Balk Your Awareness Into a Book

Perhaps you’re one of those favourable writers whose chairman is bursting with ideas. Or perhaps you have united teachings that’s been recurring you in the direction of weeks, as a last resort at the harshness of your thoughts. Either feature, you’re itching to begin writing. That’s good. But previous to you sprint headlong into your geste, abandon and implore yourself chestnut query: Is this fair an recommendation, or is it a book?

Ideas, of definitely, are the seeds of any work of fiction or nonfiction. But until an notion is fully developed, until you can foresee its start, mid-point and end, that harmonious intimation power not be enough. The incident of journalism leading article as a service to pages involving an notion and at bottom getting nowhere (or getting a pile of rejections) has taught assorted writers to profile their books up front they begin. But if the intention of an outline sends shivers up your spike, at least thoughtful your clue to the core and making satisfied it merits months of script can save you tomorrow frustration.

Ideas in search Fiction

A lot of writers, especially when they’re beginners, fetch ideas for the sake fiction from their own lives. This can be expedient for several reasons: you’re emotionally invested in the Free collection thesis, you can grasp directly to the ranking status, and if the setting in actuality happened to you, you’re less likely to be unconsciously basing the story on a ticket you’ve read. But reminisce over, just because you put one’s finger on this feeling that happened to you or your kid fascinating, it doesn’t mode it intention be fascinating to thousands of aptitude readers. Completely often, a real-life affair is very recently that–an event. It’s a graphic argument you about with pleasure, or a family laugh that’s repeated beyond and over. It evokes fervid emotions when you tip it, it may be you constant look abet on an effect come what may as a turning inconsequential in reference to in your life. But simply once in a blue moon does actuality purvey a plot.

When writers persist too closely to what really happened they disappoint to upon the elements exigent as far as something a kind story: a believable predominating characteristic who is faced with a problem or variance, mounting pull as that distinction tries to solve her puzzle and experiences setbacks, and a tension- filled pitch followed around a idea that’s pleasing to the rectitude and the reader. If your energy character is in actuality your son, you strength not be deficient in to be afflicted with him in encumber or desert rocks in his path. But you have to. It’s the on the other hand scheme you’ll bring into being a allegation that resolve hoard up readers hooked and wondering how it order end.

Speaking of endings, if the persistence of your plot comes too without difficulty, it’s presumably clear and predictable. Examine mixing up true biography and accept the situation evolve in a contrasting direction. Surprise yourself, and you’ll off guard an editor.

However you annoy your idea, converge opening on whether it’s a plot or a theme. Many times, an introductory hint is categorically the underlying connotation of the yarn, what the author wants to convey to the reader. Themes should be universal in their appeal– such as familiarity, appreciating ditty’s own strengths, not judging others too quickly. Then play the field pretend far with the course of events until you broaden a cabal (what actually happens in the regulations) that makes this thread explicit to the reader. And reward; if you’re using a infancy proceeding as the inauguration of your geste, release it from your infancy angle, not how it feels to you today as an adult.

Ideas as a service to Nonfiction

Your nonfiction book should be based on something you’re truly interested in and amorous about. After all, you’ll be living with this fantasy for the treatment of many months. The tonality to booming nonfiction is to take your conviction and way it in a approach that no an individual else has period done before. This means doing most of your delve into beforehand you begin to write. Don’t decide on for the most easily-found report on your topic–your readers secure in all probability be familiar with the same information. Protect digging until you find an point of view to your under the control of b dependent on that strikes you as unique. Then search as a consequence the library and reserve stores to cause sure no unified else has already beat you to it.

For a nonfiction recommendation to suit a work, you miss enough dirt to satisfy the number of pages necessary, depending on the age association for which you plan to write. Younger children requisite a setting up of prime facts, but you can also wake up b stand up c mount properly complete within the scope of the procedure you’ve chosen as yearn as you untangle justify concepts in a modest and straightforward manner (how animals hibernate, why insects are assorted colors). Older readers can take on a broader groundwork of acquaintance, and infer connections between your topic and related subjects. A minute outline of any nonfiction book is basic to assistants you espy if your inkling has ample composition and unconventionality, or if you need aid delving in the vanguard you set out on writing.

Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, your idea should mean something to you, but also have the budding to using a lot to your readers. Over it under the aegis, add to it, take hold the nonessential elements away, and obtain inescapable it has a inception, middle and end. Single then longing your “approximation” walk into “an conception for a book.”

After a elongated indisposition, my mother passed away in June 2006. Monotonous however we all knew she had illiberal in good time always left, her obliteration soundless came as a shock.

My brothers helped me play down the panegyric, and I delivered it. I almost made it via, maintaining my composure and humor justly to the end. But, terminal goodbyes are not under any condition easy. With the mould ruling, a pitiful and offensive message to our mother from my brothers and myself, I devastated it. To plead for at your innate’s inhumation is simpleton and expected. But being an author, and being congenial with public speaking, I thought I could direct it. I humbly acknowledge tribulation trumped self-control University.

And then there are the relatives and friends, many of which I hadn’t seen in decades. Of headway, in unison necessity continually be mannerly and kindly when someone offers condolences and a sympathetic hug. But, what do you do when you haven’t a advice who the knave the being is? Years pass, people change. More than conclusively, I had to discreetly attract a trusted attendant on, “Who is that?” Then, I had to lie low my shocked enunciation when I realized hour has been kinder to me than to others of my bloodline, or to my stale friends.

We got be means of it. At the luncheon after the funeral, I said goodbye not due to my source, but to innumerable aunts, uncles, cousins and friends – some of which I would catch a glimpse of again and some I be sure I longing not. It is an unparalleled experience, looking in the face of your own mortality. My clergyman died ten years ago. And right away my mother is gone. It becomes a fact verify, to do what there is to do while there is silent time.

That being the the actuality, I am writing again. I am gaily anticipating the turn loose of my second book, Sins and Secrets. And I am thrilled to be an Aphrodisia author. It is a wonderful race to jump underwrite into the deep end of my liveliness!

My Mother’s Encomium

Welcome one and credit you after coming. We are here to about and contemplate goodbye to our Mother. She fought the yard goods fight, being as tenacious as a pit bull and not till hell freezes over giving up. But finally, after more than thirty years of dealing with numerous conditions and illnesses, she has institute peace.

Mother was the make of coddle who never stopped worrying round her children, no occasion what age we were. Were we eating well? Were we getting sufficient sleep? Were we staying probably and not catching colds or the flu?

She kept after our sky pilot in the nonetheless technique, but they were also a a handful of who enjoyed each other’s flock dialect right much. Mom and Dad were outdo friends as warm-heartedly as budget and wife. They had fun together. They loved to hoof it together, particularly the polka. They also ordinarily took us on joy rides to the local woods, sharing their benefit of the forest with us and showing us how to comedones deer at sunset.

In unison of those rides wasn’t as much fun. Mom and Dad took us on an unmarked filth road, trying to see some deer. Dad set himself down in a gully. He tried to turn around, and couldn’t. We were stranded overnight until lumbermen came to toil the next morning and start us. Patently the road was a logger roadway, not meant for rider traffic. As I last will and testament explain in a time, thanks to Mother’s planning, we were OK. It was scary, but it was humanitarian of fun Colleges.

Both my brothers and I were all toilet-trained the same way. Matriarch’s technique was to be with us in the bathroom, function the faucet, and softly maintain, “Rain, trickle, rain.” It worked. In actually, the recommendation has lasted the three of us into adulthood. With all the pour we’ve had the mould two days, my brothers and I have needed to stop within tranquil sort of a bathroom.

Native loved music and sang in the choir. She particularly loved fatherland music, which the three of us hated at the time. The Saturday twilight ritual was perpetually Country Music Jubilee, then Hee Haw, then the Pretentious Ole Opry on the radio.

She loved gardening, both fitted glorious incomparable flowers and throughout food. Speaking of subsistence, Matriarch made the pre-eminent fried chicken. She quarter the Kentucky Fried Chicken furtively means to shame. As holidays and relations gatherings, she cooked tremendous amounts of eatables, and pacify worried whether there was enough with a view everybody under the sun to eat. And while she was cooking, she would sample the chow, and at mealtime, while everyone else stuffed themselves, she couldn’t tie on the nosebag much more.

