Gros bisous de Paris!

It was a 12-hour flight with a stop in Calgary and Edmonton (took off and landed a total of three times...talk about emersion therapy for those afraid of flying!). The seats were uncomfortable, the flight attendants were crabby (exept for Jerome), there was a three year old screaming for six hours during the night, and the woman in front of us coughed incessantly...but, after all that voila! WE have arrived in Paris!!! ITS BEAUTIFUL!!!

Its everything I though it would be (on first glance) and more! My gracious and beautiful friend Amanda greeted us at the airport and took us back to her place located in the 7th arrondissement (wow) of Paris in the Duroc area. She gave us a proper Paris introduction by taking us to her local Boulangerie (bakery) and bying us some baguets and cheese. We sat down after a long day of traveling, ate the freshly baked warm and crusty baguets with some French brie and gouda, and some nice Rose!! MMMMMMMM........I can't even describe the yuminess!

Yeah...well, I can't say too much only that we saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up tonight, walked through old parisian streets in the warm rain, had cafe au lait at a wonderful high-class cafe, and ate a three course authentic French dinner at an exquisite restaurant with goooooooood wine! (I even tried escargo!!! Wouldn't recomment it personallly).

Okay, well, just wanted to let you all know that I am experiencing c'est la belle vie! So amazing to be fulfilling one of my life long dreams.

love you all. Will update soon!

Bon soir mes amis!

Amber

ditch the dogma dudes!

D O G M A

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs, CEO and founder of Apple Computers, Pixar (now chairman), and NeXT.

I would have to absolutely agree with this amazing quote. Being surrounded by too many opinions and ideas can sometimes get overwhelming, especially if you are the type of person that listens to what people say and actually takes the time to process it carefully.

`

Growing up in a Christian environment, I very often found myself in a frazzled state trying to figure out what was right and wrong, and I lived with a lot of fear and shame because of this. I am not putting Christianity down in any way as this type of perceived tyranny is the product of any religion, belief, idea or standard that you are held accountable to by your friends, loved ones, or community. The reason Christianity and other religions can become heavy and opressive stems mostly from guilt and shame people begin to feel for "breaking the rules"- rules sometimes with God at the source, but rules with man at the source as well. They are pressured to change, to fit the "mould" but sometimes they just don't have the resources or foundations to make those changes - and no one is offering them either! At the end of the day many end up feeling hopeless and substandard, unable to see the accepting and forgiving nature of God (or people for that matter), or the value of their created lives. I have seen this happen to people myself, too many times...

`

Religion, supposedly put in place to connect us with our creator, has mostly served to put a wedge between us.

`

It was a day of thunder and lightening in my heart when I finally realized that many of the things I thought I believed, and actually measured other people by, were most likely false... or at least not intrinsically true! Its a humbling experience for every human being to finally say "I don't have all the answers". I mean, how many arguments are fought and wars waged on the basis of one side believing something different from the other, both sides believeing things impossible for human beings to prove anyway? Sigh.

Its hard to be human sometimes, having to learn to live with our many limitations - knowing all the secrets of the universe being just one of many from a very long list! The hardest part is that we are truly hungry for knowledge and understanding, and if we could have it all we would take it! But, alas, we must be content with the little morsels of truth that fall from God's table from time to time.

I stopped judging people for searching a long time ago. I stopped judging myself for doubting my faith at times also. Its not to say that I don't believe in God and that Christ came to save the world, I do, and very fervently, its just that I have come to terms with my own humanity and have realized that my faith truly is based on "things unseen". Because of this, I must believe as a child believes, without total proof, and with humility towards others who are also trying to figure out what that "unseen" thing really is, even if their beliefs fall outside the ideas of my christianity, your Islam, their Judaism, his Bhuddism, or her atheism, etc.

I think that God is big enough to help those searching for him to find him, including me. I learn a little bit more about God every day, and even though I have a HUGE list of things I have decided are "ultimate truth" (the existence of God being one of them), mine are just the first pages of a very very long book of revelation...I (we) have only just begun.

I mean, think about the concept of heaven - being up there worshipping God, everything is happy, everything is in order, but what happens after that? Do we just stop learning and growing as spiritual/emotional beings? No...yes...huh? I would hate to think of my journey of revelation ending, to be honest. "There must be more than this..."

Don't ask me what that "more" is though, I couldn't tell you....I won't ask you either because you couldn't tell me!

