The Know Insider Weblog

My son’s bedtime ritual (like that of many young children) is written in stone. After reading a book or two, we snuggle into his bed and compare notes about the day. I ask him if today was a good day and being a cheerful fellow he always says “yes”.

After reviewing the highlights of the day — all the elements that made it a “good day” — I ask him which was the best part. Often the answer surprises me but after some reflection I decided this fact was due to something pretty wonderful. My child has his priorities in the right order.

Noah’s grandparents live in another state so when they visit there tends to be even more spoiling than might be expected from grandparents. One visit from my parents included several small gifts presented at the beginning of the visit, a trip to Wal-Mart with grandparents to purchase a new power ranger, and another trip to Wal-Mart with Grandpa to buy a new Spider Man bike and helmet (Noah’s first big bike). They also took him on several outings to the park, children’s museum, McDonalds and so on.

However after the grandparents had departed I asked Noah about the best part of the visit. He thought for a moment and said: “Going for a walk with Grandpa and seeing the dead possum.”

The dead possum is located on a route we follow pretty regularly for our walks and we have watched the decomposition process with interest. Whenever we see the possum Noah always mentions his grandfather and whenever they speak on the phone he updates his grandfather on the status of the corpse.

Just think about these stories. Noah was showered with gifts and lavish outings but his favorite memory is a simple walk to the local airport and checking out the sites along the way.

Why do we spend so much money during the holidays on expensive gifts that will most likely be forgotten or tossed aside or outgrown — sometimes before the tinsel is taken down. In the end it is lavishing our time and attention on our loved ones that is the greatest gift of all.

Not only is it a wonderful gift for our loved ones (who likely won’t require a dead possum for bonding) but it is also a wonderful gift for ourselves. The holiday season can be frantic and filled with crazy shopping malls and unjolly traffic jams. Taking time out to spend quality time with our loved ones is really what we should give ourselves this holiday season.

Sitting around the kitchen table making homemade Christmas cards with Noah means our holiday message will stand out from the pile of glitzy prepackaged cards and we will have spent hours together giggling over our work with glue, construction paper, and scissors. I don’t know about you but I’d much rather bond over glitter glue than a decomposing possum.

We are also working on his holiday gifts for various family members which I know will be lovingly appreciated by grandparents and cousins alike. More than crafting picture frames and holiday scarves we are crafting memories that I hope he will cherish his whole life. And I hope that I am teaching him that gifts from the heart mean much more than gifts from the wallet.

But then he may already know that as he snuggles down beneath his pillow and quilt — both lovingly quilted by his grandmother — for his afternoon nap.

You can enjoy more inspirational articles by Deanna Mascle at dawggone.net, justfolks.net, and officialwisdom.com.

It was a mild summer day in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina when I boarded United Airline flight 7318 to Washington, DC. Like usual, I promptly located my window seat, with no doubts that the pilots would safely take me to my destination.
Suddenly, as I sat gazing out of the window waiting for take-off, certain questions unfolded in my mind. I wondered, “Who are these pilots that I wholeheartedly entrust with my life?” I wondered about my surety of knowing that they would, or could take me to my destination. I also pondered on “Why it is that I — or we as individuals, trustingly and unwaveringly allow others to continuously pilot our lives without questions or reservations?”
We permit others to pilot our lives while we unquestionably find our seat near the window - just watching - watching our lives quickly pass by. We lack faith in ourselves, because too often, we allow others such as bosses, friends, family and even enemies, to navigate our lives. We allow others to pilot our lives because of their negative words. We allow others to pilot our lives because they claim to know what is best for us. We live on autopilot without a clue as to where we are headed, or how we will get there.
We must declare that we will no longer allow other people to take control of our lives - or of our future. No matter how cloudy things look, no matter how dark our past is, we must remember that God is in control.
Allow God to be your pilot — as you co-pilot your own life into a prosperous and promising future.
Declare today: I will no longer sit back and allow other people to control my life into an uncertain and discontented future. The past is behind me — and only the best is yet to come!

