Tag: Wisdom (Page 5 of 6)

I Am Home

December 25, 2012 / Tom

What, I wonder, could I have seen to have been left so blind.

We know that we cannot look directly into a solar eclipse as it will render us blind. That’s how I feel now looking back at my period of blindness and insanity. I was staring at something so completely unusual that I was blinded by it. Fear blocked my Sun and, as a result, only allowed me to see Her edges, Her corona, and it blinded me.

The Sun should be left to freely roam across Her lover’s sky. She should be freely left to follow the laws of a Universe shared by those who love Her. The mindless fears of man do not change who she is, it changes who man is. It was me who thought this world was flat and feared to sail to Her in the horizon. She did nothing. It was I who believed She would sink beyond my sight into the darkness when it was me, so stuck in the spot of my own creation, who choose not to follow her to keep the mornings close. She was just being Her, it was me who saw that as something other than what it was.

It has been said that a man is but a sum of all of his experiences. That is a choice and while it may be hard to make other choices in the throes of conditioning, it is not impossible. It’s overcoming fear to set sail toward that horizon not just to test your world’s flatness, but to reach a place you want to reach beyond the grip of fear and doubt. There will be fear in getting there. There will be doubt. Yet, when you land on the New World and press your lips to virgin sand you will know the reason you set sail to begin with. You love Her, you need Her, and you will risk great peril to get to Her.

If you’re lucky She will be shining brightly when you arrive. She will grasp your face and caress your lips with Her own. She will not leave you. She will create winds to press your sails toward your destination. She will crack through the mightiest of storm clouds to remind you that She is there and exactly what it is you are fighting for. She will burn your skin and crack your lips and then create the rains that will wash it all away. She will remind you that you are a man, a fierce and unbeatable man, and you will rise to every occasion just knowing that She is there. You will growl in Her presence and somehow, in some way, She will bring you to the height of your soul and show you a view that proves you that you are alive.

When you truly love a woman you will face your demons and even yourself. You will find those parts of you that darken the skies and cause you to shut your eyes and you will defeat them. You will beat back the winds and the rain. You will stand taller even in the throes of weakness. You will fall, pick yourself up, wipe the blood from your brow and sweat from your eyes. You will growl again and keep on coming for more. The fire in your heart will drive you forward, toward that horizon where your Lover sits and begs you onward.

Now, I will close my eyes and sit in stillness and know the truth. I will feel the heat rise up into my crown and be ready to share it with Her. Feel it baby, and know it where you sit. Do not let go of it, and hold it tightly to your breast and let it consume you. Your man is here. Your man is back, and he has found the world that you have shown him to be as you said it was. He will be that man you can’t take your eyes of off. He will be that man that makes you sweat at the slightest touch. He will be that man who so captures your gaze and steals your imagination. Yeah, I am home.

“Stop It”

December 18, 2012 / Tom

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.” – Stephen Covey

I felt a familiar stitch in my mind this morning, a painful cramping that drives me to my proverbial knees looking for relief somewhere. I felt the sting of something riddle my mind with doubt, and I began questioning everything. It’s something I have found is a familiar pattern; one I can trace back to the time when I was taught not only to doubt everything around me, but to also doubt myself.

The doubt starts here, within me. Although I am strong, I often believe myself weak. Although I have a lot to offer, I often feel myself worthless. Although I am kind, caring, and compassionate I often feel myself cold and heartless. I know who I am even as I get lost in the insanity of who I think I am. Actually, maybe the thought of who I am is part of who I am, and when I finally readily accept the Doubting Thomas I can finally accept the St. Thomas.

In that place I doubt that anyone, at any time, could love me, be faithful to me, and accept me. I struggle for aloneness, often telling myself that I am better off the lone wolf than part of a pack that will, at some point in some time, bare its teeth against me. There are others so much better. Fitter. Stronger. More confident. More able. The list goes on and on as to why I am not worthy of the very things I thirst the most for; love, companionship, devotion and loyalty. If I extend them to you, you will invariably bludgeon me with them at some point.

This belief, which has proven true at various places in my life, is my own creation that is like a chain that has always bound me to a wall that is too of my own making. I may want to get there, but the chain of my mind attached to the wall of my own attachment to the past and the false beliefs that experience has created. I can feel me run to open arms but then can feel the chain pull me by the neck back to where I believe I belong.

I belong back here. You belong out there. It’s safer that way. Safer for you, and safer for me.

This morning, as I felt that old, familiar chain tighten around my neck I felt something else too. Something unfamiliar but becoming more a truth than a piece of fantasy. I felt the warmth of love so intense that it could not be ignored for the chill of the steel wrapped around me. It caused me to stop, to look, and to listen. I could see her love reach out to me. I could see her eyes look right through the layers I had created to hide myself from her at least partially. I could see her hand touch mine and utter a command that would resolve me to ending this lunacy.

“Stop it.”

I could see her loving eyes looking into my own.

“Stop it.”

I could feel her hand taking mine and strongly demanding me to hold on.

“Stop it.”

I could feel her lips nearing mine while she whispered into my head.

“Stop it.”

So, I stopped it. I fucking stopped it. And to those of you who do not know how glorious that moment is when you achieve such a monumental goal think back to that scene in Rocky when a battered and bruised man wants nothing more than to tell his Adrianne the truth and she finds him. He has nothing left – no face, no strength, and no thought other than to tell the only person that matters to him how he feels.