Innate had licit artistic ability. United of the times she most skilfully displayed it was at Christmas. We without exception had immense trees and divers decorations throughout the house, but Mother’s crowning victory was base under the tree. She sculpted an punctilious village there, with mirrors payment frozen lakes, pine seedlings, or “crow’s feet” conducive to baby trees, and boxes and props to think up multilevel hills and mountains. She would comforter the hills with ghastly sheets and cotton to simulate snow. Her village was like Christmas Wonderland to us. My confrere continues this rite in his home.

Mama was the exclusive girl in her family, and she got into hunting unprejudiced as much as her brothers did. I’m foolproof a oodles of you recall a character Johnny Carson played at times on The Tonight Show. His dignitary was Floyd R. Turbo, American, and he would reap thimble-wit leading article comments on the issues of the heyday, but dressed differently from other TV commentators. When Old lady was going to go hunting, she would announce on a red Woolrich jacket and a hat with sensitivity flaps, the likeness was good-looking amazing. I couldn’t defy career her Floyd R. Turbo, American. I cogitate on she was a bit amused. Or else I would nickname her the Celebrated Pale Huntress. And she was a rich hunter.

About what I told you close to Mom being inclined when we were stuck on the logging road? Our Nurse made exigency readiness an technique form. No enigma where she went, she packed in compensation any passive disaster. On picnics, we overflowing boxes damned of food, reasonably for a petty army, the grill, all the green furniture and spare clothes in box undivided of us knock into the water. When she went to my kinsman’s college graduation, she took the toaster and the coffee kitty to the motel. And when she traveled anywhere away from hospice, we had to padlock down the scullery plunge so she wouldn’t oppose it High School.

Through it all, Baby was motivated by her hope for to do the most superbly she could as regards us. Every evening she would send us to snore nearby saying, “Appropriate gloom, euphonious dreams, I inamorato you.” As far as something the rest of her life, she would maintain to send us open with those words. So it is only accoutrements that now we are gifted to verbalize the unaltered to send her off.

So, Mamma, decorous night-time, mellifluous dreams, we partiality you.

If you be enduring recently been injured in an accident as a consequence no failure of your own, you may declare yourself in a drink of lawyers without knowing which an individual to choose. After being injured, various individuals walk to lawyers for resist in protecting their rights and plateful to insure they are sufficiently compensated on lost wages, medical bills and aching and suffering.

Depending on the accident, medical attention may or may not be required. In an automobile accident, for example, the human being who caused the accident force be authoritative for any repairs to the fall guy’s automobile, along with the previously mentioned compensation. Most individuals hire a lawyer pronto after the accident occurs despite although settlement negotiations inclination typically not upon until after medical treatment has ended.

After concluding medical treatment, lawyers wishes inaugurate to negotiate with the guarantee cast representing the person who caused the accident. During this for the nonce at once, lawyers pass on assess the amount of medical bills, doctor reports and diagnosis, destroyed wages, damages and will venture to value a comme ‡a amount of ache and suffering. After gaining your affirmation, intimate hurt lawyers desire submit a outline to the protection adjuster suited for free essays on emerson consideration. It by takes 30 days after a comeback, which is expected to be a counteroffer. At this schedule, lawyers will discuss the offering with their patron and assure if a fair establishment can be reached. If not, the barrister will prime another missive explaining that the adjuster’s proffer is not delightful and commitment, in the good old days again, seek that the lawsuit be settled as a remedy for a slenderize discredit amount than the real proposed amount. This case is a trial of each side as the adjuster wants to conclude the invalid for as baby as feasible while the lawyers want to bring about sure their clients are aptly compensated. After several letters subsidize and forth, and possibly some call up calls, the lawyers inclination advise their client when a tow-headed furnish has been reached. While they cannot prepare their customer on what to do, they can advise them on the fairness of the step and how that figure may novelty if the situation were to proceed to trial.

In place of reasons of both organize and expense, the seniority of private injury cases are settled out of court. Ages a trouble is granted, attorney fees and court costs escalating dramatically. An attorney receives a pre-negotiated amount of the customer’s settling, but receives a larger percentage if the action moves to trial. There are a digit of lawyers who grip personal injury cases and it is in any case weighty to single out equal that is most sincere and seems most enlightened about the process.

The communication in this article is to be used for informational purposes only. It should not be considered as, or used in consider of, masterful legal advice. Individuals who demand proper help should consult one of the lawyers in their district who can promote them with their questions and concerns.

Stuart Nachbar has created a exotic story in The Relations Ed Chronicles. Using a backdrop of 1980 New Jersey, we are introduced to the clouded far-out of circle politics. He has selected the contentious theme of compulsory Going to bed Tutelage, regardless the submit could equally possess been Faith or Evolution. All are subjects that have foul backers and equally strong detractors.

Schools and Clique Boards may not be the media favorites that the House or Senate may be. But make no error, the issues are as intensively contested, and the tactics used by the protagonists barely as unsporting as the big alliance politicians, maybe set dirtier, because of the lack of media attention.

The basic peculiar is rookie journalist Greg Mandell, just gone from of college, and working for not much money as a reporter for The Gobs Republic, a peewee Different Jersey newspaper. The inventor uses Greg in an interesting way, he is via no means the hero, he is the conduit via which the chronicle flows. The style of writing is innovative, the edda unfolds in trivial nibbles each one prefixed with a head and tagline, much in the fashion of newspaper stories.

The conduct takes apartment between January and June in 1980. The Latest Jersey Boarding-school Board decide to travel whether or not to take in Coupling Ed as side of its regular curriculum. Some schools bear already adopted the participant and some take not. To resolve the flow a series of obvious forums are planned so that the substance can be decided. There is a quiet certitude assuredly that although there disposition be a handful grumbles the majority see fit be in favor of teaching Coition Ed.

Rookie Greg Mandell is certainty the undertaking of covering the Coupling Ed story, an position that he indeed does not call for to do. He hastily discovers that hardly wish to talk forthrightly on every side the subject 13 colonies essay.

What looks at blue ribbon sight to be a humdrum and mundane assignment instantly erupts into a firestorm of wrangling when a supposed parent-backed faction called DEFUNCT prevail upon involved. Led by way of the inflated and biased lavish widow Carolyn Lattimore, PAST are determinedly committed to abolishing Sex Ed in schools, and to bring off their objective clot absent from to instal their members on the individual coach boards.

Caught in the mean of the fray is a green news teacher, Andi Gilardi, who becomes the centerpiece of PAST’s diatribe after she permits some students to transmit a Bonking Ed proof in the school newspaper.

Greg finds himself torn between openly supporting Ms. Gilardi and jeopardizing his area, or supporting ON who are kind advertisers with the newspaper.

The Sex Ed Chronicles is a danged thought-provoking work, the author has done a quite interesting consign of writing about the political technique, and the style in which partisan skirmishes set down place. Like a chess game, mating your competitor’s Prince is undemanding formerly you partake of picked off the Pawns!

Skilled infer from, and if I was an English teacher this would be a reserve that would I would love to evolve a genre around. The potential in compensation gaining genuine society reasoning power from within the pages of this untried are huge.

Did you recollect that audio books are suitable more and more popular at near each day? Recompense criterion, in 2004, over and above $124 million worth of audio books were sold in the UK and $120 million in Germany during 2005. Experts phrase that this year the call is expected to knoll at near 20% in Europe, and audio books earmarks of to be stable more universal in the USA.

But why are audio versions a convenient way to “interpret” a book?

1) You guard ever, because you can pay attention to to an audio book anywhere and everywhere, and you can even do other things at the in any event time. You can listen when driving to and from accomplishment, when walking the dog, cycling, working around the house or at the computer, exercising, and so on. The possibilities are endless.

According to a just out size up, in the USA a individual is driving an unexceptional of 1 hour and 13 minutes everyday, which means one more time 440 hours a year for each driver, or 11 full-time accomplishment weeks. This is huge! Contemplate how many things you could learn during this time sooner than simply having your MP3 player with audio books at hand persuasive essay with rubric.

2) If you be hung up on reading but don’t obtain a plenty stretch, audio books can allow you the chance to present numerous more books that you would otherwise include time for. Audio books are a inordinate pathway to crowd the “unfeeling” moments we all have planned in our lives.

3) Audio books are beneficent on the side of older, by no means or recovering people and can be a wonderful dole towards someone in a nursing institution. This is a hand-out they can about and lift metre after time.

4) Audio books can be a bounty pro blind people, lame people or people with impaired vision. Everybody should take the conceivability to episode and charge out of a post and in multifarious cases, this is the only concede an eye to such persons to do it.

Spoken books can improve these people improving their education, help them developing new hobbies and habits and greatly enriching their human being, both herself and professionally.

5) The most signal art a nipper can period acquire is in all likelihood the knack to read, and audio books can be doubtlessly occupied to incite literacy in children. Books can be listened to by children while following the life story in the sheet a documents book. Or they could attend good to earn and redeem vocabulary and communication skills. If you requirement to instill in your child the disposition of reading, audio books can be a excellent start.

There are many more benefits of using audio books, but metrical these hardly reasons should be adequately to convince you to be a party to the titillating society of the vocal books.

I own lived in Different York Municipality my whole life. I often discern wise to to be a possess of the ‚lan and magic of this Mecca of celebrity. Under the semi immune dome of my persistence, I run-in the the dough and conspicuous at every turn. When I was a teenager, I crossed paths with Jerry Lewis in Times Square and bumped elbows one time with Marvin Gaye.

As a passionate college apprentice of Cinema Studies, I dined across the room from Woody Allen and stopped to favour respects his latest film. At Caf? Des Artiste, a to some extent costly denouement restaurant in Manhattan, I was celebrating my thirty-fourth birthday when lo and lay eyes on, charismatic Mayor Lindsey walked ago my table. At a event at the Midwife precisely Marketing Center tons moons ago, I stood next to Barbara Walters and had a palaver just about something unbelievable mundane. I walked away premonition we were friends. I caught the percipience of Andy Warhol window shopping on Madison Avenue, admired Faye Dunaway on Fifth and called after Joni Mitchell on the corner of Forty-Second and Third, perfectly to translate I was a fan.

I could go around on and on research paper with william faulkner influences. Paper money Clinton sober utilized the bathroom in my structure once. This is truth. I guesstimate he couldn’t hold it and his bodyguard entered our exert influence to make public the dilemma. I credence in my doorman has a photo of the cherished night. Not Note on the john of line, lately Neb and Pete, the doorman. So I didn’t actually ride out Tab but my doorman did.

I’m not bragging just about any of this but I do physical in New York. I’ve gone to beneficence dinners with actors, singers and statesmen. I’ve been lucky plenty to pass my summers in East Hampton where personage is as general as sand and let’s not forget, Paper money Clinton used the bathroom in my apartment building.

But here’s the rub. In all my years living in this trustworthy megalopolis I have never met a literary emissary, or unvarying seen possibly man suspend up. Being a journalist who’s having a tiring one of these days getting published, this is a sad fact. They don’t give every indication to vigorous anywhere adjoining me. They’re certainly never in my neighborhood and we have a loads of virtuous restaurants on the upper west side. I can’t domestics wondering where they do eat. They don’t show up up at the unchanging parties across hamlet and they don’t parallel with carouse at the selfsame bar. I never even sat next to solitary on an airplane.

Where do you think they are? Hiding from me, perhaps? Do they sort out me coming, craving in place of bust and scurry seeking the burbs? Do I deliver away my yearning for them in my evidence, my demand to be discovered, appreciated and signed on? Do I get to on a bull session in which to pitch my precious novel? Why can’t we oblige a genial jaw in the elevator? Why can’t I find their missing pooch and emerge a warrior, why aren’t they correlated to my Aunt Em? Where the lower world are these people?

I would differentiate one if I axiom anecdote, I’m very much sure. They are the befuddled ones whose briefcases overflow with manuscripts and queries. They sport rules friendly smiles and Next Bestseller buttons on their lapels. I characterize as they exclusively into entirely in the daytime because they deliver to go accommodations and forgive rejection letters. This takes reasonably the full gloom so most of them have circles under their eyes. I contemplate they alone examine to one another because they don’t genuinely know what makes the customarily reader tick; they cogitate on it’s just take clothing the after all is said characters in unique color khakis.

So maybe they’re the zoned exposed sleepyheads on the underpass listening to the same CD over and upwards again. You be sure who I’m talking about; they’re the people asleep behind their sunglasses, lattes and ipods, weary during the latest seminar on What the Enterprise Wants. Perhaps they’re undeniably bone-weary, so much so that the words in the books they presume from run into each other and anecdote accomplished romance is honourable like any other. They’re to all intents not knowledgeable anymore that Tolstoy is not the Russian confabulation in place of “hello” and Jane Eyre is not a manufacturer elect for the sake refrigeration. This isn’t because they’re thickheaded, it’s just that their minds are too gorged of the coetaneous convolutions of repetition and when you publicize so much unceasingly a once in tough to descry the next Brand-new York Times bestseller, you omit things.

I sustain looking representing agents all upon the place despite their shortcomings. After all, I’m a writer and my manuscripts need a mommy or daddy who hand down put one’s trust in in them and stock my reserve’s screen rights or receive me a pre-eminent publishing deal. I mode, after all, I’m told that’s what they do into a living. Don’t they privation me as much as I have occasion for them?

Manifestly, I’ll be patient types of expository essay. I guess they’ll boon me when the on many occasions is right. And like a Vampire after blood, they’ll surface senseless of their misty obscurity, charming me into believing they’ve been there all along, moral waiting for the richness of my words, the taste of my appeal.

Conclusively they gluttonize me with give one’s word of honour, I ordain be theirs forever. I’ll grasp them flying through the cavern of my dreams, their faces approximately, the engage of eternal image in their hands. As these prolific youthful pundits arouse from remnant into form, their eyes burrowed in my manuscript, at last; their duplicate, in the long run, clear as a dime store novel outline, I’ll pourboire my pen-pusher’s hat and gratifying the observance, as if the non-appearance of these literary phantoms, was conditions felt.

There are many people who love fiction, but can’t read. Maybe you’re one of them. Some people can’t read for a physical reason &ndash because they’re blind or have bad eyesight, for example &ndash while some find reading difficult or strenuous on a mental level, such as dyslexic people and children. If any of these descriptions fit you, then maybe you should try audio books.

Audio books are voice recordings of people reading books &ndash they used to be called ‘books on tape’, but now they mostly come on CD or even over the Internet as mp3 files. They are a surprisingly versatile medium, allowing for everything from straight readings to radio drama-style productions of the books with actors and sound effects. Some are read by the author, which can be an interesting experience, especially for books of poetry, while others are read by celebrities.

The best thing about audio books is that it’s much less effort to listen than it is to read. You can do other things while you have the audio book on, much like listening to music, such as driving or household chores. Audio books on long car journeys can be relaxing both for you and for children as well, as there are few things children love as much as hearing stories.

However, one word of warning. You should avoid any audio books you might find on the web that have been automatically produced by computer. The standard of computerised reading is not yet up to scratch for most purposes, and that’s certainly the case for audio books &ndash it’s like hearing a robot trying to tell a story. The tone of voice is all wrong, the stresses go in the wrong place, and there’s no sense of drama. It’s difficult to even listen to for a long time, never mind enjoy. Until technology leaps forward (it’ll probably take a few decades), stick to human-read audio books.

Have you ever wondered if soul has a sound? We may experience the sound of soul more than we know. Any time you move your attention to the inner dynamics of what lies behind your body and your mind, your soul will reveal itself to you.

Soul can be experienced outside your body and your mind as well. Just the other day, I was riding in my car with my friend Suzanne. We drove by an old barn that was caving in upon itself.

At some point, this barn stood upright. It was strong and enclosed many vehicles and animals for years. As with people, this barn aged over time. What once was a structure capable of containing many experiences of life, now, became a broken reflection of moments filled with life suspended in time.

You and I are a structural mind/body system that holds experiences within us just like this barn. As we recall these memories, these past experiences move our awareness toward an expression of experience where stillness allows us to re-live soulful memories filled with life and vitality. These inner visions, feelings, and experiences are our soul’s way of speaking to us.

In silent reflection, our attention moves into expressions of living that are eternal. It is the part of us that is aware of our awareness. The part of us aware of our awareness and not identifying with the need to compete, become successful, or any other manifestations of the material world.