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Copyright 2003 by Audrina Jones Bunton. REPRINTING THIS ARTICLE: Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this article only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. You can find other articles to choose from at http://www.purposefully-living.com/mailing%20list.htm

Motivational Speaker, Audrina Jones Bunton was born the seventh of eight children in her household in Pinehurst, North Carolina into a loving and committed Christian home. As she has 2 children, over 40 nieces and nephews and great- nieces and nephews, it is not unusual to find her under the same roof with many of her maternal five-generation family on weekends and on holidays. In her youth, she fondly recalls traveling throughout the U.S. with her family, as her parents ministered from state to state year after yearhelping people as they traveled.

A graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, Audrina is a Competent Toastmaster of Toastmasters International and serves as the North Carolina District Sergeant At Arms. She is a former counselor of the Durham Pregnancy Support Services, a Christian-oriented crisis pregnancy center in Durham, North Carolina and is currently a Social Research Assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Audrina is currently studying at the Master’s Divinity School in Evansville, Indiana with a combined concentration in Biblical Counseling and IABC certification.

She also serves as the Youth Director at the Come As You Are Evangelistic Center in Aberdeen, North Carolina where her mother, Lydia Jones is the pastor.

Modeling after a song that her mother so often sings, and one that Martin Luther King, Jr. often quoted, her life and speeches are based on the following lyrics, “If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain.”

Audrina resides with her husband William, and 2 children, Audrina Lorraine and William Woodrow.

When you realize that you really want to have an impact in this world, to make a difference, remember that it is in each moment that you are alive and in the present. When you are too busy worrying about what you don’t have, what you have to do, where you’ve been, and what you don’t have, you’re not in the present; you’re consumed by the past you can’t change and the future that has yet to happen. There is no impact in either place.

The impact is here and now. Stop, check in, and connect in relationship with those around you. Be present, make the impact with those you see in your life today. Your future will unfold more powerfully and profoundly than you could ever imagine when you focus on the right things; relationships, people, love and community.

Being present will engage you in ways that will offer you greater insights into who you are; what others see in you; what gets you excited; and where you are going with your life. Giving time to others in the moment will enrich your experience of living as the energy of two create new possibilities. It’s never about what you get; it’s always about what you give! With greater awareness, that can only come through the being present, you will experience better decision-making and a much more profoundly lived life.

Lee Down is a Professional Coach, Trainer/Facilitator, Speaker, & Writer of One Man Can Human Capital Development that focuses on relationships, the key foundation to success in business and life. With more than 15 years professional experience and a thirst for truth and understanding, he focuses on the human spirit and human capacity.

Working with clients, he facilitates the breaking down of beliefs, barriers or obstacles that bring clients forward on their journey of discovery with spirit, energy, abundance, passion and purpose, integrating the mind and body experience. Working with business, he brings visionary leadership and relationship skills to the forefront that witnesses an empowered culture evolve and develop directly impacting the improvement to the bottom-line.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the ways in which we’re already using these techniques, and we’re using them with a superstructure that we’ve analogously said is the victim. When that superstructure is prevalent within me, all circumstance that happens in my world is organized to validate my sense of victimization. Believe me, I feel that very deeply..

When you’re doing that with being a victim, you are using all of the techniques that you want to use with God, with the Deity, to be a victim. You’ve made the term, ‘victim’ your God. You might as well start bowing down and praying to it, because that’s what you’ve done. Now recognizing that we’re doing this already, we already know how to do it, so now let’s do it with a Deity. Let’s do it with a quality of being that I want to manifest.

Let’s make a real Deity. Let’s make Chenrezig and have compassion as the quality of my being. We could take it further and get really fun, I mean we could make it Vajra Yogini and make bringing Infinite Manifestation, Infinite Creativity into manifestation, making that what my being is. We’re talking some far out stuff here. Now, let’s go back and see that what’s happening is, in the practice, I’m sitting there with the circle, and I get the idea, “Okay, now it’s time, I can hold the circle, and it doesn’t go away. I can go, ‘OM,’ and it doesn’t go away. Now I’m going to have the sense of myself arise as the Deity, as dancing Shiva.”

