tag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:/blogs/blog1?p=3Blog12022-01-11T14:06:16-08:00nicolemariemusic.comfalsetag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/68658582022-01-11T14:06:16-08:002023-10-16T07:57:22-07:00Blog versus Blog 1<p>I wasn't able to transfer all my blogs over from Hostbaby to Bandzoogle, my latest webhosting service. That is why I have a "Blog" and a "Blog 1." The former, "Blog", is where you will find my latest blogs. FYI</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016292020-01-25T16:00:00-08:002020-01-26T22:25:44-08:00Black Sunday<p>I was going to write a blog today called “modern day devil worship.” However, then I heard the news about the death of Kobe Bryant and I decided I would do a blog about him and the events surrounding his death instead. Being an intuitive, I think it’s interesting that I was going to do a blog about modern day devil worship and I also find it interesting that a few days ago I had a vision of an open grave knowing that some someone close to me or meaningful to me was going to die. Sometimes I have this kind of an image or feeling or dream when someone famous dies. For instance right before prince died, I had a dream that my sister died. This may be because my psyche associates Prince with my sister as my sister is the one who got us tickets to the Prince concert at The Gorge in George, Washington. <br><br></p>
<p>But back to Kobe, I find it interesting that he died in an “accident“ that involved children, that occurred on a Sunday, the day after LeBron James passed him on the NBA scoring list, and the morning of the day a big event such as The Grammy’s is about to be held in the same event center where Kobe’s team, the Lakers, play. There is just too many coincidences here. Isn’t it interesting how extra attention is going to be given to the Grammy’s tonight just like extra attention was given to The Grammy’s when Whitney Houston died and when Jennifer Hudson’s family was murdered and that involved children too. I wasn’t planning on watching The Grammy’s tonight for the first time since my whole view of the music business has changed in the past year. I now see the music industry, and film industry for that matter, as modern forms of devil worship. One only has to look to at the strange, possessed, demonic behavior of those that find success in the music business in general. Just check out my metamorphosis playlist on YouTube and check out the history of ritualistic murders as forms of sacrifice that involve famous people:</p>
<p><a href="http://falsificationofhistory.co.uk/geopolitics/the-ritual-murder-of-princess-diana/" data-imported="1">http://falsificationofhistory.co.uk/geopolitics/the-ritual-murder-of-princess-diana/</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016282020-01-22T16:00:00-08:002020-01-23T02:56:46-08:00Cloaked in Craziness<p>There's something meaningful in being dismissed as "crazy." It gives you a sort of freedom, a creative freedom and freedom of speech that is disappearing these days in all the political correctness. The dark powers of this world aren't as threatened by you spreading the dark truths that most aren't brave enough, privy enough or open enough to speak of, acknowledge or receive. The dark powers of this world know that you will be dismissed as "paranoid" or as a "conspiracy theorist" by the mass populace who want to enjoy the comforts of whatever freedoms or perception of freedoms exist while the spiritual warriors are the ones willing to go into the trenches and stand on the frontlines of this spiritual war. </p>
<p>David Icke talks about how he was mocked, ridiculed and laughed at early on in his career of being a speaker, writer and educator of dark truths. Because of this experience, the dark powers that be aren't as threatened by him because they know that most will dismiss him as crazy. Rather than let this bring him down, he has been able to find the silver lining in being seen as crazy. </p>
<p>Sloan Bella is a metaphysician who practices astrology, works with healing crystals and channels spirits as a psychic medium. She isn't afraid to tell the truth about how certain celebrities really died and how other celebrities, while awed by the public at large, are involved in the Illuminati, Luciferianism and have been connected to Jeffrey Epstein's rings of sex trafficking involving children and possible blood sacrifice. Most people will turn their eyes and ears away from such talk and dismiss someone like Sloan as a "witch" or worse. </p>
<p>But there is purpose and meaning in being dismissed and/or attacked by the narcissists and sociopaths of the world or even by the people who want to only worry about their own little corners of the world, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to whatever evil lurks in the dark corners of the world. </p>
<p>It's as if the dark truth tellers are "cloaked in craziness" or what appears to be craziness to those whose eyes have yet to be opened or who have been fortunate enough to not have experienced narcissistic or sociopathic abuse, though I would argue that we all have whether we realize it or not, or any of a number of different traumas that lead one to see beneath the surface of the superficial lifestyle.</p>
<p>There is a documentary called Healing Voices about mental health care, the over reliance on psychiatric medications and the stigma attached to anyone labelled as anything from Schizophrenia to depressed. The movie poses an important question about seeing the positive side of something like psychosis. In some Native American cultures, for instance, a psychotic person may be elevated to the status of shaman. </p>
<p>A person who is a psychic medium may be diagnosed with Schizophrenia or any number of anxiety disorders or a "witch" by many different religions, especially those of the Christian variety. While most Christians denounce astrology, they ignore bible verse that point to the meaning in the stars such as Genesis 1:14 and the fact that the wise men used the stars to find baby Jesus. Most Christians will also denounce the term "psychic" but are okay with the term "prophet." While I do believe it's true that one can get their information from light or dark sources, who are we to judge that? Jesus was all about love, not judgement. Even Jesus was labelled as "crazy" by the people in power at that time. He was tortured, mocked and ultimately put to death for what others saw as "crazy." Why should we, as Christians, treat others the way Jesus was mistreated? It doesn't make any spiritual sense. A lot of the harsh judgement in the old testament was reversed by Jesus anyhow. Just look how he blew Leviticus 20:10 out of the water in John 7:53-8:11. </p>
<p>So, to the people who have been dismissed as "crazy" or "unhinged" or "paranoid" or a "witch" or as a "conspiracy theorist", just know that you are in good company. Jesus always walks before us in whatever pain we face. And the next time someone calls you any version of "crazy", simply reply with a "thank you." Take up your cross and follow Him. Put on your cloak of craziness and wear it proudly and then... find and speak your truth, no matter how dark and uninvited that truth may be...</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016272020-01-04T16:00:00-08:002020-01-05T10:23:32-08:00Shapeshifters: Episode 1<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE is adoring the beauty of her reflection in her vanity mirror. As she brushes her long blonde hair, she notices a patch of skin on her right cheek turn scaly green. A sense of alarm adorns her face as she stops brushing her hair and feels the normal cheek skin with her hand and notices that when she removes her hand, her reflection appears to return to normal. She SIGHS and continues to brush her hair but then a patch of scaly, green skin appears once again on her cheek. She screams and drops her brush.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JUMP TO:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Manager, MS. STREICH, of an orphanage for Native American Children, is showing the orphans how to bow and curtsy.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: And when King Elias and Princess Stephanie arrive and you are selected to go on an outing with them, you must first address him as...?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>THE ORPHANS: Your Majesty.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: And then...?</p>
<p>THE ORPHANS: Sir.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: And you will first address the princess as...?</p>
<p>THE ORPHANS: Your Royal Highness.</p>
<p>Ms. Streich then notices two eight year old twins, MARK and MATT, goofing around in the back. The rest of the orphans look back at the boys and the boys realize that everyone is watching them and look at Ms. Streich.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: I want you boys to come with me. Ms. Horner, will you please take over for me.</p>
<p>Ms. Streich walks to the back of the class and grabs the collars of both boys and leads them out of the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JUMP TO:</p>
<p>Princess Stephanie and King Elias are in the back of a limousine. Princess Stephanie brings a handheld mirror to her face which reveals the square bandage on her cheek. </p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Oh, I look hideous, father.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>KING ELIAS: It'll be alright, sweetie. We're almost there. </p>
<p>King Elias pats her on the thigh and Princess Stephanie gasps.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: That hurt!</p>
<p>She pulls up her dress to reveal the thigh that has patches of scaly, green skin on it.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Oh! I can't hold form. I need blood now.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: We mustn't panic. We'll look for the frightened ones. Their blood will be more highly charged.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Why must we drink tainted blood?</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: Our consumption of Aryan blood must be limited. If too many Aryan children go missing, it would be noticed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>JUMP TO:</p>
<p>Ms. Streich is at her desk in her office and Matt and Mark are sitting in chairs opposite her.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: Perhaps, the two of you aren't ready to meet royalty.</p>
<p>MARK: We'll be good ma'am, we promise. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>MS. STREICH: Hmmm. Perhaps the two of you need to be separated. You seem to get into mischief whenever you're together.</p>
<p>MATT: Please don't separate us.</p>
<p>MARK: We're always together. We're sorry ma'am.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: Hmmm, we shall see. The King and Princess should be here soon. Go and join the rest in the hall.</p>
<p>The boys get up and leave her office. </p>
<p>They enter the hall where the rest of the orphans are. They join a brother and sister, IGGY (age 6) and JESSICA (age 8), who are their friends. </p>
<p>IGGY: Ooh, you guys got in trouble.</p>
<p>JESSICA: Did Ms. Streich paddle you?</p>
<p>MARK: Not this time. </p>
<p>An older child, CLAY, of 13 years, comes up to the group of friends.</p>
<p>CLAY: You dopes hope they pick you?</p>
<p>MARK: Only if they pick me and Matt together.</p>
<p>JESSICA: Yeah, me and Ig too.</p>
<p>CLAY: You know what happened the last time the king and princess came?</p>
<p>JESSICA: No, that was three years ago. I was only five.</p>
<p>Mark gestures to himself and Matt.</p>
<p>MARK: We weren't here then.</p>
<p>CLAY: Well, I remember and I DO NOT want to get chosen for an outing with them. </p>
<p>MATT: What happened, Clay?</p>
<p>CLAY: The kids that were chosen... never... came back.</p>
<p>JESSICA: Were they adopted by families?</p>
<p>Clay chuckles.</p>
<p>CLAY: That what Streaker said but I don't believe it. Two of my friends, Tommy and Jason, were chosen. I heard that Jason got away but he told people what happened to Tommy. Nobody believed him.</p>
<p>JESSICA: You're just trying to scare us.</p>
<p>MARK: No, Clay's just jealous because he's too old and ugly. No King or Princess would ever choose him.</p>
<p>Mark, Matt, Jessica and Iggy all start laughing. </p>
<p>CLAY: Listen you idiots! They will kill you and drink your blood if you are lucky and if you aren't lucky, they will...</p>
<p>Ms. Horner stands right by Clay.</p>
<p>MS. HORNER: Clay, are you scaring these children again with your horror stories.</p>
<p>Clay look down.</p>
<p>CLAY: No, Ma'am.</p>
<p>Ms. Horner then walks away and claps to get all of the kids attention.</p>
<p>MS. HORNER: Fall in line, children. Ms. Streich is about to bring the King in.</p>
<p>The children get into lines and get quiet.</p>
<p>Mrs. Streich enters the hall with King Elias. The females curtsy and the males bow and all say: your majesty.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: I'm sorry that the Princess is not well enough to meet all of you today. But she will be able to meet a selected few among you assuming she is feeling better soon. </p>
<p>MS. STREICH: We hope she is feeling better soon, sir.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: Thank you. Now, to get back to the reason for my visit to this lovely orphanage. I am here to select a lucky group of children to go to lunch with myself and Princess Stephanie. I have met with Ms. Streich about which children might be appropriately prepared for the occasion and have reviewed your information. The children I have chosen are: Rebecca Quinn.</p>
<p>A shy, seven year old girl, REBECCA, raises her hand. Ms. Horner goes over to her.</p>
<p>MS. HORNER: You mustn't be afraid, Rebecca. This is an honor and a privilege. </p>
<p>Ms. Horner takes Rebecca's hand and leads her to the King's side. Rebecca starts to cry. Another little girl, TAMARA, raises her hand as she begins to talk.</p>
<p>TAMARA: Ms. Streich, can I go in Becky's place if she doesn't want to go.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: Mind your matters, Tamara.</p>
<p>The King pats Rebecca on the head and gives her a sucker from his pocket. Rebecca looks at Ms. Streich who nods at her. Rebecca opens the wrapping and begins to suck on the sucker. King Elias looks at his index card of names.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: Now, back to business. I would also like to invite Ignatius Jessup. </p>
<p>Matt, Mark and Jessica look at Iggy whose mouth is opened wide in shock. Iggy looks at his sister.</p>
<p>JESSICA: Go ahead, Ig. It's okay.</p>
<p>Iggy stands next to Rebecca.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: David Cross, Alicia Vickson and Kenna McKay.</p>
<p>Three more children go up to stand by the king.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: And perhaps, one more... Matthew McKnight.</p>
<p>Matt looks at his brother, Mark, and at Clay who looks away.</p>
<p>MARK: It'll be okay. You know Clay lies...</p>
<p>Matt nods.</p>
<p>MARK: Tell me everything when you get back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JUMP TO: </p>
<p>King Elias and the chosen orphans get into the back of the limo where Princess Stephanie is sitting.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Thank God. I'm so thirsty.</p>
<p>IGGY: Wow, it's so big in this car.</p>
<p>He looks at the Princess.</p>
<p>IGGY: What happened to your face?</p>
<p>Iggy points to the bandage on Princess Stephanie's face. </p>
<p>ALICIA: Iggy, don't be so rude. I'll apologize for him, your royal highness.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Well, at least somebody has some manners.</p>
<p>One by one, the rest of the kids address her as "your royal highness."</p>
<p>Once the King has entered the limo and everyone is seated, the car starts to move. </p>
<p>Matt looks around.</p>
<p>MATT: It's dark in here.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: They're called tinted windows.</p>
<p>ALICIA: Where are we going for lunch, sir? </p>
<p>KING ELIAS: It's a surprise.</p>
<p>REBECCA: I don't like surprises.</p>