And she finds him. She fights her way through the crowd, through her own fear and her own shyness to tell the only man she loves how she feels. She bares her soul to him in front of thousands yet it appears that there is only the two of them standing there, each baring their truth to the other and taking the chance. The world may have been watching but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the complete absence of boundaries, the complete dismantling of walls and the complete destruction of the chains that kept them from knowing the power of that moment. They lived for each other, and they let it be known.

Yeah, Rocky is not a sports movie to me. It’s a love story; a deep, passionate and meaningful love story. Still, enough of the story, let’s get back to a slice of reality. I could get lost in that story all day because I find great meaning to it. I can relate. J

So, I stopped it. I fucking stopped it. I was Superman there, standing on the railroad tracks stopping a speed freight train before it destroyed yet another perfect moment in my life. I stood my ground. I braced for impact.

Nothing happened.

Well, I shouldn’t say “nothing.” To quote one of my favorite books/movies (Peaceful Warrior), “there is never nothing going on.” So, in order to best describe it in the way I know how, let me use a metaphor (I apologize in advance) and let me start from a place where I realized that nothing stopped going on.

We stood there, my chain growing taut and the air becoming harder to force into my lungs. I could see her walking toward me. She wasn’t asking me to struggle with my own limitations to get to her. She wasn’t asking me to break the steel that bound me to my own limitations in order to touch her. She came to me. I could sense her fighting her own thoughts and own experience to get to me, but get to me she did. I marveled at her, feeling somehow pathetic as this remarkable vision made her way through the mud just to comfort me.

Something struck me at that moment. I was not pathetic here. We were both showing one another something, and we were both learning from one another. We both were challenging each other, and we both shared a love that no real boundaries could keep hidden. I had as much meaning to this story as she did. She didn’t just grab my hand for me, she grabbed it because she needed it. She just didn’t look into my eyes to cut through my own layers, she did so to cut through her own. It wasn’t just my truth she wanted to take, it was hers she wanted to give. In that moment she was searching for the same thing I was looking for even if she did not realize it. Hell, I didn’t realize it until it nearly destroyed me.

“Stop it.”

It wasn’t a command to me alone. It was a testament to a new reality. So I fucking stopped it.

So, as the train came bearing down on me and I extended my arm to “stop it” I felt something. I felt her hand on my shoulder. I felt her lips come close to my ears and I heard her whisper,

“Not going to happen.”

In that moment there was no train, no tracks and no need to be Superman. There was her, me, the chain and the wall. I looked at her, and her at me, and I knew. It was time to end it all, and to move on to the sequel where me and this woman…well…that’s a bit private.

Once upon a time she handed me a hammer. Others had tried, but I often found I could not wield their tool. Either they were too heavy, or too soft, or too long or too short. The hammer she gave me felt just right and I have used it to destroy many of the obstacles in my way to where I want to go. Yes, I have been fixed on a star and yes, I will get to where I want to go.

I can’t start by destroying the chain. See, that chain is my friend. It allows me to roam within its circumference, and to feel the taste of liberation even as it binds me to the past. It allowed me to see love walk toward me, and to feel the beauty of being the one. The chain also shows me the direction to the real obstacle in this continuing saga. The wall. The attachment I have to the past that, brick by brick, has created the largest obstacle of all. It’s an obstacle I may not completely destroy, but it is one that I will turn into something I can easily hop over when I need to.

In this mixture of metaphors and dreamy states of mind, there is one constant. Motivation. Love isn’t just a tool of acceptance, it is a tool much like a hammer that we use in conjunction with stern resolve to get to the destination we want to reach. We can either choose to knock down those walls or attach a chain to them. It’s all about choice, and it’s all about finding the resolve to overcome those very temporary moments when the obstacle seems too high to climb or too thick to demolish. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to that moment when I just didn’t think I could overcome the obstacle. I’ve given up, walked away, protested that I just couldn’t go on only to find the motivation to continue. Sometimes it has been despair. Others, it has been hope. Sometimes it has been fear.

It has always been love. Always. Despair comes from the failure to follow your loving heart. Fear is the feeling that love is absent even when it is staring into your eyes and holding your hand. It all is a belief in doubt, where the doubts scream at you that you cannot climb this wall until you find the strength to simply say “fuck it” and reach for the top. Love is the motivator and regardless of whatever tool it shows itself as at the end you will feel its power if you just “stop” the activity of forgetting.

Well, that sermon is over. I have a lot of stuff to do, including “stopping it”. I have love to make and dreams to fulfill and good times to create. I have mistakes to rectify, and a wall to tear down. Then, I have a chain to dismantle link by glorious link. Yeah, I’d say I have plenty to do.

Peace.

Gun Control is an Act of Love

December 15, 2012 / Tom

Remorse. Sadness. Grief. Disbelief.

And anger. I can’t forget about the anger regardless of how much I want to.

Those are just some of the very human emotions that overwhelmed me as listened to the news about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Just some of them. To list them all would create something unreadable.

