i got this from my friend, jim (thank you). dr. taylor's account of her stroke is remarkable. coming from a perspective of a brain scientist, this is brilliant.

i've watched ted talks for a while and this is one of the best that i've watched. she puts the higher consciousness into something that's understandable and gives Grace and Presence (God Presence, Life Presence) its full impact in the now. she talks about understanding how
the brain works and how it relates to who we are. this is the best i've seen with regards to that.

i want to share with you where my path has gone (i've been reading stuff on this and it's very similar to what she's discussed), why i choose the way i choose and why i'm grateful everyday.

my advanced course leader in landmark education once told my classmates and i that to lead a full life, one must realize that one's heart will be broken a million times over.

today, i found my heart broken and then made whole again.

this is love in its fullness. and i'd do it a billion times over.

dancing in the sweltering heat, let that beat renew you each moment of your life.


ode to the drum
by yusef komunyakaa

gazelle, i killed you
for your skin's exquisite
touch, for how easy it is
to be nailed to a board
weathered raw as white
butcher paper. last night
i heard my daughter praying
for the meat here at my feet.
you know it wasn't anger
that made me stop my heart
till the hammer fell. weeks
ago, i broke you as a woman
once shattered me into a song
beneath her weight, before
you slouched into that
grassy hush. but now
i'm tightening lashes,
shaping hide as if around
a ribcage, stretched
like five bowstrings.
ghosts cannot slip back
inside the body's drum.
you've been seasoned
by wind, dusk & sunlight.
pressure can make everything
whole again, brass nails
tacked into the ebony wood
your face has been carved
five times. i have to drive
trouble from the valley.
trouble in the hills.
trouble on the river
too. there's no kola nut,
palm wine, fish, salt,
or calabash. kadoom.
kadoom. kadoom. ka-
doooom. kadoom. now
i have beaten a song back into you,
rise & walk away like a panther.

i've been cleaning up my inbox and basically archiving my e-mail over the past few days but before i send 'em over to the archives, i read at least a few of the mail threads. one of those was an e-mail i sent apojim last january 5, 2006, which i wrote:

"i remembered you telling us about your real name being haring liwanag. i was actually thinking about mine 3 years ago when i read paulo coelho's fifth mountain. ever since that time, i've asked myself the question. i've always thought it was independence put it didn't ring true to me. it was only part of my name but not my whole name. last december, while i was in kabayan, benguet, i finally found out: courage or tapang. it complements my totem as hawk (which i have taken since a friend of mine told me that she reminds me of a hawk) and being a warrior of the light, albeit with much imperfections and stumbling from time to time. thanks for sharing about real names and because of that, i've started questioning mine again in the past few months."

amazing how a confluence of events, or rather of how life purports itself in such a manner. about a year after, i declared the same possibility in my advanced course in landmark education, furthering my true nature, of who i am in this world.

today, i find myself such.