A continuity is now alive in you. And that’s why I said this, and I stressed this in the first portion of this series, so strongly, that you really want to have a sense of continuity. It’s the sense of continuity that says, “Oh, the stuckness, the yuck that I’m feeling right now is not infinite, is not the only thing I have to experience in my life; there is so much more.”

With Deity Yoga, we are inviting the Infinite into ourselves, and it’s very curious, because it’s more than inviting the Infinite into ourselves, it’s using a sense of the Infinite to awaken within ourselves the Infinite that’s there already.

It’s an awakening, but it’s also a getting up out of bed and starting to move around. It’s not the enlightenment that writers write about where, boom, such and such happens and you suddenly see everything. It’s so much more than that, because not only do you suddenly see everything, but your heart beats in what you’re seeing. Your arms move, your feet walk, in what you’re seeing.

Yogi Sean and Swami Ramanada have studied with Tagore, Krishnamurti and Ghandi. Together they created the Sadhana Society in the U.S.

[Channelled]

‘Interact,’ is a common word that most of you are familiar with these days and most all of you understand its meaning. It is a term that has come to popular awareness during the computer age. Interactivity gives you an opportunity to play with your machines automatically.

Video games are interactive and modern theatre often gives you the opportunity to interact with the players. It is an interaction that brings a whole new dimension to what you are experiencing and it is exciting, rewarding and fun. Bank machines allow you to directly interact with your bank accounts and make deposits, transfers, pay bills and make withdrawals.

Machines are no longer a one function tool because you can now physically interact with them and determine their functions that will serve you best . For most of you, interact, interconnectiveness, and multitasking are terms you have become comfortable with, understand and accept as part of your industrialized culture.

A whole generation of you have grown up with the ‘Star Trek’ series and have been indoctrinated into the wonderful world of Gene Rodenberry. Captain Kirk, John Luc Picard, and Captain Janeway who have safely taken you where no one has gone before. Gene Rodenberry was a great visionary who created his series around his insights into the human condition and he attempted to show humanity how he may deal with them in the future in his series. Gene levelled the playing ground between genders and race and he brought the greatest of interactive machines into your lives, the ‘holodeck.’

The holodeck was a totally interactive computer that could be programmed to allow you to experience any kind of environment or circumstance that you chose in the complete safety of the holodeck room. Any being could blend his/her thoughts with that of the computer to come up with a totally realistic and interactive experience, from a tranquil beach in some exotic land to fighting with alien species on some distant planet. The experience was real and verified by all of your senses while within the walls of the holodeck.

All of you who watched the holodeck in action marvelled at its possibilities. The holodeck is not that much of a far fetched idea and technology will catch up with man’s imagination at some point and the holodeck is a very possible reality. “Wow!” can you imagine being able to experience anything that you desire just by turning on a machine and “saying computer activate program.”

Having said all of this, and hopefully you understand the principals of interactivity; let me point out to you the greatest holodeck of all times, now and in the future and it already exists. You are experiencing the greatest holodeck of them all. You are totally programming and interacting with my greatest invention. My friends you are in the grandest, most awesome creation that ever was or ever will be; it is the ‘universe.’ It is a totally interactive, integrated, bio-technical machine, and the one you are most familiar with is your own earth.

Because I do not exist except as the sum of my parts, I experience myself through you, you are me playing around in this global rotating vibrant, totally interactive holodeck. I am you in physical form and I created the earth so that I could experience myself in physical form. I created many of you so that I could experience every aspect of myself and you are all a part of me experiencing each other in you own unique individualized way, I am the sum of all of you.