As I sat on I-95 near Philadelphia heading home from a long day at the office, I wept openly. Visions of my own children danced in my head. Visions of children everywhere flooded my mind. Those smiling faces, those wondering minds, those innocent souls. I could hear the banter flowing through those classrooms on what should have been just another Friday as children transformed into students eagerly anticipating a holiday season. I could imagine parents not unlike myself rushing around that morning, trying to get their children ready for a school day while trying to get themselves ready for a busy day at work. I could imagine parents who, had they known this would be the last time they would see their babies, may have forsaken all worldly endeavors for those final few moments of complete presence in lives they had a large part in creating.

Yes, our worldly endeavors seem a bit silly in those moments when we are faced with the loss of innocence and the finality of death. The Eagles losing yet another game is forgotten. The need to make end-of-year sales numbers seems meaningless when the idea of a tiny casket flashes across your mind. The arguments between lovers becomes very unimportant when the knowledge that one day you will not be with her and that one day physical and intellectual separation will be permanent. In truth, very little seems important when faced with mortality, particularly when it is the mortality of our children, our innocence, our posterity.

We fear permanence even more than we fear impermanence. The only thing that is permanent in our human experience is death, and we seem to fear that more than we fear anything else. It rattles us, not only because we don’t know what is coming afterward, but because it is so final. We not only fear our own deaths, we fear the death of our loved ones. Yet, it wasn’t death that found me weeping on a busy highway during rush hour, it was the death of innocence and of promise. It was knowing that each and every one of those children senselessly killed likely had no idea of what death was. It was knowing that each and every one of those sweet angels was left relatively unprotected despite deserving our fiercest shelter. It was knowing the fear they must have felt, and it was in feeling the ultimate betrayal as the shooter did the Devil’s work. How utterly devoid of compassion he must have been; how much hatred he must have held on to. It is quite unimaginable to, fortunately, the vast majority of us.

Now, I’d rather not focus on the man who destroyed so much in such a small period of time. Instead, I want to focus on the reaction many of us had to his horrifying actions. Many of us found love overflowing from our eyes. We found compassion pouring out of us. We found empathy, sympathy, and new-found purpose in each tiny droplet of salty water that made its way into air. We found that piece of ourselves that sometimes gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the illusion in which we “live”. We discovered a piece of truth in the lie, and will hold on to that truth at least for a little while. We will hug our lovers tighter tonight. We will be more present with our children. We will be more present with ourselves.

So, when I am asked “why?” I know what to say. I have no idea why a 20-year old man would lose his grip on his own humanity and divinity. Yet, those children did not die in vain if we, even for one second, pause to be more present in our lives and in our loves. Those children did not die in vain if the final words I say to my own loves is “I love you”. This understanding gives the very thing I can’t understand some understanding. It gives the senseless some meaning. It gives those of us who are doubting some sense of hope. That’s “why” my friends. So, get to it and don’t let those beautiful souls leave our consciousness while we have a chance to make good on the very thing that makes us who we are.

Make love like you have never made love before. Embrace each other like it is the last time you will feel those arms around you. Absorb the “daddy” and “mommy” moments fully as if they will be the last. Don’t live in fear of the end, embrace it and make it meaningful in your daily experience. Don’t go to bed angry with those you love. Don’t do anything that will sour your epithet. Don’t hug anger, hug love and don’t let go. Fight for it. Feel it. And cherish every moment you get to share it.

Love, laugh and live fully. Help others love, laugh and live fully. Let’s get rid of the need for instruments of death in our lives. Let’s cherish life and the living more than we cherish material things. Start saying “no” to your boss and “yes” to your family. Get high if you want. Whatever. Just start fucking living.

This is not an admonition to you. This is an admonition to me that I simply want to share with you. You are free to do as you please. Me, I want to have no regrets at the end of the last day I share with someone. I want to know I lived it all fully, even the bitter moments, and that in the end I’ve loved more fully than I’ve feared.

I am sure that soon enough we will see the smiling faces of those beautiful babies flashing across our televisions and computer screens. We will hear wonderful stories of victims, their families, and their own unique promise. We will cry again at the sight of young, smiling faces and we will make resolutions to end lunacy and seek love as our shelter. We will live, even for an instant, in the warm and loving embrace of knowing ourselves as more than money, more than ideology, and more than nationality. We will find our own promise and potential before settling back into our very human roles of forgetful man as the memory of those smiling faces fades.

I will also remember that the killer himself was once one of those smiling faces, and I will wonder what drove him to such darkness. I will wonder because I don’t want any other child to lose that part of himself that makes him both human and loving divinity. We all deserve our own sense of innocence, and it is time we start treating our children like they remind us of our own innocence and freedom. Children are not afterthoughts, they are not nuisances that keep us from work or our favorite reality shows. They are not weapons, and they are not punching bags. They are wonderful creations that we had some part in, and as such deserve not just the best of who we are as individuals, but also the best of who we are as a society. We owe it to them to pass laws that ensure that it is far less likely that they will be staring down the barrel of a firearm as they cry for a mommy and daddy who aren’t there to protect them.

Yes, I am done being on the fence about gun control. I’m done seeing the “right to bear arms” as equally important to the right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Those children lost their rights to life. They lost their rights to liberty. They lost their rights to happiness as a madman pulled the trigger over and over again of a weapon he had the right to own. Gun control is not about the erosion of American rights, it is about the guarantee of them. So, fuck you, fuck your need to own a semi-automatic rifle and multiple handguns. You only have two hands, and I doubt Nancy Lanza could have shot both handguns while handling a semi-automatic rifle in the process.

