Freedom

Every summer we celebrate our independence, our freedom. We make lots of noise by shooting off fireworks and invite great crowds of people to watch us do it. To make sure we remember we’re free we created a holiday called the Fourth of July, less we forget.

Forgetting seems to be a popular way of life. So many people live their lives in a perpetual state of forgetfulness. We’re reminded once a year to be thankful, to give gifts, to send cards, to say “I love you”, to remember our mother and our father.

OK. So we get busy and forget things. But it appears to me that what we’re forgetting is what really matters and what we actually fill our days with is insignificant.

Let’s go back to the original thought of freedom. How free are you? What is freedom anyway? I’m talking about true freedom on the inside like the freedom of a small child. Think about it. When a child is hungry it eats. When a child has had enough to eat it stops eating.

The fact that you may have been slaving away all day to prepare their food is not in their consciousness. As a result, they feel no guilt. They’re full, they stop. Sure we could try to force them to “have a little more, its good for you.” They know it isn’t.

My son and 2 of his friends created the Fun Cult. The three of them were all full adults at the time and realized how seldom people felt free enough to simply play. All games have rules so they made up 3 rules which were: 1, have fun. 2, if your fun is getting in the way of someone else’s fun go have your fun somewhere else. 3, safety. They were adamant about the order. Fun first.

You may worry about what people are going to say if you’re going around being free and having fun all the time. Speaking from experience, I’ll tell you what people will say. They’ll say, “I wish I could do that.”

Being free and living a life of freedom is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with money, job, position, health, wealth or family ties. It has nothing to do with education or lack of one or the 3 r’s – reading, riting, rithmetic.

I’ll tell you what freedom is not. Freedom is not ugly, boring, hurtful, hateful, gory, garish or unkind. Freedom is not putting yourself down and not putting anyone else down either. Freedom is taking care of yourself, loving yourself just as you are, bumps, warts, bags and sags.

Freedom is lifting up, dancing in the rain, laughing at the clouds, spinning in circles if you want to spin in circles. Freedom is being truthful with kindness. Freedom is taking turns which means that sometimes you do come first. Freedom is sharing without short changing yourself.

Freedom starts with me. Same as everything else in my world. When I let myself be free it also gives you permission to be free. When you’re free you give permission for her to be free. When she’s free she gives permission for him to be free. When he and she and them and those are free, well, we’re talking the whole world here aren’t we. And to think it all started with me being free. Who knew?

The Beauty of The Dance

Let’s talk a moment about life. I love to use analogies. To me life is like a dance.

There is a popular show on TV called “Dancing With the Stars”. You may have seen it. You may be one of the fans that watch it every week. When you simply watch the dancing you’re really not aware of all the hard work that goes into it. Done right the dance flows and looks easy.

You may look at someone else’s life and say the same. “Well, that’s easy for them to do, but, I could never do that, be that, act like that, etc.”

Everyone has their own way of dancing, their own style. We all have our own way of living, our own steps we take to accomplish a task.

To get back to life being like a dance – it never just goes in a straight line. At the very least it goes in a circle taking in the whole room. A dance never is completely still. There is always movement and the movement varies from a small step or a flutter of a hand, to a twirl, or a spin, or a dip.

Like life, dancing goes backward and forward, side to side. Sometimes you get your feet stepped on but you don’t punch the other person out because they stepped on your toes. You move away and keep dancing.

You may even fall down on the dance floor. What then? Do you lie there and moan making a fuss or do you get up again, dust yourself off and keep dancing?

I remember when I was taking Salsa lessons. The advanced members of the class were invited to be filmed while dancing in a beautiful lobby of a huge theater. Of course I went. I loved dancing plus the opportunity to dance in this particular building added to the excitement of being filmed.

There was a little flaw in my thinking. I was expecting a dance floor. Have you ever tried to slide or spin on a carpet? It doesn’t happen. Obviously, I must have had a huge scowl on my face showing all the complaints running around in my head. How could anyone dance under these conditions? What idiot put this mess together? Who on earth _________? Fill in the blank.

After one or two “not fun” dances no one wanted to dance with me. Hmmm, I wonder why? Things were not going my way and I was miffed to say the least.

Ever have a day like that? Of course. We all do. I did say life was like a dance.

Life is all about what you make of it. When the dance of life sweeps you off your feet, get up, dust your self off, find the beat, and start dancing again. if you just sit there on the dance floor you may get trampled by the dancers and then you’ll wonder what happened. Life happened while you weren’t looking.

