BnLightened
An Orange in an Apple: Sharing the Stoke
Re-imagined
Right now Im looking to reconcile with my love of life.
Not that I hate life, I just haven’t been hugging, dancing with and basking in it like I once was. I went back home to Miami last weekend. This trip was different. This was my 3rd time back to Miami since I left. Clearly I haven’t visited enough since I left back in 2011, but third time was the charm as this was Miami re-imagined. I was able to make time for my loves, my spirituality, and the beach. Everything I need. The humidity barely registered with me (maybe with my hair as I wore a permanent high bun). Nevertheless, I felt like I was in a dream. Now that Im back from wonderland, everything runs across my mind gangnam style. Hectic, almost in a foreign language, but I know it will pass. Im reconsidering everything. Where I want to be, who I want to be with, where to place my dreams. This is anything but a crisis, maybe not an awakening, but 100% a refresher.
The winter is coming and of course I gravitate towards the lifestyle in a sunnier place. Yet I know the time I put up here in NYC is pretty much going to set my life on a track that I may not achieve elsewhere. Time is precious. Using it wisely, following your heart, appreciating everything now rather than later, the keys to life. If it was as simple as tattooing this on my wrist and Id remember it everyday, Id be ink to skin right now. For now more frequent trips to Miami will do and so will postcards to the ones I love. Who knows what will come next.
Moving On
How much were we worth?
In terms of..
Money?
My love’s not for sale,
but if my love came down to the dollar,
If the auctioneer rang the final bell
You’d be bankrupt
Soul sold
First born worth its weight in gold
You made a stealing the first time around
This time Ive moved a comma or two
My self worth is much greater
now that Ive gotten over you.
In terms of…
Memories?
Our memories are alive,
and emblazoned in my brain.
Though our version is not shared,
were not one in the same.
But you cant force understanding,
and you cant force a heart,
you cant force a perfect ending,
when you had a forced start.
In terms of…
In terms of what?
We were good for the moment
we were good for the past
but sometimes we go down swinging
when we cant make things last
and I’ve fought and I’ve tried
and I’ve slept in that bed
but theres nothing more painful
than dragging regret
i imagined our worth
a romantics curse
that living in the moment
is better than living in a hearse
but along the way i forgot
what it was like to be me
in the world without you
where i was meant to be
but i found my way back
thankfully everythings the same
except for the knowing that
i can love, i can give, i can be open and sane
that relationship doesnt have to be
relation ship wrecked
that i am not my mother
though we share a last name
but it’ll all be ok
even a little more than that
but youll have to stay tuned
a little longer than you did in the sack
Staying Open
“If you want the hard body, you gotta work out. No questions asked. If you want the degree, you gotta work for it. No questions asked. If you want to love, you have to be open. If you want to make your dreams come true, you have to risk.”
I really loved this quote from the daily email I receive through The Daily Love. Heres the piece in full from Mastiin himself:
When bad things happen in the past, we can spend so much time dwelling on what happened and protecting ourselves from it never happening again that we actually kill the possibility of anything great happening again.
Being alive means we will experience all kinds of things, with joy, love, pain and loss – it’s all part of life. I believe it to be unwise to shut down just because we got hurt. When we shut down, we prevent the bad from coming in, but we also prevent the good.
Good and bad stuff happen. I believe it’s more important to develop a strong sense of self that lives life to the fullest (aka letting the bad and good stuff happen), knowing that life is about living it all. Not just preventing pain. But accepting that pain is a part of life. When we accept that pain is a part of life, we begin to free ourselves from the chains that bind us and thus step into a greater world.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from the past. Of course we can, and we should. But we don’t want to be EXTREME about it.
Living our dreams, living our soul’s calling means taking risks, and part of taking risks is things not working out. The Divine is stronger than any failure, but consider that some failures are Divinely sent. It is often the trials we go through that make us the person we need to be in order to live our dreams.
And yet we spend so much time avoiding the trials that we end up living an unrealized life. And this is a worse fate than death.
If you want the hard body, you gotta work out. No questions asked. If you want the degree, you gotta work for it. No questions asked. If you want to love, you have to be open. If you want to make your dreams come true, you have to risk.
But no one gets it right the first time. And most times no one gets it right the 100th time.
For me, I just stopped counting how many times I tried, and just tried UNTIL it happened.
Life is not asking us to curl back because we are scared; it is asking us to step up even though we are scared and to welcome in new possibility by taking a risk.
If you aren’t living your dreams, consider that you have no idea what it really takes or feels like to do so. So how could you possibly know what it takes until you have arrived? The only real way to know this is by taking advice from people who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Everyone else is just guessing.
And if you are in your field innovating or the first person to attempt what you are doing, it’s even more important to rely on your intuition. The Divine guides us – but we have to listen and then ACT.
What are you being guided to do? What have you given up on? Can you open back up today?