The life that you believe is yours is actually mine and I am the only life that exists. Your personality is your unique part of me that gives you/me the impression that we are separated, but it is all me interacting with different parts of myself as your hands would interact with the itch on your foot. This idea or concept may be one of the easiest ways for you to understand who you are and why you are here. It will also give you assurance that you can never die or be spiritually harmed. Your body is not you, you are the keyboard and the mouse that directs the actions of the machine, you can program anything you desire by using my power to manifest anything that comes into your mind.

We are totally interconnected and interactive. I am the thought you are the word and the whole thing is one action. Know this, if you fully understand this concept then you will figure out that it is you that is creating your environment and the circumstances of your life. It is you that is in controlyou are the programmer, the player and the circumstances because we are one and I am all that there is. Know this and assume the power of the creator. Know this and assume responsibility for your life and its circumstances. You will no longer see yourself as a victim but the creator of all that your experience.

The God that you know or do not know is the God that you are. The mystery has been revealed, God has been exposed, and do you understand the connection? Do you now understand how I interact with myself. When you accept this you will once again take back the power that is rightfully yours, which you long ago gave away to a God that does not exist.

To the degree that you accept this, is the degree of power that you will own and be able to manage. If you accept the idea fully and make it your truth you will become as me again, you will no longer live in the illusion of your holodeck. The illusion will vanish and you will sing out ‘computer, end program.’

Know me as all that is and you will know yourself as me, and you will begin to act as me and through me consciously.

Enjoy the holodeck; experience yourself in all your magnificence. Create all that you wish to be, do not limit me by limiting yourself, you have your finger on the greatest power in the universe.

Live well and prosper!

Roy E. Klienwachter is a resident of British Columbia, Canada. A student of NLP, ordained minister, New Age Light Worker and Teacher. Roy has written and published five books on New Age wisdom. Roy’s books are thought provoking and designed to empower you to take responsibility for your life and what you create. His books and articles are written in the simplicity and eloquence of Zen wisdom.

You may not always agree with what he has to say. You will always come away with a new perspective and your thinking will never be the same.

Roy’s style is honest and comes straight from the heart without all the metaphorical mumble jumble and BS.

Visit Roy at: http://www.klienwachter.com

Most of us work very hard to ensure our families are well taken care of and attain or maintain a certain standard of living, normally defined by how much we visibly accumulate. Yet how many of us take as much care of our minds and the number of thoughts we create? Too few give value to this wonderful personal challenge, perhaps because it is hard to measure, and therefore hard for others to admire.

Raja Yoga Meditation is the mastery over the mind. Considered as one of the highest forms of yoga, in India it has been practised for several centuries. The purpose is not to stop our thoughts; rather, it is to be able to create fewer thoughts, and ones of the highest quality. Quantity is usually created in times of chaos or confusion. A qualitative thought is achieved through a silent pause.

If you consult an interior designer they would suggest that ‘less is more’. To fill every corner of your home with objects, carpeting or seating would not create the ambience and space the soul seeks. Creating space has greater importance on a mental and metaphysical level, for space brings to mind freedom - no walls, borders, boundaries, just an open horizon. Hence many of us desire to live in front of oceans, lakes or gardens.

In our fast-paced world this suggestion must seem outpaced by reality, but our greatest thinkers, artists and athletes knew its value in their pursuit of perfection. Focus brings clarity, which in turn opens the doors for solutions to enter our consciousness from the subconscious. With focus we regain inner trust and make inner space where others struggle to breath.

This week take stock and check your greatest energy source - your thoughts. Give your thoughts rarity value by refusing to give room to clutter, to inessential mental furniture. Create moments of space for yourself and pregnant pauses in your thinking and you will be amazed at the creativity that emerges. The change in the interior décor of your mind will give you a feeling of space as well as comfort.