Face it, 27 people, including 20 innocent school children, could have been alive today if our government and We the People had the balls to get rid of guns as a “right” and, instead, made it impossible to get them. End the War on Drugs, that failed social experiment that only ensures more of us spend time in jail than ever before, and begin the War on Guns. Empty our prisons of drug users and fill them with gun owners who fail to see that they have absolutely no reason to own firearms if no one else does.

See, Nancy Lanza was not going to go hunting. She obviously did not find protection in the guns she owned as her son gunned her down. In fact, the guns she owned ended up killing her, so I’m sure if given a Mulligan she’d probably take them back even without a refund. I’m sure she loved the children in her class, so I doubt she felt the Second Amendment worth the lives of 20 of them as well as 6 of her colleagues. I doubt as she faced her end she thought of Charlton Heston and his famous “out of my cold, dead fingers” pronouncement.

I will not use the term “rest in peace” for those children and brave adults who died on December 14^th in Connecticut. That’s offensive to the very nature of the crime committed against them. Rather, we should have been blessing them with a “live in peace” on December 13^th. We should have ensured their safety then, not given it lips service now. Prayers and love and compassion are meaningless to them now, but how much could it have meant to them Thursday? Yeah, that’s what I mean. Tomorrow is too late. Now is what matters.

And for Pete’s sake let’s stop being married to an ideal written 250 years ago in a document that was meant to be changed when necessary. It is necessary now, more than ever, to rid ourselves of the scourge of firearms in this nation. Our children deserve it, and we, as loving, caring, and intelligent adults need to ensure we protect them within a society that demands change. Yes, our society is demanding change. That is evident in the gun violence that is destroying us from within.

It is so evident that all we need to is review the gun violence over the last 10 years and ask, “how is that Second Amendment working out for you?” I’d say not at all. It’s time to move beyond the ideas that violence is the answer (that isn’t really working out for us either) and toward something a little harder to do but much more rewarding (as Gandhi and the independent India he helped give birth to without firing ONE SINGLE SHOT proved). I love Gandhi and his example because he was a tiny, diminutive man who successfully rebelled against a world superpower without ever owning a gun. It’s time we follow that example and bury Charlton Heston’s somewhere far away where we never need look at it again.

For now, I will follow other people who are crying, praying and empathizing with those victims of gun violence who decided to follow the pursuit of happiness rather than the right to bear arms and were shot in the process. Yet I will not let this fire within me be buried with those victims. Instead, I will use it to work toward ensuring that we create no other victims for the stupidity of a few who love the power of shooting something so dearly. It’s time to end the lunacy, and never forget those who died for nothing more than an ideal.

Geminid

December 14, 2012 / Tom

As I watched millions of years of existence end in a flash across this evening’s sky, I felt small, impermanent and grateful for the realization.

It all ends sometime, someday. In an instance what was ceases to be, and what is becomes the new reality. Across the darkened sky of our existence everything ends in a flash that, to some, is but an instant but to others is an eternity. In a moment of intense flame it ceases to be, and the sky again becomes dark save the few diamonds left to prove its existence. Everything returns to darkness; everything returns to light.

I walk to the darkest spot I can find, feeling the emptiness in my hands highlighted by the hope in my heart. Am I but a Geminid in her evening sky? Am I but a flash in the night sure to exist in one moment but be gone before the her eyes open again? Am I but a cold rock floating aimlessly in the nothingness sure to die in the heat of her atmosphere? Am I destined to be but a bright flame across her darkness, across my own darkness; a flame that burns intensely but for only a short period of time?

I look at those lonely hands, opening and closing them as if to prove they are mine. I can see her hand resting nicely in my own, warming the skin left cold by the evening air. I can feel her lean her head on my shoulder and I know. I am not a cold rock floating aimlessly in nothingness. I am one of the diamonds, burning brightly and lighting the way. If only I choose to be, and if only she lets me. Her and I are not them, those strange vestiges of past pains left to scramble in the light of love. We are the light, the source of contrast between the blackness and the timelessness of love. We are what we choose to be, either to be lost in the mix of the mind or found in the millions of suns proving to us that even the darkness is temporary.

So tonight as I am surrounded by the darkness and the destruction of travelers who simply got too close, I am warmed by the heat of love cascading through my soul and the light of the love we both share. Perhaps it is time for us both to take the past and turn it into a chunk of stone and push it into nothingness. Maybe it is time for us both to watch that rock burn in the air of love and vanish into space. I can almost see it, her hand tightly in mine as her head lies softly on my shoulder watching with a smile as those barriers burn away. I can see her smile as I turn to her and say, softly,

“I love you.”

We both know. We have always known. The Geminid is not the love that we share but the barriers we have created keeping us from it. We both surrender in an instant, and utter a silent vow that this time we will know the truth and it will be ours. We make it ours, we own as if it is all we will ever own, and it becomes the reality we cherish. Even as I close my eyes to dream this lovely dream, a prayer escapes my heart as the beautiful mediation begins.

Yes, my love, my fears are in that rock you just watched disintegrate. Yes, my love, I feel the truth around us. Yes, my love, I know you are here, and that you love me.

I have heard her say it in my ear at least a hundred times. “I love you.” So, I vow to her this moment a truth that speaks from that part of me only she can see when her mind is silent and her heart is open.