<p>Alicia glares at Rebecca.</p>
<p>ALICIA: Don't be such a scaredy cat, Becky.</p>
<p>A moment of silence ensues and Matt looks at the Princess and she looks back at him. He sees the shape of her pupils change and he recoils.</p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Is something wrong, child?</p>
<p>Matt shakes his head.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: You know, it isn't polite to stare. </p>
<p>MATT: I'm sorry. </p>
<p>King Elias touches a button and all the doors lock. Becky and Matt shudder.</p>
<p>ALICIA: This is a really nice car, your majesty, your royal highness.</p>
<p>Princess Stephanie manages a smile.<br><br></p>
<p>PRINCESS STEPHANIE: Why, thank you dear. Perhaps, you shall be first.</p>
<p>KING ELIAS: Go for the jugular, Sweetie.</p>
<p>Princess Stephanie and King Elias then shapeshift into reptiles and bite into the necks of the children who begin to scream in horror.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JUMP TO:</p>
<p>Clay, Jessica and Mark are at a dinner table in the hall along with all the other kids.</p>
<p>MARK: I thought they'd be home before dinner.</p>
<p>JESSICA: I'm worried. I told Ig to go.</p>
<p>Jessica starts to cry.</p>
<p>Ms. Streich sits down at their table next to Jessica.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: You mustn't cry, dear. I have some good news. The King was able to find families to adopt Iggy and the other children.</p>
<p>MARK: But Matt and I were supposed to be adopted together.</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: You don't get to decide that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JESSICA: So, I'll never get to see Iggy again?</p>
<p>MS. STREICH: You mustn't be selfish, dear. You must be happy for your brother. He has parents now... unlike the rest of you lot.</p>
<p>Ms. Streich gets up and walks away.</p>
<p>CLAY: She's such a bitch. </p>
<p>MARK: Were you lying earlier?</p>
<p>CLAY: Um... yeah... I was just pulling your chain. The kids that are chosen are really set up to be adopted by rich White folks. That's why they change our names.</p>
<p>JESSICA: My name isn't Jessica?</p>
<p>CLAY: You don't remember your real name?</p>
<p>JESSICA: Do you remember yours?</p>
<p>CLAY: Yes, but I'm forbidden to speak it here.</p>
<p>LATER</p>
<p>The children are in their bed in the sleeping quarters. Jessica and Mark have beds that are next to each other.</p>
<p>Mark is laying wide awake and Jessica is crying with eyes closed.</p>
<p>Mark whispers Jessica's name.</p>
<p>MARK: Jess?</p>
<p>Jessica opens her eyes.</p>
<p>MARK: Something's wrong.</p>
<p>JESSICA: What do you mean?</p>
<p>MARK: Something happened to Matt. I feel it.</p>
<p>JESSICA: You mean, he was adopted by bad parents.</p>
<p>MARK: No, I don't think he was adopted at all. I think something bad happened to him like Clay said...</p>
<p>JESSICA: I can't believe that. I won't believe that. </p>
<p>MARK: Jess, we need to get out of here. We need to find out what really happened to Matt and Iggy.</p>
<p>JESSICA: They were adopted by nice families and we should be happy for them.</p>
<p>MARK You can't tell me that you really believe that BS!</p>
<p>Jessica turns her back to Mark.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016252019-12-26T16:00:00-08:002019-12-27T04:07:45-08:00How Cancer Saved My Life: How to Find the Meaning in Everything<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">I was talking to my sister yesterday and she was bragging to me about how she just won $900 at the casino. She told me that she won on a slot machine that kept playing on despite wanting to play on her favorite slot machines that were elsewhere in the casino. She went on to say that she stayed on the machine because there were three broke, probable drug users sitting right next to her complaining about not having any money but yet loitering around her at the slot machines. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">I don't know about you but if I had been in my sister's shoes, I would have left immediately but my sister felt it was safer to stay at the machine until they left and she won the money shortly thereafter. I told her that perhaps our mom, who passed away in 2017, guided those three individuals to her so she'd stay at the machine and win the money. After all, my mother once helped me with money issues when I prayed to her shortly after she died. At the time, I needed money to complete a creative project and had no idea where to get the money from. Finally, I said out loud to my mom, "mama, the money's got to come from somewhere" hoping she would here me from the heavens. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">Well, the money did come and I was able to complete the project: my 5th album: <em>Oaths of Abundance</em>. This album represented my first album written mostly from a joyful place and it was a labor of joy and love and I had a spiritual need to complete it. The money came in 2017 after my ex-husband revealed to me in July of that year that he was having an affair. I was devastated and my eyes were opened to his malignant narcissism after lots of studying, researching and soul searching. He had fooled me for 25 years. I talk more about that experience in my book: <em>Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse</em>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">Anyway, at the time of the separation and eventual divorce, I had no idea that the selling of house would yield us a financial gain of any kind. Through the selling of the house we owned, I was able to set aside some funds for the production of <em>Oaths of Abundance. </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">I have since reflected on that toxic relationship and how, in the last year of our marriage, he probably had plans to kill me as he had been asking me about life insurance and making comments like "I worry for you that you don't have life insurance." Does that make any sense? Why would I care that I don't have life insurance? We never had kids so he would have been the sole beneficiary if I had had life insurance. He also rushed me to refinance the house the week prior to revealing his affair to me only because I caught him in a lie. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">Why didn't I have life insurance? Because I always denied it whenever I applied for it because I had cancer at age 28. At the time of the cancer, I was trying to make sense of why it was happening to me. I was able to find meaning in the most adverse situations such as cancer. This is a gift I have - finding the silver lining, finding meaning in anything. I speak of this in my book <em>The Gifts of Cancer</em>. I had cancer in 2004. I got separated in 2017. Since getting separated, divorced and recovering from the narcissistic abuse I suffered, I have found even more meaning in the cancer I had in 2004. I believe that <strong>CANCER SAVED MY LIFE</strong>. If I didn't have cancer, I likely would have had life insurance and my ex-husband would have likely killed me and made it look like an accident in order to keep his house and move his girlfriend in without looking like the bad guy. In fact, he would have been the "poor grieving widower" that would draw sympathy from others instead. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">So, while the cancer and the divorce were huge life events for me, I feel that there is also meaning to be found in the small things that make us agitated or anxious or grief struck in life. In my job as a mental health counselor, I often aid people in seeing the silver lining in their situation, no matter how grim or dark. I found meaning in the experience of narcissistic abuse by helping others out of or in recovery from similar relationships whether personally or professionally in their own lives. And you wouldn't believe how many people are suffering from narcissistic victim syndrome. And I LIVE for helping others. Helping others is what motivates me most in life. I just had to learn that there are certain people you don't want to "help" because they will take advantage of your empathy and good nature. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">So, the next time you are confused, downtrodden, anxious or angry, sit with the feeling and ask yourself, "where is the meaning here?" If you don't hear an answer, trust that in due time, you will know the answer, even if the answer isn't revealed to you until you are on the other side. Sometimes, <strong>GOD SPEAKS THROUGH CIRCUMSTANCE</strong> and we are blocked from doing something we want to do because we are not meant to or perhaps, the timing isn't right. I knew something was off in my marriage but I didn't know what it was. I kept praying to God to reveal the truth to me but the truth wasn't revealed to me for several years, if not decades, after I started praying this pray. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">We have to trust that things happen in His perfect timing, not ours. And things happen in His perfect planning, not ours. We need to let go of the need to know and be open to any meaning that is ready for us to receive once any barriers to truth have been removed and we are truly ready to handle the truth, no matter how dark and no matter how light. It wasn't long after I really let go of this need to know the truth about my husband and truly gave it up to God to reveal it to me as he deemed fit, that the ugly truth was revealed to me about his true character. I believe my mother had something to do with it too. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">In 2020, the veil will be lifted for many more people, light workers and children of God especially, about the dark truths of this world and the dark truth of the evil in this world. People will start to shapeshift before your eyes and their true nature will be revealed to you whether you are ready or not. I'm glad I got a head start in this regard. Since starting the process of acknowledging the narcissistic abuse and then starting the process of recovering from it, my eyes are ever more open to dark personalities that run this world, the wolves in sheep's clothing that once fooled me and that still fool the majority of the population, and the dark truths that are so hard to believe. Once you been mind controlled for 25 years, you have a great understand for how it happens. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: book antiqua, palatino, serif;">So, I encourage you to be open to finding the meaning in everything, big or small, good or bad. God bless you on your journey...</span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016222019-12-16T16:00:00-08:002019-12-17T09:47:47-08:00Christmas Crazy<p>A friend recently told me that she was suffering from "the Christmas Crazy." What she was referring to is the commercialism, stress, anxiety, materialism, and selfishness that the season of "giving" and spirit of Christmas has become. If you google Christmas, you will likely find that it is a "Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus (Britannica.com 2019)." However, when you study the origins of Christmas, you will find that most scholars believe that Christmas represents the pagan celebration of the winter solstice and that Jesus was likely born in the spring, not in the winter. </p>
<p>December 25th was chosen to represent the birth of Jesus by the powers of this world because, "It was a very dark occult festival that celebrated the birthday of the 'sun god' in all his various forms. Unfortunately, most Christians have never learned about the pagan origins of Christmas. Most Christians seem to believe that the history of Christmas began when Jesus was born. But that is not the truth. [...] ...the Roman Catholic religion latched on to the birthday of the sun god and married it to the birth of Christ. This birthday of the sun god can be traced all the way back to ancient Babylon (<a href="http://thefinalhour.blogspot.com/2010/12/history-of-christmas-december-25th-was.html" data-imported="1">http://thefinalhour.blogspot.com/2010/12/history-of-christmas-december-25th-was.html</a> 2019)."</p>
<p>I had heard that the name "Santa" is anagram for "Satan" and that he is dressed in all red because this is the color of blood or sacrifice. I did some research of origins of the name and liked what one website, <a href="https://www.lnstar.com/mall/main-areas/xmas-santa-origin2.htm" data-imported="1">https://www.lnstar.com/mall/main-areas/xmas-santa-origin2.htm</a>, had to say: </p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;">The origin of Santa Claus depends on which country's story you choose to adopt. Santa Claus comes from the Dutch words "Sinter Klaas", which is what they call their favorite saint, St. Nicholas. He is said to have died on December 6, A.D. 342. December 6th is celebrated as his feast day, and in many countries this is the day he arrives with his presents and punishments.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;">Nicholas lived in what is now called Turkey. He was born about A.D. 280 in the town of Patras. [...] He was renowned for his extreme kindness and generosity – often going out at night and taking presents to the needy.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;">In newly Christianized areas where the pagan Celtic and Germanic cults remained strong, legends of the god Wodan were blended with those of various Christian saints; Saint Nicholas was one of these. There were Christian areas where Saint Nicholas ruled alone; in other locations, he was assisted by the pagan Dark Helper (the slave he had inherited from the Germanic god Wodan). In other remote areas, where the Church held little power, ancient pockets of the Olde Religion controlled traditions. Here the Dark Helper ruled alone, sometimes in a most confusing manner, using the cover name of Saint Nicholas or "Klaus," without in any way changing his threatening, Herne/Pan, fur-clad appearance. (This was the figure later used by the artist Nast as the model for the early American Santa Claus.)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;">By absorbing such pagan feasts and traditions, the Christian Church could subtly bring in its own theology: in this case, establishing the good Saint Nicholas, bringer of love and gifts, while grudgingly allowing the presence of the Olde Religion's Herne/Pan, but only as a slave to Saint Nicholas. Thus, in parts of Europe, the Church turned Herne into Saint Nicholas' captive, chained Dark Helper; none other than Satan, the Dark One, symbolic of all evil. His only remaining tasks now were to carry the bag, scare maidens and children into devout behavior, and drag sinners and pagans off to the Christian hell. Yet, in spite of this character assassination, the poor masses continued to see in this enslaved Dark Helper a reflection of their own enslavement. He remained their Herne, thumbing his nose at the Christian Church; a mischievous, nostalgic reminder of the days of their own free and lusty pagan past.</p>
<p>In other words, perhaps we are collectively buying into a holiday, both figuratively and literally, that was created to conjure up the very drama, chaos, confusion, frustration, irritability, anger, sadness, fear and anxiety that the dark forces of this world feed off of. We worry about having enough money to buy gifts for our loved ones. We fear that our loved ones will be upset with us if we don't give them a gift. We encounter family drama and unresolved trauma that bubbles to the surface longing for resolution. But in our busyness, in our dissociation, in our craziness, we miss the true meaning of Christmas: to love one another, to be kind to one another, to be compassionate and understanding of one another, to help each other out especially those who are suffering, and most importantly, never lose faith and always have hope. After all, Jesus was born to give us hope, to show us the way to enlightenment and spread his message of love. </p>
<p><span class="passage-display-bcv">Matthew 22:36-40</span> <span class="passage-display-version">New International Version (NIV)</span></p>
<p><span id="en-NIV-23909" class="text Matt-22-36"><sup class="versenum">36 </sup>“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”</span></p>