So friends, don't be worried about not knowing all the answers...no, be worried instead about not embracing and enjoying the learning process because you already think you know them all. Be worried about becoming arrogant and judgemental of those around you with different ideas, and being one of the people (I believe) God will hold accountable for waging the wars mentioned above just because you weren't willing to share the world with someone different from yourself.

If you think that I have "a lot to learn" for saying what I just did, you are probably one of those people. My advice to you - stop judging (lest ye be judged), don't be afraid of being wrong, and remember that you are just as finite as the rest of the human race. You will enjoy life and people a lot more if you can relax a bit. Why worry, "God is in control" after all, isn't he? He's gonna work out all the details...so chill.

`

To summarzie, I will ask an age old question - what came first, the chicken or the egg?

`

Ponder, ponder....E X A C T L Y !!!!!
`
So, I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to understand anything, just that you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket!

`

Hee hee...punny! I crack my self up!!! Get it? I "crack" myself up, like an egg? Okay, I'm done.

Isaiah 55 verse 7-11 says...

"Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD,
and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,'
declares the LORD.
'As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.' "

What you ask is certain?

God knows what.

Peace out,

Amber

emotional blindness - a poem

I wrote this simple poem about the times in life when someone you love is unable to see the beauty that life has to offer them. You are so desperately wanting to show them a rainbow of colour and break through their anger, their grief, or their bitterness, but all you can do is be patient with them and hold on to that beauty on their behalf, believing they will be able to see if for themselves again one day.

emotional blindness, you can’t see the colours
i’m holding a rainbow but its really no use
the reds and the yellows, a sunset of passion
the blues and the purples, my hearts deepest hues
.
i wish i could show you the beauty around you
and lift those thick scales of anger away
but all i can do is hold on to this rainbow,
until you are able to see it some day.
.
how lovely the day when your eyes finally open
i will be standing there smiling at you
and you will know that i always believed
your eyes would one day see these colours anew.

.

by: Amber

2006

P s a l m 1 8

Just wanted to post the lyrics to Lori Chaffer's acoustic version of Pslam 18.

She insightfully condenses the soul of this 50-verse psalm into a 4-verse ballad that keeps the meaning and intent fully intact. I have been drawing a lot of inspiration from Psalm 18 lately, as it reminds me that God truly is my great deliverer, and that I have great reason to "give thanks to you, oh Lord, among the nations, and sing praises unto Your name"

Psalm 18

I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise
And all my enemies don’t know where to face
The cords of death have entangled my feet
I cried to You and from Your temple You heard me and rescued me

He rode down on the wings of the wind
Dark clouds were a canopy around Him
He shot His arrows and He scattered my foes
With bolts of lightning they all became exposed

So I’ll sing alleluia
Alleluia
Praise the Lord

You, o Lord keep my lamp burning bright
My God turns my darkness into light
With my God I can scale a wall
With your help, I can win a war and not even fall

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer
And lets me stand on the heights high above my fears
He makes the path broad beneath my feet
So my ankles don’t turn and ruin me

So I'll sing alleluia
Alleluia
Praise the Lord

So I'll sing alleluia
Alleluia
Praise the Lord

nature has a new face - a poem

The changing of the seasons, like the changing of the gaurd,

.

Comes gracefully in the cool of an ebony night.
.
With mildness and majesty an exchange takes place in secret
.
And I wake to find that nature has a new face.

by: Amber

2006

I hate myself...again

I know, I know, the title of this post sounds horrible, but let me explain before you jump to conclusions...and no, I don't really hate myself.

Yesterday I spent an evening with a group of good friends listening to them share their life stories. Its always an honor to have someone consider you trustworthy enough to see their dirtiest of dirty laundry, (metaphorically speaking - realistically...ewww!) and yesterday evening there was a lot to hear and see.

It was after I returned home and tripped over my own laundry pile (quite literally a deplorable site of textile carnage that sucks all of my favorite bras into a vortex of eternal absenteeism, especially on the days I'm late for work), that a thought came into my mind - getting your laundry done has many parallels with dealing with your self-perception.

Now, there is the possibility (although slight) that you are one of those people who have never been neglected, hurt, demoralized, abandoned, devalued, ignored, abused, rejected or unloved by someone significant to you at any point in your life and you are 100% self-confident and happy in every situation. If that is you (you lucky duck) , please call me immediately because I have a really fantastic book to lend you called Denial - Its Not Just a River. However, if that is not you - you have probably experienced some degree of self-hatred, self misconception, or self doubt at some point in your life. I know I have - or have I? I just can't trust anything that comes out of my own mouth anymore!

So, as for the parallels, well....