Om Shanti
(I am a peaceful soul)

Tel: +973-17-712 545, meditate@batelco.com.bh

Aruna is an international management development trainer, a teacher of meditation and a freelance writer currently based in Bahrain. She is also the director of the Bahrain Meditation Centre, which is administered by Brahma Kumaris, London, an international organisation with over 6000 centers in over 85 countries (http://www.bkwsu.org.uk) and she continues to coordinate various activities for them in the Middle East.

Aruna has spent the last 22 years focused on learning, living and teaching the art of self-development. As a lecturer and teacher of meditation she gained a wealth of experience working with the Brahma Kumaris, teaching meditation, values and ethics, positive thinking and creativity seminars

“But if in your thought you must measure time into
seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.”

- Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

The low afternoon sun cast soft rays through a cool October breeze. Tall maples filled the park with fiery shades of orange and gold. These colorful trees conveyed feelings of strength and peace.

Two children darted across a carpet of crackling leaves. They shouted gleefully, pretending to be a prince and princess. They were filled with the bubbly joy of anticipation that children feel during the spring time of life.

At the same time, the brilliant maples reminded me that autumn can be filled with anticipation of beauty and strength. In all seasons of life, there are wonderful treasures to expect.

What will happen between the spring and autumn of your life? What will you do to experience the peaceful strength and fruitful harvests that an inspired life brings?

One of the first things we can do is sow good-quality seeds of faith and action. We can gain skills and knowledge. Then we can keep those skills sharp and polished by continuing to learn.

The seasons have no lack of time; each is balanced within a cycle of birth, growth and rest. Likewise, the only time we lack is that which we fail to use for worthwhile purposes.

Each of us have different priorities and degrees of discipline for balancing the use of time. When we say yes to one thing, we say no to something else.

The harvest will arrive in due season whether bounteous or lean. It can bring satisfaction of a job well done. It can convey contentment and strength as life prepares to rest, anticipating another spring time.

Ask yourself, “What seeds will I sow today that will yield a bounteous harvest? What will I say “yes” to today?

If you sow quality seeds of thought, faith, and action today, your harvest can be plentiful, and the autumn foliage brilliant. May your autumns bring all the joy, strength, and prosperity that you’ve ever wanted!

Wishing you blessings and success!

Steve Brunkhorst

© Copyright by Steve Brunkhorst. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve your top potential. Get the next issue by visiting http://www.AchieveEzine.com

Direct Answers - Column for the week of September 1, 2003

I met my wife a dozen years ago and her best friend shortly thereafter. I was always fond of my wife’s friend. We all shared a good deal of time together through our college years and now into our thirties. She is married with two children as are we.

We live in the same town, our families spend a good deal of time together, and I’m good friends with her husband. My problem is I cannot stop thinking about her. I’ll go out of my way to be with her. I dream about her nearly every night.

I am physically attracted to her but no more than to any other good looking 30-year-old. My wife and I have a good relationship physically and emotionally. So what the heck is going on? What should I do?

I can’t break off all contact. Our families are much too close, and everybody will want to know why. I think telling my wife will only get her upset. So I am stuck with feelings I can’t tell anybody about, and I can’t think of any way to correct my situation.

Robin

Robin, there are many ways to alter the course of a life. For example, you could rob a bank. You could pass a note to a teller that says, “Give me all your money.” That would change the course of your life, but it’s not a very productive method and neither is this fantasy.

Nowhere do you state this woman has a romantic interest in you. She seems to be an innocent puppet in a play you’re staging in your mind. In fact, her reaction to an actual overture may turn your dream into a nightmare. If you tell your wife, it may change the way she looks at you forever.

A huge amount of mental energy is flowing toward this other woman. Why? What is wrong with the rest of your life that your thoughts flow there? That is where you need to look. Your wife’s best friend is a diversion from something you need to face up to.

It could be your career is not going where you wanted. It could be something else. But before you take any more steps down fantasy road, focus on what you really think about your life, your job, and your family.

The dream you had for life is not turning out as you hoped, and that is why you dream of your wife’s best friend. Pulling mental energy away from her and shifting the focus to yourself, will point you toward the answer. If the answer still eludes you, individual counseling may help.