<p><span id="en-NIV-23910" class="text Matt-22-37"><sup class="versenum">37 </sup>Jesus replied: <span class="woj">“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’<sup class="footnote" title="See footnote a" data-fn="#fen-NIV-23910a" data-link="[<a >a]">[<a title="See footnote a" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A36-40&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23910a" data-imported="1">a</a>]</sup></span></span> <span id="en-NIV-23911" class="text Matt-22-38"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">38 </sup>This is the first and greatest commandment.</span></span> <span id="en-NIV-23912" class="text Matt-22-39"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">39 </sup>And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’<sup class="footnote" title="See footnote b" data-fn="#fen-NIV-23912b" data-link="[<a >b]">[<a title="See footnote b" href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A36-40&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23912b" data-imported="1">b</a>]</sup></span></span> <span id="en-NIV-23913" class="text Matt-22-40"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum">40 </sup>All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”</span></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016242019-12-11T16:00:00-08:002019-12-12T00:59:43-08:00Sweet White Lies<address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">Rape was just around the corner </span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">when he came on my frilly, white dress</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">At only 2 years old, I was no longer innocent</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">But no one wants to hear testimony like this</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">No one wants the truth in all its darkness</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">The sweet white lies are what they prefer</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">So I stay quiet or tell them what they want to hear</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">I've grown quite good at that: reading the subtext</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">knowing what people want with my intuition</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">having to zone in on what isn't being said</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">living the lie that they want me to wed</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">letting them penetrate and make their mess</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">holding in the howls that go unnoticed</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">trying to wipe off the wetness from when she licked my skin</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">as she told them all the opposite</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">worst part is: they believed it</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">only able to see from their own perspective</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">And I'm unable to wipe away their ignorance</span></address><address><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Crafty Girls',serif;">with no one willing to be my witness</span></address>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016232019-12-07T16:00:00-08:002019-12-08T15:39:23-08:00The Shadow Defines the Light<p>I used to suffer from what I can "new age naivete" because I used to believe that all people were basically good and that there was no such thing as "evil" or dark souls. However, after suffering from 25 years of narcissistic abuse, my eyes have been opened to the reality that the world can be a dark and dingy place. It can be an especially dangerous place for souls filled with light and empathy walking among the narcissists and sociopaths that seem to run things on this earth plane. They create chaos, confusion, fear and drama and then feed off all of that negative energy. </p>
<p>Sloan Bella, a metaphysician who channels celebrities who are living and crossed over, talks about the need for all of us to speak our truth in her latest video on YouTube where she channels the energy of Aaron Carter, whose mother is likely the narcissist Sloan speaks of in the video. It is very difficult to speak your truth when you are afraid for your life, the welfare of your family and loved ones and will inevitably suffer a backlash from those in the world who have not yet awakened to their own truth and who have not yet embraced their own light.</p>
<p>When I counsel people who get stuck in victim mentality, I try to help them see the silver lining in their situation, no matter how grim. I tell them that the shadow defines the light. If they are Christian, I tell them that even Jesus had to go to hell before he ascended into heaven. And I quote Carl Jung who said, "no tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell." </p>
<p>I created a video on YouTube to help myself and others remember their own light. The video features a song, The Light, from one of my favorite singer/songwriter's, Sara Bareilles. It includes images of sacred geometry, crop circles, mandalas, geoglyphs and pictures that represent light and/or heaven. Check it out at: <a href="https://youtu.be/OSlqXBeJLPM" target="_blank" data-imported="1">https://youtu.be/OSlqXBeJLPM</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016212019-11-22T16:00:00-08:002019-11-23T13:16:43-08:00Mistaking Peace as Boredom or Emptiness<p>I was driving down a highway in mid-November near Sumner, Washington. It was an unusually beautiful day with blue skies and sun and the brisk cool autumn air you associate with freshness and cleanness. I was admiring the beauty of poplar trees along the highway when I noticed a sense of inner emptiness, perhaps boredom and my mind immediately wanted to fill in that emptiness with worries about the future and things I had to get done. But instead of going to that place of anxiety, I decided to sit with the emptiness a little further instead of turning away from it. What I noticed was a sense of peace often associated with being in nature. I then wondered how often in my life I confused peace, what I ultimately want most in my life, with boredom or emptiness. I realized it was probably often and realized that most us probably do the same thing.</p>
<p>As a mental health counselor, I often try to help people learn how to cope with anxiety through reframing anxious thoughts and learning coping skills. What I notice is that a great deal of people reject these ideas and hold on tightly to the their anxious thoughts and behaviors. While they say that they want peace, they ultimately push it away. They claim that they aren't capable of meditating, that deep abdominal breathing makes them more anxious and that their anxious thoughts and beliefs are benefiting them more than costing them. When I ask what they do to calm down or relax, they usually say that they watch YouTube videos, watch TV, play games on their phones or play video games, usually of a violent or fantasy nature. </p>
<p>In general, these activities tend to be more stress-inducing and anxiety-provoking than not. However, there is a reluctance to give up the distraction, the stimulation, the constant anxiety, the sensation seeking and the numbing and soul-sucking activities that revolve around the technology, electronics and social media that plague our society at this time in history. There is a lack of exposure to or immersion in nature which is grounding, relaxing and calming. There's almost a lack of interest in the natural world today. As we become more and more disconnected from each other and from nature, we become more and more disconnected from our spirits, our higher purpose and our shared humanity. </p>
<p>And this is one of the major things causing today's anxiety epidemic and the soaring need for mental health services in general. I remember the good ole days 20+ years ago when I had all sorts of no-show's and cancellations in my schedule because the weather was nice or bad or people just didn't feel the need to come in for counseling that day. Nowadays, however, I work long hours because people rarely cancel appointments, there is a waiting list for all mental health providers, we are booked solid and people have to wait for their intake appointments. It's like the world has gone mad. </p>
<p>My chiropractor, a very gifted energy worker and healer, told me that I need to "reset to love" whenever I'm feeling vulnerable to others' energies. That is largely the source of my anxiety - worrying about others and feeling their worries as well as being "attacked" at times by those with negative intentions and energy. She said a very wise thing to me as well: "divine love is the best protection there is" because if you are vibrating at a higher consciousness, you simply don't attract negative energy to you. </p>
<p>As the assigned worrier of my family, I have decided and declared that I must give up this family role and let other people worry about themselves. It's simply too much for me now to take on others' worry to the extent I have. I have this compulsive need to help others to a pathological degree. But the buck stops here and I'm hoping that you will join me in the light and make declarations in your own life.</p>
<p>And the next time you feel a twinge of boredom or emptiness, turn into it instead of away from it, thank it and join with it. You may just find a sense of peace waiting for you to arrive, waiting for your acknowledgement and longing for you to let it into your soul. Blessings, Nicole-Marie</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016202019-10-06T17:00:00-07:002019-10-07T02:33:18-07:00Spiritual Beings: Episode 5: Asking for Spiritual Guidance<p>Hopole is in adult body form on Earth arguing with his wife.</p>
<p>Guida is watching on a screen from the spiritual realms and shaking her head.</p>
<p>Hop suddenly appears beside Guida.</p>
<p>Hop: Thanks for getting me out of there.</p>
<p>Guida: Well, you asked for guidance.</p>
<p>Hop: I did?</p>
<p>Guida: Well, in your own way.</p>
<p>Guida gestures towards the screen where Hop, in the middle of his marital discord, is shouting, "Will somebody get me the hell out of here!"</p>
<p>Hop: So, how do I deal with that?</p>
<p>He points to his wife on the screen.</p>
<p>Guida: We could try allowing activation of your higher chakras. Most men on Earth are relegated to their first 2 chakras.</p>
<p>Hop: What the hell are you talking about?</p>
<p>Guida: Let me put this in a way you can understand: you think with your pecker.</p>
<p>Hop: Pecker? What is this? A G-rated movie?</p>
<p>Guida: I'm well aware of the movies YOU prefer. Let's get back to providing you some guidance. If I assist you in activating your feelings chakra, your marital relations will improve. The downside is that other men on Earth may look at you as a pansy, a princess, a weakling, a coward, a...</p>
<p>Hop: Forget it! What else you got for me?</p>
<p>Guida: Well, it might be helpful to keep your multidimensional selves in mind.</p>
<p>Hop: What do you mean?</p>
<p>Guida giggles.</p>
<p>Guida: You have forgotten. All time is simultaneous. You are living many lives at once. This lifetime on Earth with your wife is only one of your realities.</p>
<p>Hop: What?! If that's true, why am I experiencing THAT reality? Why can't I experience the reality where I'm married to Pam Anderson?</p>
<p>Guida rolls her eyes.</p>
<p>Guida: There is NO reality where YOU are married to Pam Anderson.</p>
<p>Hop: Well, what do I do then?</p>
<p>Guida: You seem to get enough out of your flights into fantasy...</p>
<p>Hop: No, not about Pam. About my wife? Got any other brilliant ideas?</p>
<p>Guida throws up her hands.</p>
<p>Guida: I got nothing.</p>
<p>Hop: I guess I'll resign myself to my bleak existence.</p>
<p>Guida: A typical Earthling response. </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016192019-09-28T17:00:00-07:002019-11-20T00:31:45-08:002020: Perfect Vision from the Lifting of the Veil<p>There has been much talk about 2020 being the year that the veil will be lifted between our world and other worlds, between the physical world and the spiritual world, and between our reality and other realities, some of which we may not want to believe because it is so ugly, downright disturbing and hard to believe. One of the gifts of surviving narcissistic abuse is that it is much easier to process and accept ugly realities and dark truths - about this world we live in and about how evil some people truly can be. </p>
<p>Given that narcissists and sociopaths, such as Charles Manson, John of God, Jim Jones, and Jeffrey Epstein often seek positions of power, rise to fame, abuse their positions of power, and accumulate wealth and influential friends at a rapid pace, it's not that hard to believe in things like "the reptilian agenda." After all, the reptilian part of the brain is the oldest part of the brain and involves our basic drives to survive and instincts to kill or be killed. Also, there is faulty wiring or structural anomalies going on in the mammalian parts of the brain (limbic system, amygdala, etc.) that process emotions and allow us to empathize with others, and the "human" part of the brain (neocortex) that allow us to use logic to override our basic drives and instincts, in people with narcissistic or sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies. Call them narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths or call them energy vampires and emotional manipulators (which would include Borderlines and Histrionics) or call them reptiles. To me, it's all the same things </p>
<p>I have been verbally attacked, spiritually attacked, manipulated, mentally attacked, psychologically attacked, and psychically attacked enough times to know when it's happening. The only problem is the isolation you feel in seeing a truth that others can't see about a person or organization or situation. The people who do work to uncover the truth (such as Brittany Murphy, Chris Cornell, LeRoi Moore, Isaac Kappy, Chester Bennington, Princess Diana, David Icke, and Bella Sloan) are either killed under the guise of "suicide" or "accident" or are dismissed as "crazy" or "unhinged." I can't wait for 2020 to come. I do believe that Jeffrey Epstein's death brings us one huge step closer to uncovering the vast ring of corrupt people in power that run the world of perception we are fed. <br><br></p>
<p>One of my favorite television shows is Ancient Aliens which airs on The History Channel. Watch the episode called “The REPTILIAN Agenda” and the one called “Dark Forces.” These ideas are similar to all of David Icke’s ideas. "The Reptilian agenda was, and is, to seek out the human refugees for destruction or assimilation, and to use their blood and hormones for sustenance," according to Stewart Swerdlow, author of <em>Blue Blood, True Blood: Conflict and Creation</em>. </p>
<p>One of my favorite bands is "Live." I like songs such as "I Alone", "Lightning Crashes" and "Selling the Drama." I'm not sure if the band believes in the reptilian agenda (perhaps I should have used one of Muse's songs like "Madness", I song I love by the way) but I decided to use their song "Selling the Drama" to create a montage in anticipation of 2020 being the year I hope it will be. Check it out at: <a href="https://youtu.be/FiG6C298BKA" data-imported="1">https://youtu.be/</a></p>
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<p><em>For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.</em></p>
<p>– Ephesians 6:12</p>
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<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016172019-09-13T17:00:00-07:002019-09-14T14:11:18-07:00Television: The Frequency of Fear<p>I have to admit that I have been hypnotized by reality television, especially anything involving the idea of love (The Bachelor) or showcasing talent and forms of creativity (DWTS and AGT). However, when I was growing up, my father wisely didn’t have a television in our house and called TV’s an “idiot box.” As a result, I entertained myself as a child with various forms of play and creativity including creative writing of stories, poems and songs. I enjoyed playing the piano and other instruments and making games for me and my friends. </p>
