My Dad

My Dad, Iopu Taesali · October 26, 1926- 2001

'Ua alu atu le afi - passing the fire. A Samoan chant for important social events.

My Dad was born in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the youngest of fourteen children. I once asked my Dad many years later why he would leave paradise and he said; "Daughter, what can you know about the world from an Island only 7 miles wide and 14 miles long?" He used to go back and forth from here to the island. I later found that he had become disillusioned with Samoa. He believed the American dollar had destroyed his island and after awhile he had no desire to go back home again.

But how did he get to America? My father was a brand new immigrant from Samoa, just 18 years old when he got to America. The story goes that in 1945 he stowed away on a cargo ship from Pago Pago harbour, the heart of American Samoa, with 8 others boys. When they finally got caught on board ship it was too late to turn back so they were all put into the brig and on their way to America. But my Dad had a secret. A stolen bottle of Tabasco Sauce from the galley which he kept hidden the whole trip. On the morning of their arrival to America my Dad drank the little bottle of contraband in it's entirety. He thought he would get hot and appear to have a fever, which he had learned would put him in quarantine for at least 21 days, buying enough time for a relative to come and claim him. It worked, but he paid a greater price than expected.

Actually all the boys that stowed away on that cargo ship became American citizens. They were scattered throughout the United States. All the boys kept in touch with each other and learned about their families, marriages, deaths and divorces. They even had a few reunions and teased my Dad incessantly about the Tabasco sauce every chance they got. They knew when he enlisted to the U.S. Army, because they did too. They knew when he got married, because they did too. The "boys" knew of my birth and the births of my brothers and sisters, Dad's divorces and all of his trials and tribulations just as Dad knew of theirs.

My dad died of a massive stroke at 75 years old.

Correction

So sorry! I forgot to add my source for Thrivecraft. The source for Marianne Williamson was Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson

An Epiphany

I was reading an interesting blog this morning called Thrivecraft, written by a former Buddist Monk, turned life coach. I was reading her article about how wonderful it would be to have help available all the time.

I had an epiphany! As I was reading, it dawned on me that I have been helping myself my whole life! Here's what I read.

Find Your Answers September 8, 2009 The Easy Way to Create Your Personal Help Hotline.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to feel that you could have help whenever you need it? The astonishing fact is that superb help is right there inside you, waiting to be tapped, every single day. Whether you are in the supermarket wondering what to buy for dinner, or finalising a major life decision on a deadline, inner answers and deep personal guidance are only a few breaths away.

The wisdom of the universe is ever present – a great sky full of answers to your everyday questions and a vast ocean of understanding that makes sense of your deepest problems. In days gone by we knew how to commune with this cosmic guidance system, but our modern lifestyle is such that we’ve by and large forgotten all about it. We scurry about getting more and more confused, taking wrong turns and running in circles. No wonder we don’t feel so good these days, that something is missing in our lives.

This is what I thought:

I have been looking to the universe my whole life, I just forgot that's where I draw my strength. My whole life everyone that has known the real me was amazed at my strength, and commented on it all the time. Since I was a child I have known that I had to rely on myself and I just knew instinctually to go within. It was only when I allowed outer influences, like people, such as my mother, father, schoolmates and others to convince me that I was worthless and not enough.

I see now that living with those kinds of influences has created a low self esteem, how could it not? Convinced by my elders and others, my damaged self esteem has actually joined the attack. I believe now that my low self esteem has alway been the part that battled my inner strength, fighting, sabotaging and making biting remarks that played and re-played in my brain about strength. Minimizing, always minimizing!

Well that is going to change starting today! I will look into what is available out there and most importantly, I will look within and rekindle that relationship with my self.

That reminds me of the quote from Marianne Williamson; "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Jill Bolte Taylor's Message of Peace

I have long been a fan of T.E.D.. TED is all about "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

Great thinkers gathered together for great talks to change the world. One such talk, filmed in Febuary of 2008, deals with Jill Bolte Taylor, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html a brain scientist. She has written a book entitled; "My Stroke of Insight" ,about her having a stroke. Click on Jill's name to view the video, if you are the least bit emotional make sure you have a box of tissues, I cry every time. It is one of the greatest messages of Peace for the world I have ever heard. To view her book, click on the title.

If you are at all moved by Jill Bolte Taylor's incredible message please let me know.

A Little Bit of Ugly

Funny thing Synchronicity! I wonder about it all the time, my life is so full of little synchronicties.