Yes, my love, my doubt has just burned away in that streak you saw across our sky. Yes, my love, I am here. Yes, my love, I believe in you. Yes, I am ready.

Such truth brings tears to my cheeks. I have never cried in my life combined as much as I have now. Cleansing, releasing, forgiving and, finally, surrendering. Like any good fighter just at that moment of surrender I find renewed fight to continue on. Now, I am finally on the canvas, staring up at her beautiful face thankful for the knockout blow.

Yes, I am done baby. Yes, I am ready to end the battle. Yes, I want to leave this place and walk alone with you. Let me, please. Thank you.

Soon, the Sun will rise above that place where the ground meets the sky. I’ve always loved that place, and it is there that I ask her to walk with me. I deserve the chance and so does she. A chance to smile in the light of love as we push the Sun above the horizon. A chance to walk together without the rocks falling all around us. A chance to know one another without the voices telling us stories that don’t exist here. Yeah, it’s time to walk my love…

♥

The End

December 2, 2012 / Tom

He had stood there before her naked many times. He had shed tears of joy and doubt, and had stripped himself down to the bone often in the need to get closer to her. In ecstasy he wanted to not only be inside her but exist inside her. He could feel her throughout his existence, in every breath and every whimper of his heart as time and space devoured them whole.

Now, as had often been the case, he stood guarded against her. She had asked him to believe too much, and he just couldn’t believe the essence of her stories. He had often tried to wipe the dust of her stories off of him, but they smeared against his sweaty skin leaving trails of mud in their wake as his mind sought to find some semblance of cleanliness. Soon, he was lying to himself, making the mud clean and the chaffing of the sand against his skin a beautiful experience. In the end, as the chaffing turned to bloody, open sores that the mud infected he could do nothing but fall to his knees, rip out his heart, and throw it into the River she had suggested was her.

It was then he discovered that greatest lie of all. She did not love him truly. No, love does not see a naked warrior struggling and let him die. Love does not lie to him, pretending to be here when there. Love does not seek approval in the minds of others. Love does not hide itself from any part of any world known or unknown. Instead, love knows itself, and it knows its home. It comforts, it provides security, and it renews life within the tired beasts who strive to know it.

In the final act of the tragic play that had taken its toll on his mind, body and soul, the lies had simply become too much for him to bear. The mud no longer smeared upon his skin. Instead, it caked on him, making it impossible to breathe. Her ultimatums had worn him to a faint shell of himself, and her threats had turned him against even himself. He was beginning to feel weak, pathetic, and defeated even in the face of the great light they shared. He no longer looked like himself, and he no longer felt like the proud warrior he was when they had first gazed into each other’s eyes.

She had once given him a light and taken his breath with the sight of her. Now, she was blinding him with his own tears and choking him with his own hand. He had a feeling that she had been down this road many times before, but he had not, and he had no desire to travel with her toward the graveyard she deposited the bodies of those who dared walk with her too long. No, he would end the journey before his own demise, and he would no longer pretend the mud felt like gold and the open sores felt like freedom.

Once he stopped blaming himself for the fear she offered him he began to see the truth. The many untruths, the many stories, the unusual demands and requirements, and the box she built for them was way too much to bear. She had suggested that their box was special, but he knew better. Their box was designed to keep them from being special. It was there to protect her from the inevitable failure she knew she would create. It was there to appease some childish notion of ownership of others, and to deny the “special” relationship she said she was creating from the very breath it needed to survive. He had tried to live in that box, but freedom was his goal in this life and as he struggled to inhale under the weight of walls and lies he could not bear the confinement. He moved on in no uncertain terms.

His love would be one that lifted him up, not held him down. It would display him with pride, not hide him in some idea of security. It would include him, not lie to him in order to exclude who he was and what he would do. He would give his life to and for his lover, and in return he simply asked for the complete openness, honesty and consideration that he would so readily extend.

He had learned much in his life. He now valued honesty, respect and openness above all. They were gone from her some time before their last breath together, and it just took him time to see it, understand it, and move beyond the torturous thoughts that leaving her created. It took a great sense of courage to finally end it, but as he sat alone in his dark room and cried tears of great anguish he know that he had done all he could and simply had nothing left but those tears to give.

At the end the final bell had been struck, and he walked away battered, bruised and bloodied but with a sense of success that exposed an inner truth. He had given her his all, and though the lies and fear in her had proved fatal, he was returning to himself and to the truth he had learned was all that mattered. He loved her deeply, and with a passion he doubted would ever exist again. That was the truth, his truth, and although he could not move beyond the pain of deceit he would hold his head up high knowing that he had fought without fail and nearly died in the attempt to honor that truth. In the end he could not have lost, for he had discovered within him something he never thought existed, the capacity to love without fail, trust without fear, and know the beauty of living for someone other than himself.

He was far from perfect, but he tried to overcome his imperfections for the love he had discovered. He worked hard on her behalf, and that in itself had proven a victory. He could now know that with a woman who could love him equally well he would never need struggle again. That, however, is for a different story yet to be written.

The End.

The Black Wall

November 7, 2012 / Tom

This was a vivid dream as real as any waking moment he had ever experienced. He walked alone a field so dark there was no form, and with each step a fear that there would be nothing which would hold him steady until the next foot fell. In the darkness he wondered, and there in the space within space he found himself questioning everything.