<p>I‘m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed that television is anxiety provoking and fear inducing. The News fills you with fear with “buyer beware“ features and the latest outbreaks or mass shootings. Programming consists mostly of violence and sex for adults and materialism and seedings of addiction for children. Even so-called educational shows have a bias or control of information influence to them. </p>
<p>There’s also the very real concern that you are probably being watched by big brother through your TV set and that the television is emitting unhealthy frequency waves. The following excerpts from the book “Earth” by Barbara Marciniak, mentions a lot of the concerns about television:</p>
<p>”In this age of information, you are steered away from the natural sources of gathering knowledge for yourself. You have been sold the idea that television is a great source of information. This so-called tool has been touted as one of the greatest inventions of the century. However, your media is owned and controlled by those who wish to keep you entertained and unaware. They peddle chosen versions of reality and completely ignore others. Television slows down your evolutionary process and limits you, especially as a young child.“</p>
<p>”Television keeps you in a very narrow band of emotional expression – basically chaos and fear. Today, more than ever before, there exists a great campaign to sell televisions, to have free cable television, and to entice people to stay glued to the latest version of scandal and violence, as if what is broadcast is the most important issue at hand.”</p>
<p>”Learn how to observe how you feel if you watch television. It is a form of frequency control. This control is being tremendously accelerated as fear is rapidly being promoted all over the planet through television. The large majority of people on earth are being hypnotized by television right this moment. Our campaign encourages you to experience life firsthand - not only through the image making and ideas of others.“</p>
<p>”You damage your own consciousness and the potential that your consciousness has when you give over your time to television. You suppress your imagination and do not use one of the greatest gifts you possess. It will be understood centuries from now how in the latter half of the 20th century people were induced into dazed states and made to behave, to be asleep, and to be sick through television.”</p>
<p>“You are wasting your time with any kind of television watching. It keeps you from life and acts as a substitute for experience, which, dear friends, is the primary way you learn. Some of you may say, ’well, there are some good programs on, and I only watch educational shows.‘ We ask you: what is being beamed over or under the ‘good programs’ that you do not consciously see?”</p>
<p>”If you insist on having a television in your home, keep it unplugged. Frequency waves are transmitted through your television even when you do not have it on.”</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016162019-09-01T17:00:00-07:002019-09-02T09:23:48-07:00Happy Labor Day - Music Video for Dream Come True<p>Happy Labor Day everyone. Instead of taking it totally easy today, I labored over editing my new music video for Dream Come True. The song is about letting go of someone with love and sending them and their new love blessings as they go on their way. You can check it out under the "music videos" tab or click this link: <a href="https://youtu.be/ecg7beik8Uw" data-imported="1">https://youtu.be/ecg7beik8Uw</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016152019-08-17T17:00:00-07:002019-08-18T13:43:43-07:00Love Soldiers Music Video<p>Check out my new music video for my original song, Love Soldiers, by visiting my "music video" page or clicking on this link:</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/DpwX_nt9REc" data-imported="1">https://youtu.be/DpwX_nt9REc</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016142019-07-31T17:00:00-07:002019-08-01T05:30:29-07:00Neuroticism on the Rise<p>As a mental health therapist, I see more people with anxiety than for any other condition these days. Anxiety seems to be on the rise especially in the younger generations. It is a harder world to live in than it was when I growing up. The concern about getting shot at while in school, while at the mall, while at a concert or attending church wasn't something I worried about because it wasn't common. There is a high demand on kids and teens to get the best grades, no less than an "A", in order to get into a good college in order to get a good job. I'm grateful that I got a Master's degree because even when I was in college in the 90's, there was information out there about how a bachelor's degree wasn't enough to be competitive in getting a job, unless of course you are working in a field that doesn't require a degree. It's getting harder and harder to afford to live a life in the USA and a lot of people are having to work 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet. </p>
<p>The political climate doesn't do anything to lessen our woes. In my 20 years of counseling, the 2017 election and results has come up more in therapy than any previous election or presidency. The only good thing I can say about Trump being president is that it has brought issues around America's growing "narcissism" and "narcissistic abuse" to the forefronts of our nation's consciousness. One of the best coping skills for stress is having a good social support network and having close, reliable friends or family to rely on for emotional and social comfort. However, in a age of disconnection where people can be in close proximity but disengaged from each other while being engrossed in their phones, any bit of social support has transformed from personal to digital. Any kind of physical touch or closeness is generally shunned in American culture as opposed to other cultures. Cyber bullying and mean tweeting and texting has gone viral. </p>
<p>Most recently, I have been seeing more and more people who are afraid of death yet are not living a satisfying life because they are overwhelmed with anxiety and their fears are stopping them from living life fully. When it comes to the fear of death, it seems to be more about the end of consciousness more than anything else. While exploring spiritual beliefs may be a possible antidote to this, any talk of spirituality or life after death is a topic that is also shunned even in the therapy session because people overvalue science and "logic" in this age of Aquarius and view anything of a spiritual nature as "mumbo jumbo" or "foo foo" if not falling within whatever rigid guidelines they have created for their consciousness to contract more and more instead of expand and contract as the universe does. </p>
<p>People so value free will that any talk of astrology or fate is off limits or rejected by their psyches. While I believe that free will trumps fate, I also believe that fate has its place. While I believe that certain things are fated for us to learn valuable spiritual lessons, I also believe that we have the free will to determine how we get to learn those lessons and how we are affected by those lessons. The more and more we are open to the idea of fate with a growth mind set instead of helpless or powerless or oppressed mind set, the easier it becomes for us to live in our harmony with ourselves and live in more attunement to others. We are always going to have those challenging few who want to impose their will on ours. But as long as we set boundaries with emotional vampires and manipulators, we can feel free to spread our wings and fly into an expansive world that longs for our belonging. </p>
<p>"Fear of fate is a very understandable phenomenon, for it is incalculable, immeasurable, full of unknown dangers. The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by this desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence. But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live - in other words, he must commit partial suicide." - C.G. Jung, Symbols and Transformation, CW Vol. 5, par. 165)</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016132019-07-28T17:00:00-07:002019-07-28T18:34:27-07:00Music Video for Multicultural World<p>Check out my music video for my song Multicultural World. You can either click on my music video tab or click this link:</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/kMLawBlx3uQ" data-imported="1">https://youtu.be/kMLawBlx3uQ</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016122019-06-25T17:00:00-07:002019-06-30T01:45:28-07:00My Fourth Book: Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse<p>My fourth book, Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse, will be available on English eBook distributors such as Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook this July. Happy Fourth of July to all survivors of narcissistic abuse! May you light up the night and embrace all forms of freedom that are awaiting your acceptance</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016112019-05-02T17:00:00-07:002019-05-03T15:29:49-07:00Vote for my song Dream Come True on CCG Network Radio<p>Vote for my song Dream Come True at: <a href="http://ccgnetworkradio.com/top-20-voting/" data-imported="1">http://ccgnetworkradio.com/top-20-voting/</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016102019-03-20T17:00:00-07:002019-03-21T14:02:30-07:00Oaths of Abundance<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">My new Oaths of Abundance is finally here! Check it out on the audio page! I wanted to write an album of mostly happy, uplifting and inspiring songs and Oaths of Abundance was the result. The CD is available for sale at CD Baby (see <strong>store</strong> link) and the songs are going to be available on most streaming services including Apple Music, Amazon and Spotify. </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016092019-02-03T16:00:00-08:002019-02-04T12:45:05-08:00Highlights from the Akashic Records<p>The following are excerpts from the book: <strong><em>A Radical Approach to the Akashic Records: Master Your Life and Raise Your Vibration</em> </strong>by Melissa Feick</p>
<p>"There is a radical spiritual awakening happening all over the world. The Akashic Records say that the intention of the shift is to transform the overstimulated lower energies like anger, hatred, and struggle. It is time for these stuck lower energies to transform into something higher, for all of us."</p>
<p>"The Radical Approach to the Akashic Records is one of the best ascension tools available to humans to date. Many of us get stuck in the wheel of cause and effect: we tend to recreate our past hurts and traumas."</p>
<p>"One of the easiest and fastest ways to raise your vibration and to be more joyful is to spend more time in the Akashic Records." </p>
<p>"The Akashic Records will allow you to see beyond the illusion and the linear belief of time and space. This illusion of limitation is what creates all your feelings of lack, scarcity, and fear. To step outside of that illusion is how you can connect to your true power to create how you want to feel."</p>
<p>"The Records are not just to be used to find the negative, that is to find out what is wrong in your life. The Records can help connect you to your gifts, the positive Karma, and the truth of your soul essence."</p>
<p>"The misconception of a Soul Purpose in the spiritual community is that the Soul has come here to do something important. Many assume that Soul Purpose and life purpose are similar. The idea of life purpose is that, as humans, we came here with a specific mission to do something. When we don't do our mission then that will mean we will always be unhappy, our life will suck, and our soul will keep begging us to do what we came here to do. That way of thinking about things is so detrimental to spiritual seekers. The truth is that your life purpose is about how you live your life and how you express your Soul Purpose. Soul Purpose isn't about the doing; it's about being."</p>
<p>"Your Soul Purpose is to Be more in alignment with who you truly are. Be connected. Be compassion. What and how you express this beingness is the key to 'living your life purpose.' You can be a cashier at a small town grocery store and be living your purpose."</p>
<p>"The reason so many people are unhappy in their jobs, or in their lives, is that they aren't listening to their soul's voice."</p>
<p>"The next statement will rock your boat... everyone's, and yes, I mean everyone's, Soul Purpose is the same."</p>
<p>"Everyone's Soul Purpose is to transcend the illusion and the ego's delusion, to express Love, and to become the energy of equanimity." </p>
<p>"You are here to recognize the illusion which, in turn, teachers you how to take responsibility for your creations and to learn to create what you desire, instead of creating all the crap in your life."</p>
<p>"You are here to master the lower planes of existence, and once you recognize that this plane is an illusion, and master the planes, you have completed what you came here to do." </p>
<p>"Everything that happens in your life is just an experience, and it's the energy you put into that experience that makes it either a difficult or negative experience, a neutral experience, or a positive experience." </p>
<p>"You are here to be a human, to transcend the lower ego self, to transcend your Karma, and become your higher consciousness." </p>
<p>"Being and doing are opposites, and if you want to transcend the lower vibrations, you will want to start to express your existence through Being." </p>
<p>"When you emanate higher frequency feelings like Love, Joy, Oneness, and Gratitude from your heart, then the Quantum Field flows the same joyful vibration back to you."</p>
<p>"The heart is significant to humans in that it is the first internal organ created in the fetus. The heart has its own brain to regulate movement which indicates that it has its own intelligence."</p>
<p>"The deepest and most profound healing will happen when you are very honest with yourself and take responsibility for all your actions, past, present, and future."</p>
<p>"Once you take your power back, you will have a bunch of energy to create the life you desire. You become the creator of your destiny instead of the victim to your destiny." </p>
<p>"It is not about achieving perfection; it's about cultivating self-realization, which means looking at yourself and your actions honestly and without judgment." </p>
<p>"If you become upset or angry with anyone in your family, any race, nation, or group then you know that you are experiencing a Karmic entanglement." </p>
<p>"...don't allow tribal feelings of loyalty to keep you from being who you are meant to become."</p>
<p>"You have the opportunity to grow from every person that comes into your life."</p>
<p>"Every day you have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts running around in your head."</p>
<p>"Buddhists have an ancient teaching called 'habitual tendencies' which can include habitual thoughts. They believe that the thoughts you think on a regular basis are habitual and are usually negative. The Buddhists also believed that if you keep thinking the same habitual thoughts, then you will bring them back lifetime after lifetime. They understood that if you don't transcend them, they won't leave you. Think about it; if this is true, you may have had thought the same thoughts for thousands of years."</p>
<p>"Studies by cognitive neuroscientists have shown that 80-95% of your waking life you are living from the unconscious or subconscious mind." </p>