Dance. However you dance will be beautiful because it’s your dance.

Starting the Countdown - Setting the Date

He finally worked up the nerve to “pop the question”, and to his relief and joy you said yes. Once you are engaged you get a few months to relaxe and enjoy this new kind of relationship with each other. Unfortunately, everyone is asking you those famous “when is the wedding?” and “have you set a wedding date?” questions. Eventually, you are going to have to start thinking about well when do you want to set your wedding date?

For some it is really simple, others they have no clue whatsoever. There are so many options, I mean there is 365 days out of the year, so how do you know what date is good for you? You don’t have to get married on Saturday’s like a lot of couples. There are the other six days of the week to. So where do you begin when it comes time to figure out a wedding date?

Here are a few things that might be able to help you narrow down your choices:

Venues you can’t do without

It doesn’t matter how supple you are, you and your fiancé are not going to agree on everything. It might be the church, or place you want to hold your ceremony at. Maybe you disagree on where you should hold the reception. Also, you will probably bicker on who’s coming and who isn’t coming.

Fortunately, once you decide on a church, reception hall, or venue for the ceremony, you will quickly find out that most of the dates are filled. You need to call at least a year or two in advance to get the place you want and find what dates are available. Well, at least that saves the arguing.

The perfect environment

Maybe the place of the ceremony isn’t what is really important to you. Probably, especially for brides, you just see how the perfect wedding would play out for you. That could involve snow falling softly, or the sun hitting the both of you perfectly sending you into a radiance of love. Maybe you see yourself outside on a warm beach, or inside with lots of hot food at the reception. If this sounds like you then just play off of what your dream wedding would be like. If you want snow then think about setting a wedding date in the winter. If you would like to be on a beach you probably want to set your wedding date for the summer season.

Real Life dates

Your own life might actually set the criteria for choosing a wedding date. If you are a teacher or have a set vacation time, then you are probably going to have to set a date around when you aren’t working.

So good luck choosing your wedding date, hopefully these tips will make it a little bit easier.

Wedding Rings

For those that are getting married, there are many things to be excited about. Buying a wedding dress, getting all the right flowers and picking out a cake are just a few of the things you have to do. Most of the time it is the women that do all of these tasks, but one thing that most couples do together is pick out wedding rings. After all, these are one thing from your wedding that you will wear for the rest of your life.

There are many styles and types of wedding rings that you can get. Don't let it overwhelm you though. Picking them out should be fun. Just try to have an idea of what it is that you are looking for and then set out to find something similar. The first thing you need to do before you even start looking is decide the price range that you are going to be shopping in. You don’t want to look at more expensive rings and be disappointed when you can’t purchase them. Tell the salesperson at the store what your price range is and then they will show you rings that are similar in cost.

Indeed, wedding rings come in a large variety of styles. There are plain bands that are very attractive. They come in many colors, just choose the one that is going to be right for you. The plain bands come in yellow gold, white gold and even rose gold. Rose gold would look gorgeous on any woman’s finger. If you are into silver, try the plain silver band. These bands also come in varying widths.

If you are looking for something with a little flare, buy wedding rings that are two tone or have diamonds on the band. The two tone bands are for those that can’t decide between the others. They are the best of both worlds. Choose rose and yellow gold bands and your ring will be the talk of the town. If you want a little sparkle, then add some diamonds.

Whatever you purchase, make sure that you are happy with it. After all, your wedding rings are a symbol of your love.

Life is a Piece of Cake

The world is like cake. Cake is not real food. We all agree on cake being something to eat but yours is different from mine. Mine is carrot spice cake. Yours may be chocolate, double chocolate, vanilla, yellow, white, devil’s food, angel food, black forest, German chocolate, with or without nuts, raisins, chopped fruit or orange peel, one layer or 10, with or without frosting/filling/icing, etc. etc. etc.

The cake is made up of the ingredients that we choose to put in according to our taste and what we want it to look like. The world is made up of our thoughts that reflect our preferences and what we want it to look like.

Its how my family likes it. Its how my mother/father always made it.

Some days it’s nutty. Some days it’s dry, stale and crumbly or moist and fresh. Some days it’s covered in whipped cream. Some days the cream turns sour. Some days we grab for a big slice and get a handful of crumbs. Some days we simply don’t want dessert.

Some never taste the cake. Some devour so much they become obese and throw their weight around trying to bully others.

Cake is not real food no matter how sweet it taste or pretty and artistic it looks. We will survive quite nicely without it.

The point is none of this is real. Our essence is beyond cake.