Off in the distance something shined like a star contrasting brightly against the emptiness. He approached warily, unsure not only of what it was but also unsure of the safety of the journey to it. In this darkness there was no security, only insecurity, and in this walk toward the light there was no guarantee that his feet would fall on steady ground. He couldn’t even see his feet, or the rest of him, let alone the ground that lie ahead. He just knew he couldn’t sit still, that he needed to move forward toward the star lit against the abyss. He wanted – he needed – to get to that spot where the light would show him all there was to see.

Slowly, almost painfully, he neared the light. He could now make out the form of a wall. It was a dark, black brick wall highlighted by a brilliant white mortar which reflected the light brightly. He could not see the source of the light, or the size of the wall but as he looked away the light only make the blackness surrounding him darker and more ominous. Somehow the wall itself made him feel both lonely and loved, as if somehow now he had found a purpose in the loneliness he had always felt and the hope that soon it would all end. So he pressed onward, painfully afraid of each step while joyfully hopeful in the journey.

The brightly-lit wall appeared to move toward him as he got closer as if it somehow sensed the fear he had in each step. It seemed to want to end his suffering although he thought it couldn’t possibly relate to such emotion. The wall could be nothing other than a wall, it had no ability to know him or his condition. It was just there, lit, tall, strong and unable to feel.

Soon he had to stop walking as the light began to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be harder to see in such bright, beautiful light than it was in the darkness. He had become so accustomed to the darkness that the light actually hurt him. He looked away, searching for comfort in the darkness while still desperately wanting to see the light. It was a slow, painful process, but soon he could look into the light without reaction. Then he could see a message written boldly in white scrawled across the wall. It wasn’t long from then that the message was clear.

“You may not live to see the end of this.”

He stood, frozen. The fear created within a lifetime came flooding to his face as his eyes began to let go a torrent of pent-up suffering. He dropped to his knees and sobbed. Yes, the end was near, and there was no certainty that he would live to see it.

As he sobbed uncontrollably he noticed through his blurred eyes the field in which he had walked. There were such beautiful flowers that extended as far as the eyes could see. Yes, he could see! Butterflies fluttered around him, some landing on his shoulders, others on his arms, still others on his head. They seemed to caress his soul, telling him “it will be all right, you are loved.” He looked out across the horizon not believing he had never seen any of this. The darkness wasn’t the only truth, there had always been this field, these flowers, the butterflies and the beauty that reached as far as the eyes could see. He had simply closed his eyes to it all, and when the smallest crack in his own blindness presented itself he found a light that lit the world. The journey hadn’t been a simple walk at all; it was his eyes being opened to the truth.

He turned to the wall that had given him hope and had inspired him toward his present moment. The light that had once lit it now lit everywhere. As he wiped his eyes and stood he read the message scrawled on it one final time. It had changed, and with a sigh and a swallow he read what it now said aloud.

“This is the end of it.”

He half-cried half-laughed at the revelation as a lone butterfly landed on his chest right where he now felt his heart beat loudly. He looked at her as she him and both seemed to know.

Love.

♥

Why Does It Feel Good to Enter a Woman? {Mature}

October 25, 2012 / Tom

Hey guys, do you want to know why it feels so good to enter a woman?

Nope. It’s not that. That’s your high school penis talking. It’s that type of boys’ locker room bullshit that has us falling in the mud as men. It’s why we can find ourselves, years after we began our journey, still spinning our wheels almost at the exact place we started. So stop living in the past and start honoring the man you are now. It’s time we start listening to the women in our lives.

Scary thought, I know. Most of us guys aren’t taught to listen. It’s time we start to learn. It’s difficult and it goes against our grain, but if we don’t a whole world of possibilities just passes us by. We lose far more than we gain by being the “men” we were taught to be, and I am one who is sick of losing.

So, what’s the answer? Why does it feel so good to enter a woman? (drum roll please)…

Wait for it…

It’s coming (sometimes too soon)…

And…

Well, not to be a party-pooper with some metaphysical stuff, but the reason it feels so good to enter a woman is because, in actuality, she is entering us (Collective groans from the audience expecting a micro-porn instead). Seriously, next time you go to rock the van with your woman, slow down. Just as you go to enter her, really slow down. Pay attention to every nanosecond, every small moment as you take your time fully connecting. See how you feel. Recognize it. Listen.

There, in that place, you will feel it. As that part of you slides into her (hopefully, if you’ve done your part, it slides with little effort) you will recognize the truth of what I am saying. While you are entering her she is, in fact, entering you.

Entering your heart. Your soul. Your entire Being. She fills you up, and takes you places you’ve never been. You both ride the wave, and you both end up exhausted mounds of flesh on the shore. In the end, though, you will say to whatever Universe you talk to in your moments alone, “damn, that Tom sure knows what he is talking about. I need to buy his book.”

Remember that sentiment. The book is coming, and your business is appreciated. However, the most pressing business at hand is to understand that sex is not just something you do to get off, it is something you to do experience a gift you cannot experience otherwise. Love. God. Whatever you call it.

When I see that picture of God as an old man with a rod in his hand, I often think that God isn’t the old man at all. God is the rod. The old man simply knows how to use it, and for that knowledge he gets painted all over the world and is worshiped beyond measure. So, learn how to use the rod and be worshiped. Not by the world, but by YOUR world. Her. The woman. The one who shows you who you are when no one else can.