<p>"Change your thoughts, and you will change your reality. Reality is made up of energy waves. Your thoughts and feelings are vibrations. Those vibrations are sent out into the Quantum Field. The Quantum Field is the energy of all possibilities, and I mean ALL! Once those vibrations are sent out to the Quantum Field, it reacts immediately, almost as if it says, "Oh, that's what he wants," and sends something to match the vibration back to you. The Quantum Field doesn't judge what you put out. It doesn't see anything like a good or bad energy or feeling; it's just a vibrational frequency to the Field. You pick that vibration, and then you receive it's match."</p>
<p>"You have to do more than recite verbal affirmations to tell the Quantum Field what you desire. You need to connect to the feelings and thoughts that match your desire. Then you'll get what you want." </p>
<p>"The ego uses the fear of the animal brain and illusion to project fear into your environment. That fear can show up as a phobia or fear of the unknown. Many people also experience it as anxiety." </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Melissa Feick's book "A Radical Approach to the Akashic Records: Master Your Life and Raise Your Vibration" is available now on Kindle Unlimited</p>
<p>https://melissafeick.com/rar-meditations/</p>
<p>https://melissafeick.com/</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016082019-01-30T16:00:00-08:002019-01-31T04:33:41-08:00Spiritual Beings: Episode 4: Choosing Your Body<p>Guida: It's now time to choose your body, hop. Let's hop to it!</p>
<p>Hopole rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>Hopole: I want to be a male model type with chiseled abs.</p>
<p>Guida: I'm afraid that won't help you grow or learn any lessons this lifetime. Perhaps, we shall seek the advice of the wise council for guidance. </p>
<p>Hopole: Bunch of wise guys if you ask me. I already got you telling me what to do...</p>
<p>Guida: They are more advanced souls, more advanced than you and therefore, they can help you choose a body more wisely.</p>
<p>Hopole: More advanced, my ass!</p>
<p>Guida sighs and rings a bell.</p>
<p>Four wise souls materialize before them: Mission, Roya, Jenz and Flurra.</p>
<p>Mission: Hi Hopole, nice to see you again.</p>
<p>Hop nods to him.</p>
<p>Mission: Choosing a body, are we? I'm thinking an obese body would help you work on humility.</p>
<p>Roya: And self-acceptance as you will encounter a lot of fear and rejection from others with an obese body.</p>
<p>Flurra: Plus, you haven't had the experience of an obese body before, in any of your other lifetimes. Think of it as a new adventure...</p>
<p>Hop: I'd rather climb a volcano. </p>
<p>Mission: Yes, an obese body would be a good choice for you. It would help you hold back on your dare-devilish antics. It would slow you down and help you focus more on being.</p>
<p>Hop: On being what?!? A couch potato?</p>
<p>Jenz: It is a respite lifetime so couch potato may be a reality.</p>
<p>Hop: Exactly, my point, it is my soul vacation and it is my choice.</p>
<p>Roya: You can learn lessons in respite lifetimes too. You're right that it's your choice but remember that you can always call on us whenever you need to make a decision of any kind in life.</p>
<p>Guida: So Hop, what's it gonna be?</p>
<p>Hop: Male model with chiseled abs. </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016072019-01-17T16:00:00-08:002019-01-18T12:38:07-08:00Pure Joy<p><em><span class="text Jas-1-2">"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds,</span> <span id="en-NIV-30270" class="text Jas-1-3">because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."</span> James 1:2-3</em></p>
<p> </p>
<address>25 years of abuse, of being used, accused and lied to</address><address>has been transmuted to: pure joy, pure joy in the end</address><address> </address><address>Because I am a Christian</address><address>Because I consider Christ</address><address>my savior and my friend</address><address> </address><address>and I would face the wicked</address><address>endure all the suffering again</address><address>if more souls are saved by it</address><address> </address><address>I found the way out</address><address>I never lost sight of His truth and His light</address><address> </address><address>He gave me cancer as a blessing</address><address>to keep me safe from rage displaced</address><address>and now I see the cancer is: pure joy, pure joy in the end</address><address> </address><address>He took my hearing from me</address><address>so I couldn't hear my own vanity</address><address>or wander lost in the world of dense things</address><address>and become one with carnality.</address><address>So my listening was on reserve for His purposes alone</address><address>to bear witness to the pain of others and forget about my own</address><address>and so my deafness is: pure joy, pure joy in the end</address><address> </address>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016062019-01-03T16:00:00-08:002019-01-04T13:07:37-08:00Jeers to Blaming others for Sociopaths’ Behavior<p>In the TV series The Assassination of Gianni Versace, it is insinuated that homophobia played a hand in causing Andrew Cunanan to go on a killing spree which culminated in the killing of designer Gianni Versace. Similarly, the TV series OJ: Made in America insinuates that racism had a hand in making OJ a murderer. But neither homophobia or racism creates sociopathy. Sociopaths are born, not made. Their brains are different from the rest of us and they have blocked or impaired empathy as a result. Sociopaths don’t respond to any kind of treatmeant and only respond to consequences. Minorities of any kind may suffer from depression or anxiety disorders in response to racism or homophobia but they don’t become sociopaths as a result of these things. Trying to shift blame away from sociopaths is only enabling the sociopaths as they don’t respond to empathy anyway. They use empathy to continue to control, manipulate and harm others. </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016052018-12-07T16:00:00-08:002018-12-08T00:10:33-08:00Music Amongst the Trees in the Garden<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1544283242377_11758">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1544283242377_11757" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it</span> <span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1544283242377_11798" style="font-weight: bold;">. - Minnie Aumonier</span>
</div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016042018-09-13T17:00:00-07:002018-09-14T05:42:39-07:00Trying to Fly<p><em><span style="font-size: small;">I wrote this poem after watching the footage of 9/11 and hearing survivors tell their stories of that day. The impact of those images and those testimonies inspired me to write this poem about the choices we are forced to make when our choices are limited. This poem is dedicated to all those who died that day including the heroes whose jobs led them to their deaths, those who never had a chance at survival and those who chose to jump</span></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Trying to Fly</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span> </p>
<address><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe I can fly</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe He will catch me</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe I will fall through the holes in His hands</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe I can be </span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">one with the sky</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">for one last time</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe I can fly</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">All I know is I don't want the same fate</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">as the horrors I hear, their screams excruciate</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">and I must find a means of escape</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">The heat ever rising</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">The flames terrorizing</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Promising to burn me alive as I wait to be saved</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Why should I have peace?</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Why should I be saved</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">when so many are suffering, dying all around me?</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Why should I be denied a choice</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">to die by trying to fly?</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">At least I can die imagining</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">that I am a bird or an angel with wings</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">in those last seconds of reckoning</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps someone will find what remains of me</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps this will give peace to my family</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">All I know is that I can't find a way out of this hell that has found me</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">other than taking to the sky</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps I'll die in flight</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps the angels will reveal themselves to me </span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">and help me leave my body before it hits the concrete</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">There is no stairway to life that I can descend</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">Evil has blocked all exits</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">except for the last freedom that I now express</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium;">as I take this last step from the ledge</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </address>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016032018-03-01T16:00:00-08:002018-03-01T21:51:15-08:00The Women at The Well<p> The women at the well are thirsty today and drink as they may, their thirst will remain</p>
<p>for the spirit of truth has passed them by and the spirit of death gleams in their eye</p>
<p>and the living water that sprung from a rock couldn’t be heard over their talk</p>
<p>still the women at the well bask in their own glory, worship their own beauty and believe the doublespeak falling freely from their loose lips and forked tongues</p>
<p>get into the word today and see what Jesus has to say</p>
<p>do not gather with the others - sometimes being a loner is being His roll of thunder</p>
<p>and their jeerful claps and self applause bear no truth and cause you no harm</p>
<p>do not drink from their woeful waters</p>
<p>do not seem what they deem to be well for you are my lamb and upon your slaughter</p>
<p>you will come to hear my voice</p>
<p>so make the choice</p>
<p>to drink of me</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016022018-01-30T16:00:00-08:002018-01-30T20:42:45-08:00My Thoughts on this Year's Grammys 2018<p>Keysha's performance of "Praying" was the performance of the night by a landslide. She put every ounce of despair, anguish and anger into that song while inspiring other victims of betrayal, sexual assault, abuse and harassment to rise from the ashes just by having the courage to sing that song so honestly and transparently. The performance made me cry and was the only thing that made the Grammys worth watching this year.</p>
<p>At age 70, Elton John still sounds great but Miley Cyrus, in all her youthful vibrance and now debutante-like persona, looked silly attempting to sing alongside him despite her attempt to dress and doll herself up for the occasion. </p>
<p>Ed Sheeran winning Best Solo Pop Performance for the song "Shape of You" unfortunately proves that it is still okay to judge women by their physical appearance, sexual desirability and shape. </p>
<p>Materialism is still alive and well and will win you awards. Just ask Bruno Mars who swept up the Grammys this year with "24K Magic" proving that carnality is still the order of the day. Make sure to strip all your songs of any sense of spirituality lest they be rejected by today's music industry.</p>
<p>Hip Hop is still the popular music of the day but grew tired, boring and old a long time ago. When will the next wave of music be ushered in already?</p>
<p>I was happy to see Alessia Cara win for Best New Artist. I think she is really talented and actually has something worthwhile to say with lyrics and songs that make you think, are inspirational and are hopefully ushering in a new sound that is palatable and meaningful. </p>
<p>I thought the bit about "Fire and Fury" with Hillary Clinton was really funny. I don't understand why people are angry about it. Critics say she is just serving to polarize people with her bit but I found the exact opposite to be true. I found some healing in the bit and laughing is a great form of healing. There are some of us out there that are still suffering greatly from the cognitive dissonance and narcissistic abuse that we all suffer from, whether we choose to see it or not, under President Trump and in our personal lives with narcissism being on the rise in general public, affecting who we vote for, what music we listen to and support, and how we grow (or don't grow) spiritually as individuals or as a collective. </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016012018-01-27T16:00:00-08:002018-01-28T11:06:42-08:00Spiritual Beings: Episode 3: Choosing Your Religion<p>Guida: And it is time now to choose a religion.</p>
<p>Hopole sighs with reservation.</p>
<p>Hopole: Do I have to?</p>
<p>Guida: You already know the answer to that. Do we need a refresher course on freewill as a birthright?</p>
<p>Hopole: Well, for sure, I don't want to be a Muslim. I was pissed when my 72 virgins were all fat and ugly.</p>
<p>Guida: That was done purposefully. Obviously, you didn't learn the lesson that beauty is only skin deep.</p>
<p>Guida makes a note of this.</p>
<p>Hopole: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aray has a wicked sense of humor. Remind me why I need to choose a religion...</p>
<p>Guida: Otherwise, you're in danger of worshiping yourself, others, substances or things. Must we review your previous incarnations? It's not like I'm helping Jesus or Gandhi come up with a birth plan. You, my dear, are still on the bunny slopes of existence. </p>
<p>Hopole: Please don't torture me again with my life reviews. Can't I just simply be spiritual this time around?</p>
<p>Guida laughs.</p>
<p>Guida: You already are.</p>
<p>Hopole: You know what I mean!</p>
<p>Guida: We tried that before too. Remember? Things got a little dark with your forays into seances and ouija boards. Someone with your make-up needs a little more guidance and structure.</p>
<p>Hopole: I don't want any restrictions on my freedom.</p>
<p>Guida: Precisely my point.</p>
<p>Hopole: Okay, fine. How about Hindu? I always wanted to do that party with all the paints.</p>
<p>Guida rolls her eyes.</p>
<p>Guida: Well, at least we're moving in the right direction. I'll have you discover Hinduism as a teenager. Since the parents you chose will still be struggling with finding their faith, you will have to find some spiritual direction outside your family of origin. Let's move on to your choice of occupation.</p>
<p>Hopole: That's easy. Rock star!</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62016002017-12-16T16:00:00-08:002017-12-17T01:27:14-08:00Spiritual Beings: Episode 2: Choosing Your Fam<p>Guida: Now's the time to choose your parents, Hop. Let's start with your mother.</p>
<p>A pretty blonde, Margarite, with a devilish grin pops up on the floating screen in front of Hopole and Guida.</p>
<p>Hopole is horrified. </p>
<p>Hopole: No! Not Margarite! I still haven't forgiven her for that lifetime at sea. She devoured me!</p>
<p>Guida: Well...she was a shark and you were a seal. It was the natural order of things. </p>
<p>Hopole: Dear God, is there anybody else, please?</p>
<p>Guida: For your mother, sure. But perhaps Margarite can be your sister or brother. Your threads of destiny are still interwoven.</p>
<p>Hopole: I want her thread of destiny to stay the hell away from mine!</p>