Love,
Mastin
Mastin
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 30
30. A song that reminds you of yourself:
Q-TIP – VIVRANT THING
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 29
29. A song that you remember from your childhood:
JUDY GARLAND – Over the Rainbow
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 28
28. A song by an artist with a voice that you love:
NINA SIMONE – Ain’t Got No, I Got Life
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 27
27. A song that breaks your heart:
OASIS – Wonderwall
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 26
26. A song that makes you want to fall in love:
BADLY DRAWN BOY – Magic in the Air
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 25
25. A song by an artist to no longer living:
AMY WINEHOUSE – Half Time
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 24
24. A song by band you wish were still together:
THE BEATLES – I Want You (Shes So Heavy)
Fading
Today I touched down
for a moment
I looked up and
grabbed your memory
tossed around the humor
smiled on the tears
swallowed in the past
and breathed away the guilt
what do you say
when its all gone away
apologies have passed their expiration
and tenderness has hardened through the seasons
we are but a memory
simply fading with the sunset
let it fade away
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 23
23. A song that you think everybody should listen to:
Norah Jones – THE PRETTIEST THING
Spoken Word: Farah Gabdon & Sarah Kay
Today I stumbled upon Farah Gabdon while falling down the rabbit hole of blog surfing. This quote is what grabbed me:
“i have a habit of falling in love with souls who have yet to be at peace with their bodies, their minds, their weaknesses. i try to build them, to find the parts of them that are missing in me. i end up with holes in my chest.— farah gabdon”
I am thankful that in my break from work I found such an artist. Here’s a little more of Farah performing live:
On the subject of spoken word, there is another poet, Sarah Kay, who I learned of through TED and these are things that remind me why I write:
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 22
22. A song that moves you forward –
AMY WINEHOUSE – Tears Dry on Their Own
I just poofed my hair a little higher in memory of …
as well as
JASON MRAZ – Make it Mine
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 21
21. A favorite song with a person’s name in the title:
HALL & OATES – Sara Smile
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 20
20. A song that has many meanings to you:
Frank Ocean – LOST
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 19
19. A song that makes you think about life:
Fleet Foxes – HELPLESSNESS BLUES
The whole album is worth listening to and can send you into a proverbial spin
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 18
18. A song from the year you were born:
THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Human
I’m obsessed with this song and I don’t feel ashamed one bit for jamming hard to it when it plays in the grocery store…
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 17
17. A song that you would sing a duet with on karaoke :
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell – AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH
Who’s with me?
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 16
16. One of your favorite classical songs :
Debussy – CLAIRE DE LUNE
“Vegucated”
A little more than recently, I have begun living with two guys. One of whom is a personal trainer and has become obsessed with documentaries which has spilled into incessant conversations on peak oil and the demise of our society as whole. Heartwarming, I know. Nevertheless, I enjoy a good documentary time to time myself. Usually on music, drugs and maybe some French person I’ve never heard of who is a poet and may have committed murder. I’ve begun to switch it up lately with the influence of my roommate and this weekend we watched Vegucated. The synopsis of the movie read something like, Three meat and cheese loving New Yorkers explore the possibilities of a vegan lifestyle in a 30 day challenge.
Seeing how I am a meat and cheese loving New Yorker, who has recently, begun to make changes in what I eat, I was intrigued. It was nothing new seeing the animal torture that occurs in our farms, but something struck a chord this time. It could have been the baby chicks in clear plastic bags suffocating to death while they were deemed not worthy enough for a fast food chain. It could have been seeing the statistics linked with heart disease, various forms of cancer and other illnesses in our country in comparison to other countries who consume less meat as well as use different methods in farming. It may have been the fact that the way we go about getting our meat has reached its peak and it’s a catalyst in global warming. That our country is already responding by feeding us crappy versions of it and being even more crappy by treating these animals like life was never theirs to claim. That eventually they are either going to have to stop producing as much or hiking the prices. The fact that eating less meat is not only necessary for our planet but necessary for our bodies.
To say I’m going vegan would be a leap I’m not ready to take. But consuming less meat is. Also consuming meat that is free range is a leap I have to take. There are great options out there. One day I may leap to another level, and be a dread doting Rastafarian, but today I can happily enjoy my Vegan Burrito and know that maybe this weekend I’ll stop by Bare Burger. There are happy, healthy, tasty options out there.
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 14
14. A song that you would love played at your wedding –
Tony Bennet – THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 13
13. One of your favorite 80’s songs –
The Buggles – VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR
Something about this song makes me think like I was born immediately as it came on television.
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 12
12. A song from your preteen years –
I was in love with Roger from Sister Sister…
IMMATURE – WE GOT IT
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 11
11.A song that you never get tired of –
Tied!
GYPTIAN – HOLD YUH
ESTELLE & KANYE – AMERICAN BOY
Something Like Olivia Contest: My Entry!
I finally took my writing ideas to film by entering a contest for John Mayer and I love it!!!!! I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of my friend who played Olivia, Erika Hofman, my crazy lovable friend also in the video, Elizabeth Schwartz, and of course the wonderful people & places of NYC. Click the pic below to check out the video and please… Enjoy!
30 Day Music Challenge: Day 10
10. A song that makes you sad –
JONI MITCHELL – BOTH SIDES NOW
Mainly makes me sad because of how I heard it the first time in the scene from Love Actually, then quickly associated it with any sad love moment in my life all at once. Either way, its a beautiful song…
BnLightened 