That’s what real intimacy brings you. Not only does it bring you connection and love, it also brings you the best sex you’ve ever had.

Peace.

The Gift of You (The Beach and the Ocean)

October 19, 2012 / Tom

“Touch me there, my love, and discover a truth worth finding” ~Tom Grasso

Sometimes he was like an island beach, and she was like an enormous ocean. He would hold on to his fears and she to hers. She’d be consumed by her identity of independence, of power, of depth and he his identity of pain, experience and a fascination with the destiny that left him here, as this island, longing for the sea. Both were so consumed by who they were that they failed to realize what happened when they touched at that place we call the “shoreline.” There, the ocean and the beach become one, and it is there that the greatest magic in the Universe turns water into a bit of sand and sand into a bit of water.

There is not much magic being the beach or the ocean. All it takes is an illusion and a desire to put that illusion above all others. Yes, we often put the illusion of who we are above the reality of who we are. We so identify with our waves, with our dunes, with our depth and with our coarseness that we neglect the wonderful experience occurring where the two meet. We are so dependent on the dream that we often tell ourselves that we love the dream and in the process destroy a dream far greater. We even suggest that there is nothing else as important to our existence as our identities and that we are done experiencing this existence beyond the boundaries we have created for ourselves.

There are times when I am so in love with being the beach or the ocean that I can not truly experience the shoreline. I will be so attached to the hot sand or the water’s depth that I will never fully know the experience of the place were the depths cool the sands, and the sands warm the water. If I hold fast to this notion, I will never see how much I love the ocean, or the beach, and I will never fully get to know that beauty that I AM.

We forget that many times the real strength, power and depth aren’t just found in the illusions of who we are, but in the ability to allow ourselves to enjoy the shoreline outside the box of who we think we are. It takes real courage and strength to give ourselves to another, to become the Lover, when we have created the idea of strength in only ourselves. It’s easy to pretend to have strength in separation when we find comfort there. It’s comforting to dream about truth in the separateness of I from you, of him from her, of me from us when that is what we have created. It takes no real courage to stand on your own two feet and stare the Universe in the eye when that is who you think you are. The real courage comes from stepping off the sand into the mud, of rising out of the depths into the that place that is neither water nor sand but a bit of both. We step out of our box into the wet sand and often feel fear we want to run from. It gives us great comfort to hide in our secure box and somehow suggest that it takes remarkable strength to be there.

We are free to experience this existence in the way we want. Free will, the beauty and the bane of the human experience, is the sole mechanism by which we convert our ideas and thoughts into a tangible reality. We can lie to ourselves that we have no shame there even as we put the proverbial fig leaf on our most private of areas and hide ourselves from one another. We are free to profess our strength and our power and our independence even as we display none of it. We cater to fear, some of which shows itself as unreasonable anger and some of which shows itself as unbending inconsideration. Other times that fear is demonstrated as pain, the sand suffering in not meeting the water, and the ocean suffering in not meeting the sand. So we attach ourselves to what we know…pain, fear, or some other false sense of security. We all seem to relive our chosen stories when we simply fear walking from the beach to test the waters where the waves kiss our sandy feet.

A chosen few seem to find great pleasure at the shoreline. They take a great risk in giving themselves to their Lover, but with that risk often comes great reward. There is Heaven in that place where Lovers meet, a certain paradise fraught with undertows, riptides and strong currents. Heaven can certainly become hell from time to time, but to those who brave their minds and their fears to walk in the surf ecstasy is the answer to the challenges of their humanity. Because they speak a language only their Lover can understand, those souls indulge their fears and find solace in one another. They learn to not only give to each other, but to take from each other. They can still be who they are as individuals, but they also find that the line where they meet one another is a place where they find a source of great strength both inside and outside of themselves. See, the shoreline doesn’t just exist where two souls meet, it is also the place inside ourselves were our fears meet our love, where our minds, hearts and souls all mesh into an undeniable passion for another person.

That passion is beautiful. That love is Divine. That expression of human fear creates such a wonderful manifestation of human potential in love. Take a chance if you will. Express it freely if you can. Give in to it if you are able. Even while we are fine in being alone and even as we love who we are, there is a certain wonderfulness in offering yourself completely to another being who is doing the same. Trust is the result. Faith is the byproduct. You are a gift, and it would be such a shame not to offer that gift to someone who would do the same for you and to someone who breathes you in with each breath, and who lives to be by your side.

Live this truth and find a foothold in the ocean tide where fear can’t last for long and faith abounds in the gift of love, companionship and of who you are.

The Short Story of a Simple Truth

October 18, 2012 / Tom

He just knew.

If anyone asked him why he was in love with her, he simply replied “I just am.” If someone asked him how he was able to deal with the distance between them he would reply, “I just do.” When his friends wondered how he could deal with the weeks between seeing her he simply shrugged and said, “I just can.”

His replies had become simple over the years. When they began he would describe elaborately to all who would listen how much he loved this woman. He’d demonstrate his loyalty for all who would watch, and he would get into long discussions describing his love for her when he was challenged. There was no doubt in anyone he knew that he loved her, and that he was her man, and he liked it that way.