<p>Guida: Let's not forget that you devoured her when she was a fly and you were a venus flytrap.</p>
<p>Hopole: She was a fly, for goodness sakes!</p>
<p>Guida sighs with constrained frustration.</p>
<p>Guida: We'll get back to Margarite. Let's continue to choose a mother.</p>
<p>Another image pops up on the screen of a sexy brunette with bedroom eyes. </p>
<p>Hopole: Now, there's hot mama!</p>
<p>Guida: Incest is frowned upon on Earth, Hop.</p>
<p>Hopole: Well, can she be my girlfriend instead, then?</p>
<p>Guida: She's already tied up in that regard.</p>
<p>Hopole: My kind of woman.</p>
<p>Guida rolls her light eyes.</p>
<p>Guida: I'm doing away with that personality kink of yours this time.</p>
<p>Hopole: You wouldn't dare!</p>
<p>Guida: Orders from Aray. We must trust his judgment. He's an old soul after all.</p>
<p>Hopole mutters under his breath.</p>
<p>Hopole: Old soul, my ass. Old soul asshole is more like it.</p>
<p>Aray materializes in front of them.</p>
<p>Aray: How's the pre-birth planning going, gals?</p>
<p>Hopole shrinks in his chair.</p>
<p>Hopole: Aray! I was just talking about how I wish I could choose a father like you.</p>
<p>Aray laughs merrily.</p>
<p>Aray: That can certainly be arranged.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015992017-11-19T16:00:00-08:002017-11-20T04:53:28-08:00What Makes Your Snowflake Unique?<p>In my job as a mental health counselor, I often see people who are feeling depressed because they don't know what their purpose is or they have an idea about what they want to do in life but they feel no support or confidence in moving forward in life by taking steps towards fulfilling that purpose or passion. They often lack self-esteem and don't feel good enough as they compare themselves to others who are doing what they themselves want to be doing. </p>
<p>I have found that one thing that can help people get out of the funk of feeling this lack of purpose in life is to ask them the question: what makes your snowflake unique? People are like snowflakes in that no two people are exactly alike and we are all unique in the way that God made us. For instance, I am a singer/songwriter and this is my passion. But what makes me unique are all the following things: I am also hearing impaired, I am also a licensed therapist, I am also a good creative writer, I also like film and video, I also like to inspire people, I am also a very spiritual person and I also like forms of alternative healing like shamanism and Reiki therapy. </p>
<p>So, what is it that you want to do in life that you are not already doing? What's holding you back from doing it? What do you have to offer that's different or unique? If you can't answer this last question, you may not know who you really are and it may take some reflection or assistance in getting to know yourself better. But most of us know what our hang-up's are and most of us know what are strengths are. If you are not sure what your strengths are, ask at least 3-5 people around you that you trust to give you feedback on what your strengths are. We all have blind spots when it comes to ourselves. </p>
<p>If you know what your hang-up's are and if they are holding you back from finding true happiness and fulfillment in life, don't be too proud to go into therapy, read self-help books, meditate or pray, or find some other way to hang-up these hang-up's so they are not holding you back in life and keeping you from having what it is you seek in life whether it be peace, joy, or success in whatever way you define it. </p>
<p>So, if you are struggling with finding your purpose or living your purpose, ask yourself the following questions: 1) What is your passion? If you are not sure, what is it that you could spend hours doing because the time would just fly by as you are enjoying yourself so much? 2) What it is you want to do in life? 3) How is it going to benefit others? 4) What is keeping you from fulfilling that purpose? or How are you getting in your own way? 5) Where else is your energy going that could be redirected towards your purpose? 6) What makes you special, unique and different from everyone else that is doing the same thing? In other words, what makes your snowflake unique? </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015982017-11-11T16:00:00-08:002017-12-03T11:51:39-08:00Spiritual Beings: Episode I: Choosing a Life<p><em>"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.". - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard de Chardin</em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> GUIDA, a spunky spirit guide, floats up to HOPOLE, who sits in the center seat surrounded by circular-shaped screens on all sides.</p>
<p>GUIDA: So you ready to choose your next life, Hops?</p>
<p>Hopole rubs his hands together excitedly and floats his chair to the floating screen right in front of him.</p>
<p>HOPOLE: Which planet should I choose?</p>
<p>He uses his finger to select a solar system on the screen among a choice of galaxies and settles on the Milky Way.</p>
<p>GUIDA: How about the Pleiades? Wise, gentle, spiritually advanced creatures and your telepathic abilities will be kept in tact.</p>
<p>HOPOLE: Nah, I was thinking of somewhere more like... Mars.</p>
<p>A picture of Mars comes up on the screen.</p>
<p>GUIDA: So... you want to be an amoeba?</p>
<p>Guida laughs and Hopole shoots a look of annoyance her way.</p>
<p>GUIDA: Mars is still not ready for intelligent forms of life yet. We're struggling with the blueprints. But you could choose Earth.</p>
<p>Hopole sees visions of earthquakes, wars, tsunamis, hurricanes, forest fires and other man-made violence flash on the screen.</p>
<p>HOPOLE: You can't be serious. This is my respite lifetime we're talking about here. I want to enjoy myself for once. I can't believe you're even suggesting a hellhole like Earth. You're fired! I want a new guide assigned to me.</p>
<p>Guida chuckles.</p>
<p>GUIDA: Don't I wish? You don't listen to me anyway. Unfortunately, my contract with you doesn't end for another millennia. Besides, Earth is a very beautiful and tranquil place... on a good day... in a good era. </p>
<p>HOPOLE: I don't know. Don't really trust your guidance. I'm still reeling from that ant planet you sent me to... and that was eons ago. </p>
<p>GUIDA: Perhaps we should choose forgiveness as one of your spiritual lessons for this lifetime.</p>
<p>HOPOLE: No, no, no. Please, no. That's much too taxing. Since when do respite lifetimes involve forgiveness anyway?</p>
<p>GUIDA: True...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TO BE CONTINUED</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015972017-11-09T16:00:00-08:002017-11-10T14:10:31-08:00God Created Drugs, We Created Judgment<p>There are many drugs found in nature including opium poppy (used in Heroin, Morphine, Codeine), Blue Agave (used in Tequila), Coca leaves (used in Cocaine), Ephedra Sinica(used in Sudafed and Meth), Psilocybin mushroom (used in Shrooms), Sassafras root (used in X), and Marijuana. God clearly saw that we may need some relief from the trials of life. It is man that misuses these substances or creates synthetic versions of them that may not be helpful to us. </p>
<p>This article was written with the intention not to condone or condemn drug use, merely to address the judgments we may have about those who use, abuse or become dependent on drugs. I am someone who actually benefited from those "Say No to Drugs" campaigns from the 80's and I know many who have benefited from programs like DARE, Al-Anon, AA, NA and CodA. I am about as square as they come. I've never smoked a cigarette, never tried marijuana and at most, have drank a full wine cooler in a single setting. The idea for this article came to me as I was under the influence of laughing gas while getting a root canal at my dentist's. The pain was so sharp and so intense that I could feel it despite the laughing gas and a few shots of Novocain. It was one of the few times in my life that I felt great compassion for those who may struggle with drug addiction. </p>
<p>Another time was when I was prescribed Vicodin after surgery to remove a cancerous tumor along with several inches of a rib from my side in 2004. The pain was so great that I preferred the Vicodin to eating. It seemed that it was the most important thing in the world to me at that time. I was in so much pain that I had to sleep sitting up. Only Vicodin made sleep possible. Thank God I had a really good surgeon and recovered well from that surgery and was able to wean off the Vicodin. Not everybody is that lucky. </p>
<p>That short experience was enough for me to develop compassion for those addicted to or dependent on substances. I would say that I am a food addict and may be addicted to Candy Crush but I've never had to experience the judgment and ridicule that substance addicts have to contend with. It is true that being obese or overweight in American society brings it's own brand of judgment. Everyone thinks you are either lazy or lacking information. Everyone becomes your personal trainer or your dietician. </p>
<p>Reading books like <em>In the Realm of Hungry</em> <em>Ghosts</em> by Gabor Mate', <em>The</em> <em>Afterlife of Billy Fingers</em>, books (<em>Journals</em>) or songs (<em>Come As You Are)</em> by or about (<em>Heavier Than</em> <em>Heaven</em>) Kurt Cobain have also helped to educate me on drug abuse, alcoholism, compassion and acceptance. Kurt had a rare and painful stomach condition that he sought medical care for repeatedly to no avail. As a young child, his mother tried to get him help for his hyperactivity and he even saw a counselor as a teen. Thank God his creative genius was left intact because his music and lyrics and presence in the world has made a lasting and positive impact. He obviously dealt with demons too mostly related to his father's rejection, humiliation and bullying of him starting in early childhood. </p>
<p>As a medical social worker and mental health counselor, I've worked with many people in physical, emotional, psychological, relational, spiritual and mental pain and something that I've learned from all that exposure and from my own trials and tribulations is that pain specialists, Western medicine, and the mental health care providers are all ill equipped to deal with and cope with and respond to the needs of all those people in pain. We are trying our best to meet those needs but so much more is needed. </p>
<p>One of the things needed most is more compassion towards those with drug or alcohol addiction. Most of these people have a history of trauma, whether physical or emotional, that has yet to be treated. The drugs or alcohol may be the only thing that keeps them able to live with such pain. Therefore, many of them do not mind the thought of dying of an overdose or of their addiction because this may be preferable to living without the thing that just must numb them out enough to live without being in a state of complete anxiety, agitation or pain. </p>
<p>Sure, they could seek out a psychiatrist or receive psych meds through their primary care providers but those drugs may not be enough, might have too many side effects or those in need may not have access to healthcare or mental healthcare. Even under the care of a psychiatrist, it can take a while to find the right combination of drugs that will work for someone's physiological make-up. Even if it does work, it may not be long before they are triggered by past trauma and/or relapse for whatever reason. According to biographer Charles Cross, Kurt Cobain attended 12 step meetings, spent at least 5 separate stints in rehab centers and private doctor clinics in order to try to come to grips with his Heroin addiction. </p>
<p>Our judgment on drug abusers is a worldwide problem. In his article <em>Why "Crazy Like a Fox" Versus "Crazy Like a Crazy" Really Matters</em>, Michael Tansey writes that President Trump has "congratulated President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines for dealing with his country's drug problem in the "right way" with the vigilante slaughter of nearly ten thousand people merely suspected of using or dealing drugs."</p>
<p>Why do we feel the need to judge people? True, it can be frustrating to be the loved one of a user who has lied to you, stolen from you, manipulated you or betrayed you. But we are all learning something from others in our journey in this life whether the lesson be self-love, boundaries, self-care or compassion. What does judging help? Nothing. What we judge in others we are judging about ourselves. And if we cannot overcome our judgment of others, we will be led to do so by circumstance entering our lives in the form of teachers who may be thrust upon us if we insist on holding fast to our judgments. May we open our hands to release the judgment on ourselves and on others. </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015962017-10-07T17:00:00-07:002017-10-08T04:19:16-07:00Don’t Oppress the Alien<p>Speaking out against the wall Trump wants to build, the travel ban and his targeting of immigrants, I turn to scripture:</p>
<p>“Execute true justice, <br>Show mercy and compassion <br>Everyone to his brother.<br>Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, <br>The alien or the poor. <br>Let none of you plan evil in his heart <br>Against his brother" (Zechariah 7:9-10).</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015952017-08-29T17:00:00-07:002017-08-30T05:48:37-07:00Shame, Shame, Shame<div data-contents="true">
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4vo7r-0-0"><em><span data-offset-key="4vo7r-0-0"><span data-text="true">But God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong….</span></span></em></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1om0n-0-0"><em><span data-offset-key="1om0n-0-0"><span data-text="true">--1 Corinthians 1:27</span></span></em></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1om0n-0-0"><span data-offset-key="1om0n-0-0">Many people, especially mental health experts like Brene Brown, would have you believe that shame is never a good thing. But for me, shame has its place in the realm of emotions and can be a helpful and useful feeling. Shame lets us know that we are not psychopaths or sociopaths. Shame lets us know that we are human. Shame can let us know that we have done something wrong. Shame can bring us to God and deepen our faith because shame shows us that we are broken and weak on our own, when we rely on our own understanding or strength. For there is no way for us to know it all or to be it all. The moment we do think we have all the answers or have everything in place in our lives, a higher hand will let us know otherwise. While I don't think it is a good think to shame other people, I think it is a good thing when we feel shamed by God. For those that are not Christian, it can be a good thing to feel shame about something you did or didn't do because this leads us hopefully to repent or ask forgiveness or make things right. May I God shame me when I am on the wrong path in life. May I feel shame when I am making bad choices. May shame set me free and reveal to me my real name, the name God gave to me and may I answer when he calls me using that name. May shame lead me back to the path God has chosen for me anytime I veer from that path. May shame bring understanding and light to any darkness that I or others create and that gets in the way of the glory he has for all of us...</span></div>
</div>
</div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015942017-08-16T17:00:00-07:002017-12-04T07:41:07-08:00Variations on Gender<p>I have heard many Christians respond to the whole “issue” of transgender people with this piece of advice: “we need to teach our children to love their own gender.” I believe that Christians say this to address their own fears, biases and judgements towards anything they simply don’t understand or don't want to understand. What this advice fails to realize is that there are babies born with more than one gender. Do we then teach them to love both of their genders? </p>