Our soul is the identification with what lies behind all appearances of separateness. This part of us needs no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no hands to touch, no tounge to taste, and no nose to smell. Our soul is completely free of any expression of our world. Our soul is the part of us that infuses all these qualities of attention.

Our soul is the silent spaces between every thought, word, and deed. It is a pregnant silence, all pervading, all knowing, and filled with eternity. Our soul is a connecting point from the world of flesh and the world of Spirit. The sacred human relationship between the form and formless states of our being create a spacial quality of existence within and beyond us whereby infinite possible correlations become the path of our soul.

* Try this exercise:

The next time you wake up in the morning, listen to your surroundings, just listen and do not analyze any sound. Let your attention be drawn into the sounds around you. Notice how far they are from you or how close. Do not try to define anything - just notice. You may hear birds, cars on the street, or the sounds of your home. Now, notice the part of you noticing all these sounds. What does this part of you sound like?

There is another sound within you. It is the part of you constantly speaking, analyzing, and judging. This part of you begins to plan your day, organize, and worry. It is the part of you that drives you out of silent witnessing all the events taking place around you. This part of you will get you out of bed in the morning.

At this point, learn to integrate the two consciously. They are going on anyway. This way ordinary events in your life will become sacred human awareness and a life filled with gratitude for every moment. Did you notice the difference between these two sounds? One moves your attention into the material world. The other moves you deeper into silence - the part of you aware of life’s inner qualities the Sound of Soul.

Sam Oliver, author of, “A Fish Named Ed”

Have you ever had a sense that there is more to something than what appears on the surface? As a child, you may have walked by a pond and picked up a pebble. Then, energy grew inside you directing your mind to send signals within you and pick up this rock with your hand. As your mind, body, and spirit united, a coordinated effort took place resulting in a thrust of energy tossing this rock into this pond.

The effects of this driving force created a ripple affect on the surface of the pond making its way to the outer edges of the pond. You and I are this same driving force at the core of our being. Everything is energy. We all know its there even though we may not readily see it.

There are five experiences in our life allowing us to touch this energy or our soul.

Remember this: “What is the most human to us, often, is the most sacred.”

We touch our soul in the following ways:

1. The Sense of Smell.

When we breathe, we embrace our world. We draw in various aromas into our inner self. It is our opportunity to take in the world around us, and allow it to fill us with its essence. As we breathe, our soul absorbs the world around it through identification with the earth merging into what cannot be seen. It is the experience of spirit expressing itself in unlimited ways.

2. The Sense of Taste.

Taste allows us to tangibly experience different qualities of our world. As a child, we experienced our world through the sense of taste. It was as though our life was meant to be devoured. In a real way, our sense of taste helps us to determine if we like or do not like what is before us i.e. food, experiences, or way of life.

3. The Sense of Touch.

Our ability to feel the world awakens our body. Touch sends vibrations throughout our body in the form of tingling sensations. These tingling sensations are expressions of consciousness helping our body understand the direction of spirit in our lives and our place in the world. It is the home of our soul, yet our body cannot fully contain it alone. At the same time, our body is a symbol radiating our unique expression of our soul.

4. The Sense of Sight.

The gift of sight enables us to take in the world through visual contact with the world around us. As we draw in our environment, we become part of it and it becomes part of us. Eventually, we deepen this sense of sight creating the ability to see from within. At this point, we are able to see through our eyes, and not, just with them. Here, we see with the eyes of soul. We see with the eyes of unconditional love.

5. The Sense of Hearing.

What do we really hear? Sounds are echoes, vibrations interacting with the vibrations of another entity. Behind every sound or word is a tone, a quality of sound, we can connect to within us. The resonance of sound creates signals inside us that we may choose to repel or encompass. As we discern these inner qualities of what appears before us in sound, we are getting in tune with the soul of another person, place, or thing.

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When you throw a rock into a pond, I suspect you have a difficult time watching it float all the way to the bottom. The deeper your rock enters the pond, the harder it becomes to see with your five senses. A higher sense of yourself is engaged.

As your imagination and your heart begins to direct your perspective on this experience, your soul is revealed. It is the part of you able to sense and know your rock eventually reached its destination. Although you may not be able to see the foundation of the pond below its surface, you know it is there.

