yes I actually did a quiz, don't die of shock Seth...

 In the course of two days my life changed so drastically that it coincides with the changing is mind-numbing.  I was damn near suicidal on New Year's Eve, scheduling left me to countdown the minutes alone after a very unpleasant day. I felt so empty and lonely and that I could just die of that..  Not complaining just setting the scene.
Now let me tell you about Day One of 2008, everything changed.

The level of joy in the house skyrocketed as me,Sunshine and Mikey cleaned and decorated the house like a real family.  Our once sad little apartment is aglow with new life and clearance Christmas lights and decorations creating a sprawling celestial ceiling(which made Seth a part of it because it was her thoughtful Xmas gift that said I still know you and love you that inspired us to actually go ahead with it).  Stargazer's soul is dancing.

Then, my beautiful sunshine made the most delicious dinner of teriyaki chicken and noodles complete with a dessert of chocalte covered fruits and homemade buck-eyes.  The three of us settled in and started a new series together and for one amazing day and night not aone of us felt alone or lacking, stressed or angry.  And no it can't be like that all the time but that it was the first experience of the new year it whispered promises of things none of us had dared to dream.
Then we slept peacefully, heavily and woke a little late in thr day alive and refreshed.

This is not my New Year's resolution(which i generally don't make), this is my New Year's resolve. 

Dear last year, Year of the Chariot, thank you so much for all the hard lessons and ensuring I understood the difference between being directing my own life and being drug along 
Dear World, I am done trying to save you, you are unfolding as you should. 
Dear old friends, continue on with your lives in peace without my interference whether they be grand or small.
Dearest Nakama, I am and will always be your Captain Luffy and do my best to honor that.
Dear Source, I'm ready to create joy with you and watch over those entrusted to me.
Dearest beloved, I will shine for you and because of you.

And to the next year of my life, Year of Strength, 2008, let's go, lets do it, i'm ready

and with that Happy Fantastic Promising New Year 2008 to all!!! and here is my gift


This is Rendi, she is the baby sister of the Prosperity Fairies. The very first Frosted Fairy to come across by being given form by Stargazer's art. on Dec. 29,2007
She posesses great magic as do all the Frosted Fairies.  Now that she has been allowed onto your computer, she has the chance to work in your life.  Sort of a fairy computer virus.

Rendi can start a new period of riches in your life by stealing away all that is no longer necessary.  She has the unique ability to turn painful memories and harmful beliefs into beautiful fossils that in time will be the energy to empower eternity.
As she presses them into amber jewels, she leaves little gifts of gratitute that attract greater gifts from her older brothers and sisters.
Her favorite food she tells me is cupcakes. Her Resting stone is amber. When I asked what that was she told me every fairy has a special stone where they can rest and recharge, then she asked me what mine was.

May she be the blessing to you she is to me.  And as now she belongs to the world, send her off if you wish to anyone you love or just PM a stranger on a message board if you will.  Also feel free to print her out and put her picture up or carry her in you wallet or your heart, because whereever she appears is one more place she can bring riches and fashion a new bed of amber to rest her head.

This is not about reflection.  It's not about epiphany.  It's about today.

A litlte more than a year ago, the amazing(and it is still amazing)Black Parade came out.  Not long after that I began to change in heart, in mind and soul.  I spoke of God and self, fear and trust.  And I never said I knew it all.

That passion served me well as the year was unrelenting in serious issues and startling developments.  A year of stumbling and barely wanting to rise back up though it had started so well.

I look back at the posts I made this time last year and it seems another person was writing them.  It's not even that I'm depressed so much as I stare in disbelief of how amazing I once was.  Once, hell it was only a year ago.  Did the bandleader get amnesia?  Did my higher self wander off do find something more interesting to do?  What in blazes did I know then that I don't now.

Cause that's where I am...now.
Now is a weird place because I am not unhappy just not ambitious.  I'd follow my heart, I'd listen to the cries of my soul.  This has always been my creed and my way of living...surviving.   Is it a question of no longer fitting. Anywhere.  I don't know.  Last year I was on a "mission from God" but whether it was to inspire one person or "get the band back together"(yeah I know that's TWO gratuitious Blues Brothers references) or maybe destroy pathways, it feels complete.  And I feel empty.  Obsolete.  I keep waiting for that next assignment but it doesn't come.  i half expect my social hangups and physical pain to just disappear as indication that I can go do normal things and live a normal life because I'm not required for anything else.  It's odd, complicated, tricky, difficult, dangerous I was ready for those things.

I just get to the point where I want to tend the garden of my own soul and I have found a cemetary of cold stone.  Every thing is dead and withered and I'm not even sure if it's a matter of growing things elsewhere or trying to resurrect what might be dead dreams.

What happened?  Why has everything gone silent? I wish i knew.

 For the record I didn't fail or be rejected by art school, I ran out of money because the people responsible for the loan money were not very responsible ...this was a shock to me as well as I've spent years years thinking it was my fault and so did most of the people I cared about
For the record all I ever wanted to be to any of you was a good friend.
For the record when i'm cut I bleed.
For the record I know we are different people.  I realize one of us is a success and one of us isn't. Take that as you will.
For the record this one line is for Seth Seth I'm sorry I so tried to get you in. I'd already planned on giving you my pass if I ever earned another.
For the record I know who did and didn't love me. I won't use names, guilty or innocent, that's just a horrible thing to do.
For the record I didn't think I could hurt this bad
That's all I have to say.

 I asked the Source what it wanted of me today, I asked it in the form of the Norns.  In hopes I could get out of the tangles of the past.  With the desire to capture the moment. And if I was lucky I’d get a whisper of I can create that is yet to be.

 They were direct I guess they always are not to mention unexpectedly personal. Speaking in symbols so very familiar I almost can not bear to hear but I will listen.

In the past I have been blinded by my own fears and absolutes.  Well I suppose they only echo what my special someone so eloquently put last night. Not surprising. 

 There has never been intended malice in my blindness, I have always believed if you say you love someone your soul must become the strong fortress that guards them from the sharp things the world throws at them and if you cannot you are a hypocrite. 
If you take the arrows and you bleed and you fall, then you didn’t love them enough.  It’s like love should become the armor that you need to deflect them and if your armor is not strong enough you have failed your love.  And if that happens well you hardly deserve to live let alone the love they give you.  And it was all ...so what if I can do this or that or if she says my smile lights her soul or he says I inspire them…I can’t do the basic I can’t protect them.  Wouldn’t they be better off with someone who could. And what value is there in a few so-called wonderful traits if a soul is lacking in the what seems so necessary.  
Sure if they were additions to what seemed to me so mandatory and so nonnegotiable then I’d be a pretty awesome being but as I am now…pretty much worthless.

So taking a moment to say okay the past and that thinking was fucking harsh I look in the mirror, not behind me, not ahead.  I ask what is.
 And I am told about the yew tree. So strong is the yew tree that the rune based on it cannot be read reversed.  Here I stand confused didn’t we just establish my unchangeable thinking is what got me here. Maybe I’m supposed to see what doesn’t change if I walk away from these old beliefs that have infested my brain disguised as truth.  What have they ever done for me. Did they make me a better person. 
A kinder friend. 
A sweeter lover. 
A more passionate artist.  
No they made the very people I was trying to protect feel guilty as they watched me fall full of arrows. Not to mention every perceived failure didn’t end with pulling out the arrows and letting the wounds heal but as reason to accept another slew of arrows this time self inflicted. 
Now it would seem I’ve been going about things all wrong. I’m a little lost to be honest but I’m going to stumble through this and come out different. 
It has always been at odds to me the idea I could just be by nature “squishy” on the outside and strong at the same time.  So I spend my whole life trying to make armor or build a fortress so no one has to be burdened by the squishy and I don’t have to hurt.  To put it mildly, I am not a blacksmith and before I make the armor I’ve burned and cut myself on the metal I intended to use or I’ve crushed myself beneath the heavy stones I was trying to build the fortress with.  Is there another way to live.  Can I really just stop trying to fix what the Source created.  
My squishy is on the outside so maybe I should accept the shelter offered instead of daring everything to come at me because this time.. this time it will be different you will see what I am truly made of and these attacks will just bounce off me. 
Thorns protect the rose but aren’t they the self same rose.  The name thorn seemed appropriate, a way to call my spirit to serve it’s purpose.  The purpose of protecting and creating a place for that which is so sacred so special that they shouldn’t have to worry about the sharp things they have more important things to do.  I must love them enough that I could do this love inspired task.  I do love them enough, enough to kill myself trying and not see I really AM killing myself trying. 
Ignoring all my own beauty, my own talent, my own purpose because I thought when love was this big this huge these other things should be secondary.  I want to start loving the way I love not the way I thought was best but I have to crash course on how that is. 
I do love them enough and how much I wonder of that love have I set aside because the way it wanted to express itself wasn’t good enough for me. 
And how can anyone who loves me think they are good enough either if they consider themselves judged at the near impossible standards I judge myself.  I never have judged them that way even when I was lashing out it was because I didn’t want them to know that I was trying so hard to cover the squishy because it was a weakness I could not abide in myself.
 

So where does that leave me and what comes next. Wow, those Norns are harsh. Remember where the thorns are found they say and grasp the rose. They want me to go from this is weakness to this is beauty.  This is broken to this is me.  They whisper that the future holds the secret to a riddle.  Is thorn the name of someone who can’t bear the thought of being the rose. Worse, yet, might it be a very appropriate name in hopes of warding off the world for a rose born naked of thorns. Funny thing is, visually if I am honest when I write or hear the word thorn the image is of the rose itself.
  Did I take the name Thorn because it was the only way I could see myself as even part of the rose. And if I can accept that can I really accept what it means to be the rose.  
Can I live beautiful and obnoxious in the face of the world knowing I can’t protect a damn thing.  Can I be awe-inspiring and lead the way if my truth is I could so be easily stamped out of existence. 
I’m reminded of that image I think it is from the osho deck of the rose that grows out of the sidewalk, how strong it had to be, how amazing to come out of the concrete but still it doesn’t have any way of protecting itself let alone anything else once it blooms. There are other things in the world like diamonds, lovely, worthy and very nearly unbreakable. The more you try to destroy them the more finished they are.  I am not a precious gem.  I do not have this combination. 
Perhaps, just perhaps it is I who has more to do and should accept the protection from those who build mighty fortresses with ease.  It doesn’t hurt them to shield me like it hurt me to shield them.  They can stop wondering and worrying how long is this sweet but silly little rose going to last if they will not let someone save them from themselves.  They can stop asking why can’t I help you?  Why isn’t what I’m offering good enough. 
I wonder if there are times they don’t just want to crush me thoroughly rather than watch the long process of heavy wounding and agonizing healing.  Must be frustrating as all hell. 
So let’s try… no more false thorns that threaten only the ones I love and never serve any other purpose than wrecking the warm safe place that knows what I need and what I don’t…what I am and what I’m not.

Though I do wonder if I have lost another name or if it can serve as a reminder of what I’ve learned. I honestly couldn’t say right now.

today is a good day...no a great day..for those of you who know me you will understand my joy....(total fan moment)
Funimation has my beloved ONE PIECE!!! staring with 144 they are taking over the tv broadcast AND(dying) they are releasing uncut DVD's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(which will eventually include the whole series)
Funimation is one of my favorite studios.  I am thrilled!

Welcome back kiddies!  Where you been?  Oh wait I was the one who went missing.  My bad.

This morning I got up and it was unlike any other before.  And if you can say that a handful of times in your life you're on the right track.  The truth is they all are.  Each morning dares you to embrace all the Source has given you and be ready for what is next to come.  If it is words of gratitude, speak them, write them, scream until you know what it is like to make your very heart hoarse.  Watch what what i happens I swear the Source will coat the raw and torn with the cool promise of creative birth.  All you have to do is be willing to burn up the dorment contents in your soul.

Inspiring words, Bandleader but what does that mean.  For me, today it means considering, promise, and the nature of reflection and expectation.  A promise is something you make when you think you can deliver on a certain set of circumstances and your expected reaction based on previous performance.  It is commitment.  It is an oath.  But dear ones is it a prison as well. It can be.  In our quest to "know ourselves" to be living our truth how many of these promises do we strive to keep.  Instead of focusing on the changes you need to make, the promise you've made yourself and the expectation you force upon circumstances you've got a proven track record of certain responses stop and breathe.

Is that what your heart wants to talk about?  I'll bet not I bet it wants to sing,dance, create, heal and burst with it's newfound freedom.  And dear ones all you have to do to tell your heart it is free- is listen.  Weigh it down not with fetters of what I'll do or what I'm working towards.  Source knows your mind will do enough of that.  Every minute of every day it beats steady.  In each beat lies your truth. Why worry about promises, it's not our job.  If we are to manifest our world we must be able to cast away promise for certainty.

The certainty that we already possess anything we could promise to find within ourselves.  Whoa what?  Back up, what about self-awareness and growth.  Don't we need doubt to protect us and promises to keep us on track?  No,my starry eyed dreamlivers.  Does the Source, did the Source doubt for one minute what you were made of or if the world had a place for you.  No it did not.  It said this is what the world is and this is the next special thing I must call into being and poof there you were.  Focus on keeping promises and you focus on how likely you are to fail at your task.  This leads to second guessing.  Don't make promises make mistakes as you stumble along your glorious defiant way. 

Fuck up, fall down, and when the hand is outstretched to throw you back in the air from whatever Source it appears know you aren't learning to fly you are remembering how to use your wings.

Don't fear what you've discovered to be true and don't cheapen it with promise.  It already is and you already are.

Promises can be broken.  Certainty lasts.  Let's shift our focus today to asking what the Source has for us to know for certain not what we must live up to.  It just might mean tomorrow we wake up and face a day unlike any other before and fall asleep knowing the same awaits us the next day.  Good days will become happy memories of what I did that bring me joy but bad days will not be shackles of what I'll do better ,just days that can never ever happen the same way again because of that you are certain.

Do that and you get days like the one i had yesterday.  Yesterday the Source proved to me in spades how many of the truths I dared not embrace fully were uttter certainty.  Phoenix Day was everything I had known it would be and so so much more.  I knew it would be special but no where near the family event it was.  Every feeling of Christmas past that I had starved to find in my adult life paled in comparision.  The gifts meant more.  The company was truly nakama. There was healing laughter and joyous raucous singing. here was created a sanctuary and a home for everything and everyone I hold dear. And I knew I was not dreaming about being a family i was living it,  Phoenix Day for me was an all day act of belonging and becoming.  I belong and so do you, I've become and so have you...no more promises let's just be certain the Source knows we have something to be and get on with it.

The books will hold the history, the songs will remind of lessons learned and joyous triumphs... but not without the authors who dare to say they KNOW how the story ends and how the melody goes.

Hi! I just wanted to say thank you to all my LJ friends for a year of joy and laughs. So here is a small present, a drawing of my MCR/TBP chibis to say Merry Christmas.
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k204/cadetmhughes/MCR_chibiXmas.jpg