Light, Love and Honey

Paintbrush Warrior
The artist uses his magic to confront the forces of repression.
Using creativity to manifest a positive reality, the natural beauty of life rushes forth in the wake of the action.
This is not a whitewashing of an unpleasant situation,
but an actual transformation of society and culture through the act of creating a physical presentation
that speaks to a very deepest part of our collective soul.
The dark forces of mindless fascism that are running amok in our world today
terrorizing all of humanity in the guise of law and order can be undone by the power of the creative spirit
Artist: Mark Henson

Light, Love and Honey

I feel things deeply. I was born with deep empathy for others, human and non human, some would call it being a Empath. I try not to label myself too much I feel it can limit myself, I don't like boxes and labels. Here is some information regarding Empathy and our brains https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201310/the-neuroscience-empathy  It is true that feeling things deeply is a blessing and a curse. When you feel the pain, fear, sadness and anxiety of the world it can be overwhelming at times. I have even limited my intake of media and social media to help alleviate some of the weight, but I still feel it. It is in our collective, our collective trauma and fear. 

"A collective trauma is a traumatic psychological effect shared by a group of people of any size, up to and including an entire society. Traumatic events witnessed by an entire society can stir up collective sentiment, often resulting in a shift in that society's culture and mass actions." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_trauma

Being a deep feeler and feeling my own fear and sadness as well as everyone else's I look for peace, I look for inspiration. I find that inspiration through words, books, music, art, drum and dance. I write this Magical Musing as a tool for myself, a inspiration tool in hopes that others may perhaps be inspired as well. It is my release and my transformation of life's mud and dirt. Like the bees I transform the pollen into honey, Spiritual Honey. I produce this honey through my words, creations and actions. I feel that is my calling and my duty. I can't really explain something I have felt deep in my soul since I was a child. My Mother use to tell me "Joy you can't save the world." Even through my own life's devastating challenges this has not diminished, in fact it has increased in power and strength. I believe I am to share my honey and show others how to create their own honey. Creating our own honey can help heal the collective fear and trauma, one person at a time. To do our part in mending the collective, it starts with ourselves. 

With all of that said I leave you with some powerful words from a Amazing book I reference often, especially in times of turbulence. Infinite Love and Blessed Bee. We are all connected. 

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.








In attempting this psychological presentation and a psycho pathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors – be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances? 

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. 

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. 

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate. 

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

.... (More Excerpts)

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life . . .

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment . . .

We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering . . .

Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners . . .

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our question must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual . . .

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire . . .