Desiderata was written by a relatively unknown American author, Max Ehrmann, in 1927. Later, in 1959, Reverend Frederick Kates of Saint Paul’s Church, Baltimore, included Desiderata in a sermon for his congregation, which eventually spread and became a big hit.
Desiderata contains many pearls of wisdom for living a peaceful and joyous existence upon this planet. In it, the unknown author details a perspective for “keeping peace with your soul” while navigating your way through a challenging world. All useful information.
The popular 1970’s song, written by Wes Crane, is included in the link below. I realize, being from the 70’s, that this music is dated and a little bit cheesy, but I couldn’t resist. It still has a good and powerful vibe, and besides, it’s only a matter of time before it’s back in style again! Here’s to being a happy and fulfilled child of the Universe!
This poem represents the human experience, and in it, the varying cast of characters that share the stage of life with us. As fellow travelers crossing over to “stage right” or “stage left”, we assume that our roles have been permanently cast. With our character and lines already set, we have forgotten that we are only actors playing a part.
As actors following yesterday’s scripts, we could allow our negative opinions and left-over prejudices and attitudes to dictate how we will treat another. Or, with the continual conscious choice of love, kindness, tolerance and compassion, we could change the script of this world, thereby, making this stage a better place for life to play out.
(This poem came to a broken-hearted me, three months after Christian’s death. Showing me another perspective, it was a welcome gift of cheer, comfort and relief given to me from a higher aspect of myself)
I dreamed I was a body,
and you, a body too.
I dreamed bad things could happen,
both, to me and you.
I dreamed that there was sickness,
that death and loss were real.
I dreamed we could be separate,
Oh! … the pain that we could feel!
On my last blog entry, I posted an inspirational poem called “Invictus”, by William Ernest Henley. Although I have always been positively impacted by this poem, I’ve never known about the man who wrote it or his inspiration.
In my mind, and as my previous post picture suggests, I have imagined a story about a Captain with his vessel – rocking back and forth upon an angry sea. In this terrible tempest, dark and ominous skies imply a foreboding fate.
Lightening flashes briefly illuminate the scene while monstrous waves crash against this tiny ship and the great sea waits to swallow it up.
I wrote this poem in two stages. The first part is about the horrific emotions I felt, and the state of mind I was in, almost immediately. The beginnings of this poem emerged within a few weeks of Christian’s death, and for months, I felt the painful depths of each and every word I wrote.
It wasn’t until I was on the edge of life and death, or as I call it, “the living dead” that I could not hang on anymore. I begged my God to take me home. It was in God’s reply back to me that showed me a future, somewhere out there on that dark horizon. And even though, at the time, I wasn’t sure how I would emotionally arrive at it, I could, at least see where my journey was taking me. So, I wrote down the words of God. After doing so, I could see that God was making a promise to me, to hold on, in time I would be healed of the terrible grief I experienced, and even better; that a powerful transformation would occur in my life. Is all I had to do was to keep an open and loving heart, trust and follow the path and road signs (words) God laid out for me, in the second part of my poem.
By the end of it all, I could see through the illusion of death and that life just does what life does. It’s not personal. By the grace of God, I learned to have grace myself, and see that, although loss is very sad, there is no reason to fear separation from another; for in an infinite reality, we are, and always will be connected. We are infinite beings! It is just the illusion of separation of ourselves in this life, that confuses us so much.
(For my Beloved Christian, who left this realm, March 31, 2010)