He had mellowed over the years. Soon the distance between them would close, and the time between visits would be nil. They had been committed to each other for a number of years now, and the years had converted what were rough seas into calm waters. She had healed him and, in some respects, they had healed each other. Now this man and this woman walked together in ways many would never know, many times simply to be with each other in a moment that would become eternity.

His once elaborate protestations of love were his truth. He had never known such passion for another human being. He felt something when he saw her. He knew all he need to know when he was with her. He needed nothing when in her arms and asked for nothing in their moments of passion. He felt her in every breath and saw her in the beauty all around him. In their moments apart, he could feel her hold him in the pink-hued clouds of a summer sunset. He could hear her whisper to him in the sounds of a running stream. He would smile at the thought of seeing this or that with her, and would vow to bring her to these places in their moments together. He wanted her to see his world and to know him through these things. Once she was there with him he could revisit these places in her absence and remember.

Once he feared. He feared her and in giving himself to her. He fought her, and she fought him right back. He tested her, and she refused to accept the test. She was not them, she was beautiful and smart and everything he needed. The nightmares and demon-voices would warn him and he would react, and she would fight him hard. He hated those voices, and he hated the terrors they brought to him. He knew the truth, and he wanted to believe.

Then he resolved to embrace the truth and own it. He stood firm and fought back against the onslaught of fear and insecurity. This time instead of fighting him, she was fighting next to him, like a warrior princess alongside her prince standing with their backs against the wall ready to win or die trying. It was in this battle that they found each other, and where that unbreakable bond of trust and love was made whole. He learned he could trust and have faith in her without question and she learned of his incredible strength and resolve in love despite facing the haunting face of his own demons.

When the dust settled they were standing there, hand in hand with their lips embracing each other tenderly. There they found freedom, and there she taught him more than he had ever learned. He proved to her the depth of his love for her, and for her that meant the world. He would never steal from her who she was but would instead stand guard and protect her without question. He would not control her, he would fiercely protect her independence. He would never need ask her for a thing, for she would freely give of herself to the man she loved without worry and without question. The Yin and the Yang met there, where they stood, and that was enough for the Universe to sing loudly.

From then on, when someone asked him why he was in love with her, he would simply reply “I just am.” When someone asked him how he dealt with the distance between them, he simply replied “I just do.” When someone asked him how could deal with the weeks that spanned between their moments together he simply replied, “I just can.” They were simple answers, particularly for this man so known for his elaborate responses.

Yet they were elaborate to him. They were very detailed in describing the indescribable. They described the gratitude he had for the gift that was her. They described the salvation he found in a woman so strong that she not only fought him but fought for him. Those simple replies encompassed an eternity of emotion and a never-ending spring of love within him. He couldn’t describe any of this to them, and he felt no need to anymore. Instead, he would hold his tongue and find her. There he would hold her, kiss her, touch her and make love to her in a way that fully described how he felt. Their eyes would speak a language no one else spoke, and their bodies would dance to a song no one else heard. It did not matter to them here in that place where they stood, where they laid, where they danced together in unending ecstasy. They had found each other and they were present in the moment they had created. All else had ceased to exist.

In their lives they had found a short story of a simple truth. Their entirety, their Universe, and the enormity of who they were could be found in three simple words they never failed to speak to each other. “I love you.” Those words righted a world that had once gone mad. Those words solidified a truth that spanned a million moments. Those words rang true for the eternity they described and the Universe they created. They lived it, they breathed it, and it became everything.

♥

I’ll Stand By You

October 13, 2012 / Tom

I’ll stand by you

I’ll stand by you

I won’t let nobody hurt you

I’ll stand by you

Take me into your darkest hour

And I’ll never desert you

I’ll stand by you

So the song goes. A beautiful expression of true love, a woman vowing her allegiance to her man. Equally beautiful is the man seems to have suggested a need for such help, for such devotion. His Angel has responded, and now he can heal without fear that she is abandoning him or judging him as so many others have throughout his life. He can focus knowing that his love is by his side, and will not leave regardless of the circumstance.

Wow. And yes, I am projecting. I know that, no emails need be sent to show me that wonderful light. So what, I’m a man who would love to have a woman who would stand by me regardless of the circumstance. Because I have been one who has not wanted it, and has pushed it away vehemently, I realize the beauty of wanting it. Maybe even to someday have it.

I also wonder if the singer is singing it to herself. What a better gift to oneself than to know you will never desert you. Yes, I’ve deserted myself many times over my life. I’ve abandoned my intuition, my beliefs, my values and my inner truth many times. I’ve left the love I feel within me at the door and acted like a moron in the quest of a security that could never exist anywhere but within me. I’ve clung to the cliff when all I wanted to do was jump off of it.

So, part of having someone standing by you is living in the knowledge that you are that someone too. You stand by you, you walk with you into your darkest hour. You sing love songs to you, and you adore the person you are. Someday, with a little luck and a lot of passion, the person you are in love with will stand by you too.

Don’t give up, never give up. Know with some practice that there will always be one person who will stand by you no matter what, and that is you. You are that special. As for that other person you’d love to share your life with? Well, that person is out there waiting for you. What you are searching for is searching for you. It will come. Somewhere there is someone wishing they had another person standing by them, and one day your paths will cross.

Be vulnerable. Be open. And when those paths cross for Pete’s sake embrace the moment.