting ourselves to know that despite our fallibilities and mistakes, we will persevere and grow is essential.

Just as the personal computer ushered us into the age of information, the personal communication device will usher us into the age of ethics.  With communications technology developing at an accelerated rate, there is little happening in the world that can be hidden anymore.  Sure there are areas of the world that are underdeveloped, without technology and operating at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy.  Yet, as this is the age of global experience, they will be carried along.  Could this be part of life’s grand design as well?  Can we trust that it is?

All material copyrighted 2010 All About Living, Molly Brogan 
Artwork by Ron Isom, The Oracle of Gadfly.  Many thanks.

Merry Christmas One and All

I wish everyone the best during this season of love and renewal.  For me, Christmas has always been a time to confirm life by expressing my love to those around me.  And although my surroundings change each Christmas, within me, there is an essential Christmas that I express with love, now, to you. 

Dylan Thomas said it best in the opening paragraphs of A Child's Christmas in Whales:  "One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.  All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street."

As I diligently work to get through the editing phase of my latest book, I take a deep breath and give a life affirming shout, "Thank you, my friends, and Merry Christmas!"
Artwork:   Alessandro Botticelli, Mystic Nativity

All About Living Serial Posts

After receiving several emails from readers asking about the publication of my next book and its contents, I surrendered to the idea of posting excerpts from it on this blog.  Over the next few months I will post the occasional snippet from All About Living, as this format does not allow whole chapters.  The book itself will be available for purchase around the beginning of the year. This makes it easy for me to post here more often and inspire conversation about my books!  I would like to encourage readers to comment on these bits, and also to continue to pose questions to me that pertain to my work, specifically or on the whole.  I appreciated each contribution and conversation, from the book club conferences and book signings to the blog posts and blog network discussions.  To live a life that provides the technological extensions of self that allow me communion with my readers all over the globe, I am fortunate indeed.   I look forward to more in the upcoming year!                                                                              Artwork: Biomorphic dance by Ron Isom   Many thanks.

General Comments

Welcome to the blog created for readers of Molly Brogan books. All are welcome to post comments and all insights are appreciated. If you have a general comment or a question about a Molly Brogan book that does not relate to any of the other topic threads, post your comment here. Thanks for stopping by, your time and consideration are most appreciated. Feel free to contact me if you would like me to participate in your book club discussion of a Molly Brogan book.

The Setting of Emotional Turbulence in Remember Me

Linda said...

In your book Remember Me, the character Mary Margaret goes through alot in her life, and I don't understand why she gives up in the end. It seems like she's smart, but she doesn't "get it." I just wanted to smack her and say, "wake up!"

Thanks for the great question, Linda.  During my own divorce in '95, I watched many families struggle with the family court system.  If people cannot agree, the cases go on and on, family resources are depleted, and when domestic violence is present, it is often exacerbated because the inept system is used as a weapon of abuse.  

In researching for the book, I spent a great deal of time interviewing family members in divorce and family court, and heard countless stories of suicide, hopelessness and despair.  I felt there was an important statement to be made, and that we can do better with our laws and in our courts for families in these situations. I also spent a great deal of time consulting with psychologists and therapists on the subject, and on how to develop a character that would eventually succumb to despair.  

While half way through my second novel, I was inspired to create a trilogy that would resurrect the Mary Margaret character from Remember Me, and redeem her.  I agree with you, she is smart and has many possibilities before her, but in Remember Me she also is trapped in a mindset of worthlessness that family violence reinforces for her.  It seems to me a slap would be just another slap to her, as it is to many men and women caught in the web of domestic abuse that our current societal norms and laws support by inadequate court action and looking the other way.

Your good question, Linda, leads me to one of my own.  At what point in our lives to we begin to examine and understand our emotions, what role they play in our lives, and how they enrich or limit us?

All About Living Is Next in Line

Nick said...

Do you have a date for publishing Shadow Dance? Waiting for that third novel of yours is not easy. Your fan, Nick

Thanks for the question, Nick.  My friend, Nick, and I have been mutual supporters since we were in college together.  It is true that my third novel is taking much longer than expected to publish.  This is because somewhere along the way, my blog readers encouraged me to publish my ideas in some form.  I have been working on this, and am on track to publish the first in a series of books called All About Living by the end of this year.  I settled on the format of Einsteins book "The World As I See It," first published in 1932 in the form that Einstein envisioned it.  It is a very simple compilation of his ideas on spirituality.  (In later editions the publishers took out pieces that Einstein felt important and replaced them with papers that they felt more important, losing the intent and flavor of the book.)

I thought about this wonderful book of Einstein's, and decided that in lieu of journals, diaries or letters, I would simply offer short presentations of my ideas in book form a few at a time, along with original drawings.  The first in the series will include my ideas on ethics, God, being, free will, forgiveness and several others.

I am at the same time writing Shadow Dancing, the third novel in my trilogy.  The novel will be written as a prose poem in the first person, a very different format than the other two.  I chose this form of expression to meet the character's challenges as she comes to fruition in her spiritual journey.  Because this stage includes non dual and more sublime states of consciousness that can be difficult to convey in words, I felt that poetry was my most effective tool.  I hope my readers agree.  This book will be published sometime next year.

Cover art by Vivian George.  Many thanks.

The Unexpected Rewards of Being Published

When I decided to publish the script for my play Without A Word in 2007, I asked my friend Robert Parker for the right to use his blue self portrait shown here, for the cover art.  His painting spoke to me, went straight to my heart the first time I saw it.  I knew, it was the right cover for this book.  He enthusiastically said yes and I was deeply grateful.

I could not have anticipated the reader response to this image, and it has been tremendous.  People are drawn to this image, as I was on first seeing it.  If all of my books are displayed, people will first approach this one, often needing to reach out and touch the picture, even if they don't open the book.   Recently, I received a package in the mail, elaborately engineered and masterfully wrapped.  It was this beautiful painting, which now hangs framed in my office directly in front of me, so that I can see it as I work.

Thank you, my friend, for this inspiring gift.  You are an artist of great talent, and I will treasure it always.

Artwork by Robert Parker  Many, many thanks.

Writing Comes Back as Miracles

The online groups where I share my writing have enriched my life over the last couple of years in many ways. One of the most extraordinary ways is with an online friend named eric, who I met in the gaia group ZenChrist. We exchanged many thoughts and ideas and I always look forward to his comments because he has a very deep understanding of the Zen and Buddhist traditions, and a keen insight into the symbolic nature of Christian scripture.

One day I got a post from eric: "the Slips Naturally poem you posted awhile back in that part got me thinking differently about parenthood. I never had any desire to be a father, maybe because mine was not the best example growing up. In many ways I resisted it over the years. But when my wife and I were talking about it, this poem of yours came to mind. I have never really bought into societal norms and have been a bit of a lone wolf and this poem made me realize the duties I may have as a father do not preclude me from slipping naturally into spirit."

A few weeks later, this message: "Arete Metta was born 8-1-09 @ 7:16 a.m weighing 7lb 12oz after 55 hours of labor!! Mom, dad and baby are happy as clams (what does that mean btw)."

My heart goes out to eric and his beautiful family as they begin life as three. It feels good to be a writer today.