Its sometimes dirty and sometimes clean. Many times the dirty stuff piles up for a long time completely ignored until everything important to you becomes lost in a frustrating, indecipherable mound. It then gradually starts taking up more and more space, thereby forcing you to set some time aside from your busy life to deal with it. It consists of blacks and whites, which are usually easy to separate, and then there are the colors - some darker, some lighter - which you always have to separate carefully and conscientiously to prevent them from bleeding out on each other turning everything into an unrecognizable gray. So much work.

Okay, now that we know what self perception looks like, lets talk about laundry.

Perhaps the most important laundry truth (and anyone who has done a lot of laundry in their lifetime will understand this) is that you have to actually fold and put away the clean stuff right away or else it will just end up on the floor with all of the dirty stuff in a matter of days. You can tell yourself, "I'll just put that away later when I have more time", but inevitably it is forgotten and in a few days its back on the floor.

Guilty as charged.

I think the same thing may be true of self perception. When you deal with your negative self perceptions you begin to feel all clean and good on the inside; unfortunately, before you can say, "my life is a chapter from Dante's Inferno, nobody likes me, the world is ending, and please stop staring at my foot fungus", you have somehow completely forgotten the good things about you, and are right back on the floor getting mixed up with the dirty stuff again.

I think, in some ways, this is due to the fact that when we are dealing with our issues we get lazy with the "folding and putting away" part. I've seen it over and over again - you go to that great counselor a few times, maybe you get some prayer, talk to you friends, take an amazing self-esteem workshop, or read a life-changing book, and, congratulations, you finally reached the top of the mountain and feel oh so wonderful about yourself....so wonderful, in fact, that you start forgetting that changing your perceptions and behaviors takes focused time and effort, the distractions of life set in, and slowly the important things you were beginning to learn start to slip away.

Sometimes I feel convinced that I have finally gotten over my "issues", but then somehow, almost without me noticing, I'm a little child crying under the kitchen table feeling sorry for myself, and I just don't know how I got back under there. What about that positive self image I had a few weeks ago? Do I need to get my short-term memory checked out? Do I need to get my short-term memory checked out?

The reason I'm really putting thought into this is actually because of you more than myself. You know, I can't stand it when my friends don't see how beautiful, how worthy, how full of life, talent, ability and truth, and - most importantly of all - how loved they truly are. And, it seems clear to me that what's holding us back from receiving God's love and seeing beauty in the world on a consistent basis is not the outside forces, but the inside forces - the ones that are actually almost completely controlled by us. God says, "Here I am", and we say, "great, but you couldn't possible be here for stupid-old, messed up, ugly me", even though He has proved otherwise over and over again through the small miracles, the people in our lives that love us, and the blessings of life and nature. I know that I, personally, am pretty hard to please.

It probably makes God sad that we sometimes hate ourselves and don't believe what he says about us. I know how frustrated I get when people won't accept my love. I just want to shake them silly and say, "Don't you get how much I love you!? Take it, TAKE IT ALL". It doesn't do any good though because they still ultimately refuse to accept my offer.

I am almost convinced that self hatred is stale-mating the human existence!

Okay, so all said and done, the point of this post is to encourage all of you (and myself) to nurture that part of you that tends to get down on yourself, and to REALLY REALLY work hard at remembering the TRUTH about who you are.

To qoute from a Pink song:

"I'm a hazard to myself, yeah, don't let me get me, I'm my own worst enemy, it's bad when you dont know yourself...so irritating, don't wanna be my friend no more, i wanna be somebody else "

At times I know many of us have related to that chorus.

So, please friends, be gracious to yourselves. Nurture yourselves. Hold on to the wonderful insights that God has given you about who you are and what you're worth. Write them down in a place you can see, tattoo them on your arm or send yourself an automatic daily "you kick butt" message, because - light bulb - just like every human being on the planet, you're a little fickle! Yes, I'm talking to you! You see, I've seen you forget, I've seen you get down on yourself, and I've seen you make choices from those unhealed places of self hatred and self doubt that have made you unhappy with your life at times... and I know you've seen the same from me.

The truth is, a lot of the time (not all the time) we know better, we just need to remember, remember, remember, who we really are.

So - tripping on my laundry pile and thinking about self perception has developed into another long post from the mind of Amber Samaya- a genuinely loving and generous, heart-on-sleeve young woman who loves you, and hopes you love yourself just as much.

Until I get inspired again...

Amber

Post "Send" Regret Syndrome (PSRS)

I would like to take a moment to address a very serious condition I have named Post "Send" Regret Syndrome or PSRS.