For instance; I've been doing an online workshop, Vision Journaling, with True North Arts led by Kathryn Antyr the Collage Diva. There have been many synchronistic miracles for me since delving into that workshop on envisioning your dreams. Here's just one. It's week five and Kathryn sent us the Wayne Dyer's, Excuses Begone affirmations from his site. She put them on ATC sized cards and posted them on the workshop website. So, I accidentally came across that deck of cards that I have been working on. I only saved the unattractive little things because somewhere along my rambling travels on the Internet, I found a lady talking about how you should make something ugly everyday. So, anyway as I worked with these cards trying new techniques and working with new materials I managed to make lots of ugly things. I would love to give that lady credit because as I made my little displeasing cards I thought of her and kept forging ahead. She has been a wonderful taskmaster for me and has made me think keenly about my art. She's made me see art as an expression not just something pretty and these little cards certainly are not. But it just so happens there are exactly the right amount of cards for Wayne Dyer's affirmations........funny how that works. I went to work gluing down each affirmation on to the little uglies and now, the affirmations really do feel like they are mine!

"Dominion" and "The Stories I Tell Myself"

I just did my morning Tarot reading and was thinking as I shuffled.

But first I have to tell you this;

In the back of my mind I've been formulating a theme for writing about myself on this journey. Something to go with the life timeline I'm creating to add details of different times and thoughts. I was thinking about calling it “The Stories I Tell Myself”. It's from something I read on the internet, got from one of my online groups or someone's blog or a website I'd been looking at. Or it could even be from something I've been reading recently. It's about what we tell ourselves so we don't have to accomplish the goal or succeed. Possibility from Wayne Dyer's Excuses Begone. Anyway, I thought that it would be fun to start a separate journal entry about “The Stories I Tell Myself”.

Well, back to the tarot reading........while shuffling I was thinking about a commitment I had made to one of my spark teams, possibly, Inner Journey, about meaningful eating, just the night before, I'm talking hours here. That night I wrote to my team about how I would concentrate on meaningful eating of my meals by lighting candles, using special dishes and playing soft music.

Within an hour of making that commitment I took my bowl of soup to the TV room and sat down and ate that entire bowl of soup in a semi-trance.

OK! Back to Tarot.....Shuffling. Here's the “story” I was telling myself when I realized that I had completely forgotten about my team promise..............

If I had my own house I could do all that.

If I didn't have a room mate I could do that, because it would be an inconvenience to her for me to do all that.

If I was home every night (I'm a caregiver for the elderly and work 72 hour shifts) I could do all that.

Then as I started listening to the stories, I realized, I need to find a way of making my meals meaningful no matter where I am, and that I need to listen to these stories I tell myself because there's a real message there......very interesting!

OK! Now, the reading!

The Dominion card in the soul position, reversed. That's the 2 of wands, and reversed means there's a block or resistance to the idea of the card.

This is the dictionary's meaning for dominion:

1. Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty: "The devil . . . has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion" (Jonathan Edwards).

2. A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.

3. often Dominion Abbr. Dom. One of the self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth.

4. dominions Christianity See domination

That's exactly what I meant when I was going over all the stories I tell myself, thinking about having my “OWN” house and “room mate”, not being in control to choose whatever I want.

This is what the tarot handbook said about my card, Dominion; “Spiritual Sovereignty, Power” - This is a state of integration and optimum balance. This is Mars in Aries; Mars shows dynamic forcefulness, energy, charge and direction, but only from a place of full power, dominion and balance (the two wands that are unified). When a person is drawn toward this card it is an indication of powerful spiritual force and drive to begin something new, to be a pioneer. There are gifts of dynamic energy and leadership ability to be expressed.

Now I took that to mean; I have the power! I can do it the way I want. After all I'm not really asking for that much. May be I won't light candles or listen to soft music and I'll just use the plates and dishes that are available at the moment. I can certainly eat with silent meaningfulness, no matter what.

Releasing Past Decision Guilt

I'm trying something new. I'm sending my thoughts out into the universe. I'm releasing old useless stuff from my energy field, and sending it to the universe to be transformed into good, positive and empowering energy. From this day forward I am not going to feel guilty for having lived my life the way I did. There were good and bad reasons for the decisions that were made and I may or may not get to the bottom of all those reasons, it's enough I have thought of them.

I do hereby release all the guilt feelings entangled in those decisions and promise to stop and mindfully make new decisions while in a conscious mindset. I do hereby relinquish all anger and hurt feelings to their rightful owners. I am no longer willing to carry that burden. I forgive everyone involved, especially myself.