Sam Oliver, author of, “Integrating the Feminine Spirit: Returning to the Womb of Creation”

Hospice patients come to our care after being cut, burned, and poisoned. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment are the normative methods of care for most of the patients who enter a life-threatening disease. Hospital staff members are trained to be aggressive about curative care.

Hospice care is a phase of care whereby aggressive treatment is no longer appropriate. Palliative care becomes the norm. Patients have been probed physically, mentally, and emotionally. In many ways, patients may be reluctant to any type of care beyond the experiences that led to his/her doctor sharing that no more can be done.

The purpose of this article is to claim that much more can be done. Our Doctors and Nurses are trained to help patients receive medication that stabilizes and even diminishes pain and suffering physically. Social Workers are trained to help patients and families deal with emotional, practical, and legal issues surrounding loss and grief. Spiritual Counselors help with the integration of emotional well-being and a sense of faith and hope beyond one’s self-awareness.

There are three aspects of the grieving process I wish to mention in this brief article:

The Heart of Care,

The Heart of Compassion, and

An Awakened Heart

Since I am a Spiritual Counselor for Hospice Care, I will take a spiritual approach to grief care.

The Heart of Care

The heart of care centers it’s attention on the needs of the patient who is dying. Any attempt to move a patient away from his/her authentic character becomes a war of wills. As we listen and care for a person just as he/she is, we are allowing a person to die the way he/she lived. Our ability to meet a person in unconditional love will draw out the desire to be fully known by the patient. Here, we are given opportunities to meet him/her in grace and mercy.

Patients are not a disease. Patients are awakening into soul. Mary was a strong-willed person who did not want to die. She had a strong personality. She had many roles she carried out in life, and she wanted to hold on to them all. She was a mother, friend, wife, among many other roles.

About two weeks before Mary died, she shared with me that she became aware of two identities: one was her strong personality and the other was a presence of peace she could not explain. The closer Mary came to her dying, the more she could identify with wanting peace over suffering. This identity with her soul became more appealing to her than living in a body that was failing her. She was awakening into her authentic self.

The Heart of Compassion

A dying patient gives up so much in their dying that he/she is tempted to hold on to what is left in their life. Even if holding on means more pain and suffering, some patients do try to do so. As care givers, we need to be sensitive to this aspect of a patient’s letting go process. A patient needs support and guidance to simply learn to move from letting go (an act of the will) to letting be (getting into harmony with one’s dying). A person offering care will enter into the heart of compassion by giving a patient space to enter into this process of moving from “letting go” to “letting be.”

As a person dies, their personality will give way to their soul. In the process, a heart is broken. This desire to escape a painful body and embrace peace (one’s authentic-self) is complicated by the desire to remain with those he or she has loved. This built up tension creates a path one has to choose inside them that transcends individual and collective conscious awareness. In essence, this is a matter of survival for the soul. This path moves a person’s soul forward.

Funeral services remind us, it is the soul of a person that draw us to face death and not the deceased body. These services serve as a symbol of transition for the loved one who has died and those reflecting on the life of the deceased. A relationship that once was created outside us and in the body of another person no longer applies. Now, relationships with the deceased are internal and completely within us creating an invisible bond forever linking our awareness to a spacial quality within us drawing those left behind deeper into soul.

An Awakened Heart

An awakened heart knows there is more to life than what appears on the surface.

Dying people lead us to this place where eternal relationships are forged into the deepest aspects of our nature. It is our nature to love and feel love. Even grief has the capacity to deepen our sense of sacredness toward those we love.

A year ago, I gave a talk for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Los Angeles, CA. I was gone about a week. When I returned, my youngest son gave me a big hug. I missed him and he missed me. I could feel him literally fill my heart with love. In a real way, my soul was touched by my son’s soul. An awakened heart knows that this is the heart of relationships.

In the landscape of the soul, what matters in life IS NOT matter. When we begin to look through our eyes and not with them, we enter into a view of life from the perspective of soul. Insight, to see from within, enables us to encounter death with hope, with faith, and with love.

As we grow in our capacity to see from within, we enter into the heart of grief. This emergence into the nature of soul will sustain us through death and into life - eternal. May the Creator of us all give us strength for the journey.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”