Anyone who extensively uses E-mail to keep relationships alive, or, god forbid, to aid in confronting someone when you are too afraid of the face-to-face, probably knows what I'm talking about.

Post "Send" Regret Syndrome has affected millions of people worldwide and is spreading faster and faster as computers take over the world and people slowly lose their ability to accurately calculate cause and effect before pressing that all-or-nothing button...send.

Back in the old days of sending letters via regular post, if you sent something that started to conjure symptoms of PSRS, you could catch a plane to the destination city of your letter, wait on the recipient's street in camo for the mail man to walk by, tackle him unwittingly, spray him with tear gas, tranquilize him, sort through the mail while he's out cold, retrieve the "regretted" item, and promptly catch your return flight home - dignity intact. Now, with messages in mail boxes at the touch of a button - you have no way out! What's done is done, and you will inevitably begin to suffer from PSRS.

PSRS is also a component of Turret's syndrome, which, in some severe cases (such as my own), a person is prompted by uncontrollable inward notions to write down ambigous quotes from Monty Python movies and send them out randomly to people on their E-mail list. I sincerely apologize if any of you have been deeply wounded by my comment that made referance to your mother being a hamster and your father smelling of elderberries. It was very insensitive and I promise to be more original next time (inward notions permitting).

Anyway, for those of you who have suffered from PSRS or are currently suffering from PSRS after accidentally sending your boss the letter that was intended for your new boss (the one you will have when you quit your job in two days), or perhaps sending your Jewish mother the letter that was intended for Oscar Meyer Inc demanding a refund on the oversized pork sausage that you almost chocked to death on - you have my sympathy.

PSRS is not relieved with Tylenol, Advil, Ativan, Valium, or apologies. If you are suffering from PSRS on a regular basis, you should contact your local internet service provider and cancel you high-speed internet connection. I would suggest getting dial-up instead which will undoubtedly prompt you to once again send letters via regular post (which can be intercepted in cases of regret) knowing they will arrive faster than the dial-up connection to your E-mail account.

Together we can survive PSRS, together we can stop the madness.

Anyone interested in starting a wog (walk/jog) for PSRS awareness, please E-mail me your name and number - and if I get that letter intended for your underwear fetish cult leader, I will just forget it ever happened.

Cheers.

Pain Dances - a short poem

Pain dances on my soul with shards of glass in his shoes.

Silently he glides along this dark, secluded stage...

and I am his only audience.

I'm Every Woman

Today I want to post a poem I wrote two months ago, dedicated to a woman I work with. Its about women...how they long to be seen, long to have their beauty and their worth recognized and enjoyed, and most importantly of all, they long to bring beauty to the world around them. I have reflected on this quite frequently this year as I have met many woman who are struggling with the prospect of living out their own femininity.

I believe many women live in the shadow of the desires they made themselves kill, and it is a big shadow, a painful shadow. It is the thing we try to hide or forget about, and it has caused us to take on a cynical natures towards our lives, our bodies, our relationships, and our happiness. We are harder now than ever before, and it's not because we are opressed from the outside, it is because we are repressed on the inside - having to deny or live without so many of our natural feelings, desires, and instincts in order continue being the "free" and "modern" women that we are.

Truth be told, many woman I observe around me are desolate, loveless, lonely, and wondering what to do with their feminity in a world where it is still viciously assaulted from many directions. And men? Relationships? Well, their hearts are so buried and afraid from countless abuses and the hardness that comes with self preservation, they don't feel they have the faintest hope anymore of finding someone they can trust enough to truly love. But, there is still an ache for companionship, and ache to be loved and cherished, for their beauty to be appreciated, and just like roses in a vase, they wait with both their thorns and soft pedals for someone to see the beauty they let themselves give up once upon a time. Hence, a poem:



Just Like Roses

I put my roses on display
so I could see them every day
divinest red against the grey
created just to be that way...beautiful.

And just like roses, so do we
want a man who's heart will choose to see
the treasure that a woman brings
into a life of empty things... is beautiful.

And what of roses hidden well
whose beauty none have seen to tell?
Created to be seen, they wait,
for deeper love with deeper hate...of beautiful.

Oh, lovely roses, you should be seen,
Just like the woman by the stream,
with nothing but a broken dream
and what is left for her to glean...of beautiful.

For you, my sister, are also a rose
Beyond the thorns your softness shows
perhaps not seen by him you chose
let it be YOUR HEART that knows...you are beautiful.