<p>The kind of judgment most Christians show towards someone in the LGBT community is based on ignorance. They don’t realize that gender, as the medical community might define it, or one’s sense of gender is based on many factors. In <em>Understanding Human Sexuality</em> by Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. Delamater, there are 8 variables of gender which include:</p>
<p>1) <em>Chromosomal gender</em>: XX in females and XY in males</p>
<p>2) <em>Gonadal gender: </em> Ovaries in females and testes in males</p>
<p>3) a<em>. Prenatal hormonal gender</em>: Testosterone and MIS in the male but not the female before birth</p>
<p>b. <em>Prenatal and neonatal brain differentiation</em>: Testosterone present for masculization, absent for feminization</p>
<p>4) Internal organs: Fallopian tubes, uterus, and upper vagina in females; prostate, vas, and seminal vesicles in males.</p>
<p>5) External genital appearance: Clitoris, inner and outer lips, and vaginal opening in females; penis and scrotum in males.</p>
<p>6) Pubertal hormonal gender: At puberty, estrogen and progesterone in females; testosterone in males.</p>
<p>7) Assigned gender: The announcement at birth, “It’s a girl” or “It’s a boy,” based on the appearance of the external genitals; the gender the parents and the rest of society believe the child to be; the gender in which the child is reared.</p>
<p>8) Gender identity: The person’s private, internal sense of maleness or female.</p>
<p>In most cases, all 8 variables are in agreement, but there are many factors during the course of prenatal sexual development that can cause any of the variables to be misaligned with the others. When there are contradictions among any of the first 6 variables, which are purely biological, a person is said to have an intersex condition. The gender of an intersex person can then be biologically ambiguous. There are a number of syndromes that can lead to an intersex condition or gender ambiguity. Here are just a few:</p>
<p>1) Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH): With this condition, a genetic female develops ovaries normally as a fetus, but later in the course of prenatal development, the adrenal gland begin to function abnormally (related to recessive genes) and produces an excess amount of androgens. Therefore, prenatal sexual differentiation does not follow the typical female course and as a result, the external genitals are partly or completely male in appearance. The labia are partly or totally fused so there is no vaginal opening and the clitoris is enlarged to the size of a small penis or even a full-sized one. At birth, these genetic females may be identified as males. (Meyer-Bahlburg et al., 2004, 2006)</p>
<p>2) Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS): In this syndrome, a genetic male produces normal levels of testosterone but because the body tissues are insensitive to the testosterone, prenatal development is feminized. Therefore, the individual may be born with more of an external appearance of a female with a small vagina though no uterus and undescended testes. </p>
<p>3) Micropenis: a condition in which a genetic male is born with a very small penis. The medical standard is that an infant’s penis is 2.5 cm or more. This condition, of course, can affect sexual satisfaction in life, more so if the infant’s parents’ chose to raise the infant as a female following surgery, according to one study (Wisniewski et al., 2001). </p>
<p>4) Genetic-endocrine problems that can lead to genetic males appearing female at birth such as <em>5-alpha reductase deficiency syndrome</em>. These infants will have a vaginal pouch instead of scrotum at birth and a clitoris-sized penis. At, puberty, however, the biological process kicks in and these “girls” now have penises. This phenomenon has been studied in the Dominican Republic where these individuals are called Guevodoces (“penis at 12”) by the people in their culture. In this culture, therefore, there are three genders and not just two. This syndrome can also be found among the Sambia of New Guinea who also have a three-gender culture.</p>
<p>5) Any kind of hermaphrodite condition where people are both with both male and female parts. </p>
<p>6) Klinefelter's Syndrome: a genetic condition where a male has an extra X chromosome. Symptoms include low testosterone, breast development, reduced strength and possible confusion about gender identification. Eddie Redmayne does an excellent job of portraying what might have possibly been the first trans woman, born a male with Klinefelter's Syndrome, to ever have sex reassignment surgery in the movie <em>The Danish Girl.</em> </p>
<p>Among the more than 200 Native languages spoken in Native America, at least 2/3 have a term that refers to a third gender beyond male and female. Natives prefer the term "two-spirit" to label this third gender. A two-spirit may be different from a "manly hearted woman" who may be more aggressive and independent than the typical Native woman or a "warrior woman" who may participate in traditional male gender roles in addition to traditional female roles in the Native culture. However, a male could be married to a two-spirit male and, from a Native point of view, the marriage would not be considered homosexual because the two are of different genders. </p>
<p>I’m hoping one day, the Western World and Christians in particular will not be so close-minded when it comes to sex and gender. I recently heard of a local church who decided to accept the LGBT community into their congregation. As a result, they lost most of their original congregation and had to shut down. What a shame! Any house of worship that is exclusive like that, isn’t based on the love Jesus had for everyone, regardless of what issues they are dealing with or struggling with. But Christians continue to turn a judgmental eye to any issues or discussions involving sex or gender. I’ll be praying that this will change one day…</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015932017-08-13T17:00:00-07:002017-08-14T08:59:18-07:00I Love You, My Baby<p>I have always been attracted to adoptees. I have dated a couple of them. They have become some of my good friends, clients and co-workers. They have been adopted into my family and adopted out of my family. While I, myself, am not an adoptee, I do relate to the sense of abandonment they must feel at a very visceral level and to that sense of not being wanted and therefore, feeling defective somehow. Nancy Verrier, an adoptive mother and author, calls this condition the "primal wound." </p>
<p>From the time I was a small child, I heard the story told to me about the day of my birth. I was told that I was expected to be a boy and that it was a major disappointment that I was another girl as my parents already had three girls. My little brother was born 11 months later and I was told that my father was so happy that he was passing out cigars to everyone. My earliest memories are of being an infant and being alone in a room, exploring my parents' bedroom. My mother likely suffered from post-partum depression. She started having children at age 15 and only had a 3rd grade education. I remember being neglected. This may explain my avoidant attachment style with women. For someone with this attachment style, there is a sense that you are on your own and cannot trust others to be there for you. My grandmother and aunts helped to take care of us after my parents divorced when I was only 5 years old. But by then, my attachment style was in place.</p>
<p>I felt more loved by my father and I also know that he bullied me and would delight in scaring me when I was little. Though I have no memory of this, I have heard that he did so from my mother and my aunt. It may explain my anxious/ambivalent attachment style with men. I felt more loved, valued and paid attention to by my father when I was in the presence of my brother. I feel that both of my parents came to love me more later in life. I have since come to the conclusion that I must be a very lovable person if they could grow to love me at all. Prior to this epiphany, I had felt unlovable, something that many adoptees feel. </p>
<p>To try to understand myself better, I started reading and researching books and articles about the emotional issues that adoptees might deal with. Before starting this process, my ideas about adoptees were based on the movie<em> Annie</em> where Daddy Warbucks saves Annie from a life of ruin with his money and charm and all ends happily. I believed as most people believe: that adoption is something to be celebrated and a win for everybody involved: the orphaned infant or child, the adoptive couple who may suffer from infertility and the birth mother or birth parents who cannot or will not take care of their own child. </p>
<p>Since reading books like <em>Journey to the Adopted Self</em> by writer, adoptee and adoption-reform advocate Betty Jean Lifton, The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier and several online articles on the subject, I have since learned that there is a grieving process for all parties involved in adoption. And most importantly, I learned that the adoptee does have a sense of that early abandonment at a feeling level and that this abandonment is the first trauma in a series of traumas that they will likely suffer throughout their lives. </p>
<p>I wasn't too surprised to learn that adoptees often feel a sense of not belonging due to being cut off from their biological roots, especially in the closed adoption system where they aren't allowed to search for their birth parents until they are 18 years old. I too have always felt like I was different from everybody else. This is partly due to how I was not welcomed into the world, partly because my personality type is that of an individualist and partly because I am bi-racial. Nowadays, it is more common for a child to be biracial or multi-racial, but when I was a child, I only knew of me and my siblings being biracial. </p>
<p>From my research, I learned that adoptees are 5x more likely to attempt suicide than their non-adopted peers. This may be an attempt to actualize something which is already felt to have happened on some level. David Winnicott, a Brittish pediatrician and psychoanalyst, believes that a simple acknowledgement that a part of the adoptee "died" in infancy may prevent an actual suicide attempt. Betty Jean Lifton says, "the adoptee does not literally die, but lack of recognition by one's birth mother feels like a death threat - the threat of annihilation - which the adoptee must muster all her psychic forces to survive." </p>
<p>I learned that the fear of abandonment never goes away. I learned that they are asked to see their abandonment as their birth mother loving them enough to give them up. Therefore, they equate love with abandonment. They are typically denied their own reality or sense of self by their adoptive families, therapists, any professional involved in the closed adoption system and the community at large. They typically have identity issues as a result. Though they suffer from fears of abandonment at a very visceral level, they may also fear engulfment by their adoptive parents and family. </p>
<p>In Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound, the author states, "It is difficult to change our thinking about adoption from that of a wonderful, altruistic event to that of a traumatic, terrifying experience for the child." It is still generally believed that an infant cannot remember the separation from their birth mother but science now shows that an infant can pick out their birth mother's face without ever having seen her before based on the 40 weeks of gestational bonding that occurs. </p>
<p>Adoptees are over-represented in the mental health care system, especially as children, for a reason. The number of health and mental health issues they suffer from never gets attributed to that unresolved grief and all the identity issues that go hand-in-hand with being abandoned and "rejected" as an infant. Most mental health professionals, including myself, are not knowledgeable about what Betty Jean Lifton calls<em> Accumulative Adoption Trauma, </em>a syndrome most adoptees suffer with that it is not yet recognized in the DSM 5 which is the current way that most mental health professionals diagnose individuals seeking out therapy for emotional, mental and relational issues.</p>
<p>I learned about a phenomenon called Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA) which is a situation where a sexual attraction develops between the adoptee and any member of their birth family upon reuniting. This can be especially strong for people who confuse sex with love. In the worst situations, the GSA is consummated which of course becomes very problematic for all parties involved in the long run. One of the best online articles I read about adoption is called <em>Adoptees, Why Are You So Angry? </em> You can read the full article at https://adopteeinrecovery.com/2015/01/07/adoptees-why-are-you-so-angry/</p>
<p>Here is one of the excerpts from that article:</p>
<address>I’m angry because I’m in my 50s and still not allowed access to my own birth certificate – even though I found all of my family member’s years ago. I’m angry that there is still a lack of support for family preservation in favor of adoption. I’m angry that having more money allows certain adopters to pull wanted children away from their families. I’m angry that so many childless people that claim to care about children really only want to get themselves a baby and not actually help older children in foster care or even just vulnerable families in their own community. I’m angry that whenever adoptees attempt to speak their truth and call for changes in the system they are silenced, called “ungrateful” and “angry” and told they just had a “bad experience.” I’m angry that the industry is pulling in thousands of dollars at the expense of vulnerable children. I will continue to be “angry” in order to try to affect change for today’s children and those yet unborn.</address>
<p>After obtaining all this knowledge about all the suffering that adoptees go through in life, I came to have more compassion for them and more understanding of myself. After all, some of the issues that adoptees cope with are similar to those of children of divorce, children who grow up in alcoholic families, or children with any sort of developmental trauma. But at least the later have access to their roots. At least, I know who my mother was on some level. </p>
<p>I decided to write a poem to encapsulate everything I felt after gaining all this knowledge. It is what these child-like parts of ourselves maybe needed to hear from our birth mothers. It is called <em>I Love You, My Baby.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I Love You, My Baby</p>
<p> </p>
<address>Climb into my arms</address><address>wide open with love</address><address>Stay as long as you want</address><address>all nuzzled up</address><address> </address><address>Hear my words wander</address><address>all the way to your heart</address><address>when I say, "I love you, my baby,</address><address>and this is the part of me that never wanted to give you up."</address><address> </address><address>Feel my kiss upon your cheek</address><address>Feel the warmth I have in my body</address><address>Let it pour into all the lost years</address><address>and if you feel safe enough, release your tears</address><address> </address><address>Please know that I'll be here</address><address>as long as you like</address><address>and answer all your questions</address><address>Hard and soft alike</address><address> </address><address>I'll be open and honest</address><address>even if it hurts us both</address><address>and within this embrace</address><address>you can be the first to let go...</address>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015922017-08-02T17:00:00-07:002017-08-03T10:21:23-07:00The Spiritual Significance of Music<p>“The power of true music emanates an energetic purity and essence that is inspired only by Spirit. This music not only uplifts the heart and soul of humanity, but will not lose its luster through passing time and superficial musical trends.” - Aeoliah, author of <em>Awakening Your Inner Light: Healing Self-Abuse and Reclaiming Your True Identity</em></p>