Wayne & Tamara

Not Enough

I am in a relationship that is still fairly new. He and I have things in common, but our feelings toward this relationship are not mutual. He treats me exactly like I want to be treated, but I don’t have a strong desire for him.

Not that he’s unattractive or anything like that, it’s just I feel that it’s a bit rushed. I am tired of casual dating and I want something solid, but not overnight. He also does and says everything he thinks I want to hear and not what he really feels.

My sister thinks I am selfish and unappreciative, but that’s not really the case. She tells me to keep him, he’s a good man. I already know that, but I don’t feel he’s the good man for me.

Nora

Nora, without your sister’s influence, we doubt you would have written. You have examined your own feelings and come to a reasoned conclusion. It is not enough that he is a good man.

Maybe you are wiser than your years and wiser than your sister. It is not selfish to end a relationship which is wrong for you. To act from what you know is right takes character.

Wayne & Tamara

About The Author

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

There is beauty in the turn of every season and knowledge within each of life’s transitions.

Just as each season of the year has its own color of light, each season of life will shine its beautiful light upon the soul. Open the eyes of your heart. Enjoy the splendor.

Each spring shower, summer storm, falling autumn leaf, and icy winter wind is necessary to complete the portrait of its season. Likewise, each human trial is necessary to teach, build resilience, strengthen faith, and guide you forward.

Every yesterday holds treasures, sometimes concealed by hurt, misfortune, and disappointment. Nevertheless, if you stay alert, you will discover blessings you would not have known had you not lived through darker days. All events affect your tomorrows; their lessons ripple through time like love spreading from parent to child to grandchild.

What treasures could you find within the clouds that surround you today? How will you view this day in a way that will benefit others and you?

Rest assured, each event, circumstance, and person you encounter blesses you. Each brings a rainbow of beauty and immeasurable value, a gift to help guide you along the path of your life’s purpose.

Say a prayer of thanksgiving today for yesterday’s treasures.

© Copyright by Steve Brunkhorst. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve your top potential. Get the next issue by visiting http://www.AchieveEzine.com

In my entire life I had never seen my father’s uncovered body. Everyone
was expected to be fully dressed at all times, morning, noon, and night,
either dressed in street clothes or sleepwear. There were no exceptions.
Daddy would send you away from the supper table if you dared expect
to dine in a T-shirt. But the times were different now. If my father needed
to be moved or roll over onto his side, I helped my mother.

I was shaving. One day at the age of 14, when my father saw what I was
doing and asked if I was going to get some of that shaving cream out of
my ears before I left the house. I continued trying to shave even though
there was little if any hair on my face or for that matter any where else.
Daddy also asked where I was headed to anyway. I said I was going to
a movie.

“Really,” he said. He probably figured I was headed to downtown
Kernersville, NC with my brother or sister, or perhaps even the cute girl
across street. But he asked anyway. “Who are going with to the
movies?” he calmly asked.

He was not really prepared for my response. Not many fathers are, and
frankly, I was not prepared for my response to his question either.

With my face covered with shaving cream, I looked up at my fathera
mountain of a man, standing six feet tall with chiseled muscles on a
large frame, and with an expression of such affection and love glowing
through all that formand I said, “with Ronald!”

When Wit Taylor, my father, was bedridden, weak from radiation and
chemotherapy, and nearing death, he showed me for the first time his
collection of photographs that he kept locked in a safe. I asked him to tell
me about the people in the photographs, all my relatives, and when he
did I would write a small number on the back of the photograph and log
the names, dates, place with any other information he could remember
on a separate piece of paper. Dad and I did this for almost three days.
He gave me his collection of photographs. The oldest one is a
photograph of my grandfather, Robert Paul Taylor, in his World War I
army uniform. I have pictures of my grandmother and my great-
grandmother.

With that, the expression of tenderness and joy upon seeing the only
male heir, the only Taylor left to bear the family name, taking his first
steps toward so-called manhood by shaving, were replaced with the
heavy concerns and burdens of fathers everywhere. He knew that look
on my face and the sparks in my eyes for a boy who lived across town
meant that this was no ordinary friendship. I was in love, and it was not
the neighbor’s daughter that caught my fancy. He moved closer and
said, “Didn’t you have dinner with him last night, and lunch today, and
the two of you are going to a movie together tonight?”
“It is just a movie,” I said sheepishly.

He moved closer; I grew frightened, and he said, “We already have one
Mark in the family. We do not need two!”
That was all my father ever said to me about being gay. He wanted me
to know he was no fool.

I shaved daddy for the first time in my life, and he would let me, calm
and smiling. One time a friend of my mother’s from church brought
daddy some clears oils I believed had been blessed by our pastor.
Daddy wanted mother to rub it on his back. She bristled and instructed
me to do it. What! Me?”

I had never touched my father’s shoulders.
I proceeded to rub the oils and became more aware of the moment, and
of his pending death, and of my own someday. While I was rubbed the
oils, his physicality, even at 76 years of age, shockingly resembled my
own. Even though I was 40 some years his junior, I could see the shape
of his fingers, how they remind me of a childhood memory of the way his
fingers resembled fat cigars, and now how my own fingers look the
same. How his skin, though weak and old, draped on his body over his
bones and muscles felt familiar to me. His muscles, that at one time
fought for more room insides his work clothes, are the same pinecone
brown color as mine. It will all become a memory, causing me to wonder
if the dead ever remember that at one time they were alive.

But he never stopped me from seeing Ronald, or anyone else for that
matter and years later he often encouraged me to bring my boyfriends to
the house. “I will deal with your mother,” Daddy told me. Ronald and I
were lovers throughout high school and would later join the same
fraternity-Chi Phi at UNC-Chapel Hill. My father knew who and what he
was raising and he never mistreated me–or tried to make a man out of
me. And because he never beat me or abused me in an attempt to
toughen me up in a time during the late ’50s and early ’60s, when doing
so would have been consider the right and proper thing for a father to do
when confronted with an effeminate son, I will always cherish his
memory. I know at least one man in my life truly loved me, and that man
was indeed my father.

“If you don’t want these I am going to throw them out,” my mother told
me when I was back home visiting. They were love letters written to my
father before he and my mother were married. She also gave me a 1922
silver dollar from my father’s coin collection, his drivers’ license, and a
pair of shoes, cuff links, handkerchiefs, and key chains. And a photo
album. An album of proud men: strong men, and their wives.

When “daddy’s little boy” wanted to be “mommy’s little girl,” I knew I was
in trouble. I wanted to knit, sew, bake cookies, quilt, and paint, kiss boys,
and play nurse. Now at 45 years old, I create art by adorning women’s
handbags with colored pins, puzzle pieces, beads, mementos, and
charms. I know I can do these things because I have the support and
grace of a loving father in my heart

Ramekon O’Arwisters “SuperArt Hero” obtained a Master of Divinity from
Duke University in 1986 and has participated in Yale University School
of Art’s Painting Scholarship Program. Commercial products are coded
carriers of social and political attitude in his art. Oreos join watermelon
seeds, bananas and women’s handbags as the physical stand-ins for
racial and political prejudice. Ramekon “SuperArt Hero” engages
ordinary objects of consumption to reveal their deeply- rooted
symbolism, an activity that offers personal and social catharsis.
Ramekon “SuperArt Hero” was a recepient of the prestigious Artadia
Award in 2002 and attended the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in
2003. His work on paper is in the collection at The Fine Arts Museums of
San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation, San Francisco, California. In
2005, Ramekon “SuperArt Hero” displayed his artwork at the LGBT
Center at Duke University.

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Recent/Upcoming Exhibitions

June 2006:
Queer Arts Festival, SOMA Arts (a grant from Qcc, S. F. Foundation)