<p>“The most evolved music on the planet that will continue to heal and inspire is one that raises and magnetizes our consciousness and awareness into a more expanded and enlightened state, acting as a tuning fork to higher dimensions.” - Aeoliah</p>
<p>“Music is the language of the soul.” - David Amram, author of <em>Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat</em></p>
<p>“Music can offer us an escape from reality providing a safe and secure haven; our very own sacred sanctuary of sound.” - Encore</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The above are excerpts from the book <em>The Spiritual Significance of Music</em> by Justin St. Vincent</p>
<p>I hope one day, popular music will be spiritual and not sexual in nature. Not that there's anything wrong with sex but the music business shuns anything spiritual and overdoes the sexual. Sex may be what sells but spirit is what inspires, what heals and what unites us. </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015912017-07-19T17:00:00-07:002017-07-21T03:55:33-07:00Recovery from Narcissist Abuse<p>If you are in recovery from being with a narcissistic person, you can practice the following on your road to recovery:</p>
<p>1)<strong> Do NOT blame yourself. </strong> You will likely feel foolish and stupid for staying with a narcissistic person for too long (and any amount of time is too long). You might wonder: what did I do wrong? or what could I have done better?</p>
<p>2) <strong>ACCEPT </strong>that there was nothing you could have done to save or love the person into being a healthier person. Most people with Narcissist traits have brain anomalies where the part of the brain that involves empathy is either smaller or deformed. Also, they usually have some sort of trauma around age 2 that involves sudden neglect or lack of nurturance.</p>
<p>3) <strong>RESEARCH</strong> everything you can about Narcissists so that you don't take things personally and can understand yourself better (you are either a empath, HSP, codependent or other Narcissist as these are who narcissists are typically attracted to). Knowledge is power. Recognize your steps in this dance of dysfunction so that you are no longer attracting narcissists into your life.</p>
<p>4) <span style="color: #888888;"><strong><span style="color: #000000;">EXPECT</span> </strong></span>that your friends and family will not understand, take the narcissist's side and may not be there for you. A narcissist is so cunning that they will fool not only you, but your friends and family too. Your support system may not come through for you either because the narcissist has manipulated them into choosing their side, the people in your support system can't admit they were duped and rather would believe that you are just "too sensitive" or "crazy" - beliefs that the narcissist's feed, or are dealing with their own feelings of grief and betrayal with the narcissist. Perhaps, they are also too overwhelmed with their own issues to tend to you in your time of need. Usually HSP (aka empaths or codependents) come from a family of narcissists who make the HSP's (highly sensitive person) suffering all about them. </p>
<p>5) <strong>Do NOT go to the narcissist for answers.</strong> Narcissists are known for being compulsive liars, for thriving on the ability to get away with anything up to murder (i.e. OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony) and enjoy creating suffering in others. You going to them for answers to your confusion is likely to just confuse you more and cause more suffering. Plus, it gives them narcissist supply. Let go of your need to know exactly what happened and just trust your intuition and/or your higher power that whatever you need to know will be revealed to you at the exact time you need it to. I know this has been true for me and it's what inspired the song The Truth is On It's Way. </p>
<p>6) <strong>GET THERAPY</strong> for yourself and any children that were affected by the narcissist's emotional abuse. You may have been physically abused and if so, you'll want to find a domestic violence advocate to support you through the process. You are likely suffering from PTSD as the narcissist thrives on making others believe they are crazy. Therefore, some people around you (neighbors, friends, family) may actually collude with the narcissist and call you crazy or label you unhinged. Therapists who lack experience with NPD and PTSD may also think you are crazy. Therefore, it is important to find a therapist who specializes in trauma and knows a lot about NPD. You may want to look for a therapist who specializes in EMDR and or other trauma-specific therapy. </p>
<p>7) <strong>SET BOUNDARIES</strong> with the narcissist. It would be best to not have any contact at all especially if you are in a vulnerable state when you first make the empowered choice to walk away from the narcissist. They will prey on your fears, whittle away your self-esteem and control/manipulate you until you are dependent on them or independently apathetic. If you are going through a divorce or have kids with a narcissist, try to go through a third party that is hopefully neutral. There are lawyers who specialize or market themselves around having experience with narcissists. Look for a lawyer that works for you if you are going to divorce because otherwise, the narcissist will take you to the cleaners and leave you high and dry. Sometimes, divorces from a narcissist person takes years because they have trouble letting go of the control they have over anyone. You may also have to set boundaries with family members who primed you to be with and stay with a narcissist or are not supportive of you. Notice if you feel more positive or negative after spending time with or talking to a certain person. Make boundaries based on your own feelings instead of trying to please others or make everyone else happy. The narcissist also has some elements of approval addiction and this is why they can't say "no" to other women, opportunities to cheat on you, etc. </p>
<p>8) Accept that <strong>THERE WILL BE NO FORGIVENESS</strong> from the narcissist though they may say they forgive you and say that they hope you can both sit down for a cup of tea someday. Narcissists try to keep people in the loop within their control if at all possible. Emotionally stuck at the age of 2, they throw temper tantrums and really only experience one emotion: some form of anger or rage. They will always be outraged that you abandoned them even though their actions lead to your jumping ship. Don't expect that the terms you chose for the divorce will be uncontested. </p>
<p>9) Understand that <strong>THERE WAS NEVER LOVE</strong> coming from the narcissist. Deep down inside, they hate themselves and therefore, they cannot love another. This is a hard thing to accept, especially if you've been with the narcissist for a long time. It is a hard thing to accept that you may have wasted years of your life believing the narcissist's lies and having hope that things will get better when they never had a chance to get better. The only thing that may be a wake-up call for the narcissist is their partner finally having the courage, bravery and strength to walk away. And then, it will take several years of therapy for them to change because we are talking about a personality defect after all. It is a bitter truth to swallow that the narcissist never loved you but at least this can give you comfort when you realize that they don't love their mistress(es) either. </p>
<p>10) <strong>PRACTICE SELF-CARE AND SELF-LOVE.</strong> Now that your self-esteem has probably been whittled down to nothing, you will have to practice a lot of self-care and self-love to recover from the abuse you suffered. Follow your dreams and passions that were likely discouraged or unsupported by your narcissistic partner. Eat healthy food, try to get good sleep (this will be hard at first), spend time with positive and supportive people and allow pleasure, blessings and all the beautiful things life has to offer to flow into your life. Now is your time. Be careful not to jump too fast into another relationship without doing work on yourself and giving yourself time to grieve your losses (not the narcissist but the loss of years of your life that were taken from you). YOU ARE FINALLY FREE. Always remember this. Practice this affirmation: <em>I forgive myself for accepting and allowing a lack of personal power. </em> </p>
<p>See related articles: </p>
<p>https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-20180/why-highly-sensitive-people-attract-narcissists-how-to-disengage.html</p>
<p>https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sense-and-sensitivity/201305/the-relationship-between-sensitive-people-and-narcissists</p>
<p>https://luckyottershaven.com/2014/10/03/a-match-made-in-hell-narcissists-and-hsps/</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015902016-12-04T16:00:00-08:002021-05-27T13:40:32-07:00The Age of Narcissism<p>Much has been written about this age of narcissism in which we live. Most of us have a level of "healthy narcissism" in us, but in today's world of mean tweets, excessive selfies, and strange talk of one's "net worth" in dollar amounts, this level of narcissism has risen to a dangerous level, especially in the United States of America, a nation who historically feels that it knows best for other countries. </p>
<p>I just finished reading an excellent book called The Spontaneous Healing of Belief by Gregg Braden. In the book, says that masters from our past such as Buddha and Jesus were "master programmers of consciousness" through the words they spoke and the lives they led. Buddha was formerly a prince who renounced his material riches to seek spiritual enlightenment and encouraged others to do the same. Jesus befriended fishermen and a woman, Mary Magdalene, and allowed them to join his ranks rather than seeking to please the powers that be - those in positions of power of the day. Both leaders were able to demonstrate humility through their powerful choices, words and actions.</p>
<p>My favorite part of the book is when the author is able to talk about the science of "religion" or spirituality by breaking down The Lord's Prayer to reveal a code that can be applied to our lives in order to change our beliefs and recognize the power within while tapping into a higher power. Most people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive but I have never believed that they had to be so. Most Americans today worship science, in a sense, and hold it up on an altar, believing anything and everything that can be "proven" through experiments. While science obviously has a valuable place in society, so does spirituality - which is often relegated to the back burner of our lives. </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015882016-10-27T17:00:00-07:002016-10-28T05:38:24-07:00Too Christian for Me<p>Anytime you identify as "Christian" on any level, people judge you and reject you. They put you in the same category as fundamentalists who decry homosexuality as a sin or tell you that you will burn in hell for all of eternity if you don't follow Jesus. This is not the kind of Christian I am but this is what is always ascribed to me. I could remove the "Christian" term from my bio but I would never do so because there is nothing more important to me than my spirituality, even if it gets me rejected in a music business that favors sexuality over spirituality. I will never belong to it or be accepted by any part of the music business. I have been rejected by every genre of the music business, in part, because I dabble in every genre and blend genres and therefore, get rejected for some part of the whole of who I am. But I choose to be a whole person and refuse to put myself in a box and label myself as any one thing. I will never be accepted by those in the Christian music community simply because of my "new age" beliefs. </p>
<p>There seems to be an over identification with the sexual in the music and entertainment business at large. There are so many ways to be sexual. You can transsexual, homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, asexual, pansexual, bisexual, etc. I'm sure more terms will come out whereas you can even further identify yourself sexually. But if you dare bring the word "spiritual" or "Christian" into the mix, you are synonymous with "religious" or "fundamentalist Christian" with a huge negative overtone. You are immediately labelled as "homophobic" or "self-righteous" or any of the negative labels that have gone along with daring to call yourself a Christian. </p>
<p>Just wanted to share with you an example of the kind of rejection that those who identify as Christian on any level face. Here is a recent rejection based from a music organization that I submitted my music to. The rejection was obviously based on my spiritual identification:</p>
<p><strong>Rejector:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks Nicole-Marie<br><br>Whilst I did enjoy what I heard - music of 'religious fundamentalism' is <br>something I never feature - sorry.<br><br>I realise as a Christian evangelist it may surprise you that this is a <br>site which features music by Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Jews, <br>Agnostics and Atheists etc. and absolutely refuses to support musicians <br>of overt religious intent.<br><br>I wish you every success with your career as your production, <br>song-writing and vocals are sublime - but being a 'Christian <br>fundamentalist' is not some mark of relevance I am able to countenance <br>on a site which features music from around the world with those of faith <br>of other religions, or none at all.<br><br>Tim</p>
<p><strong>My Response</strong>: </p>
<div id="yiv4335552434yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477678651095_6426">That's fine but I am NOT a Christian fundamentalist. I am a blend of Christian and new age beliefs and I respect all faiths and religions. Just want to make that clear. Thanks for taking the time,</div>
<div id="yiv4335552434yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477678651095_6427"></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477679435985_27330">Nicole-Marie</div>
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<div><strong>Rejector: </strong></div>
<div></div>
<div>Thanks for the clarification Nicole-Marie.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Tim</div>
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<div><strong>My Response: </strong></div>
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<div>Also, I am NOT religious at all. I am spiritual. To me, the two terms have nothing to do with one another. <br clear="none">
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</div>
<div><strong>Rejector:</strong></div>
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<div>I can only draw from your own bio Nicole-Marie<br clear="none"><br clear="none">It is your own bio which references your Christian reference points - <br clear="none">not a fantasy of mine.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477679435985_29314" href="http://www.nicolemariemusic.com/" shape="rect" target="_blank" data-imported="1">http://www.nicolemariemusic.com/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">' Christian Contemporary ', 'artist nomination for the genres of "folk" <br clear="none">and "Christian" music'.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">If that is not the case - perhaps a rewrite of your bio without the <br clear="none">'Christian' would help to identify how you wish to portray your music.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Tim</div>
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<div><strong>My Response:</strong></div>
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<div>I am Christian. But I am not a fundamentalist and have never identified as such. I am not embarrassed to identify as Christian no matter how much disdain and rejection it gets me...<br clear="none">
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</div>
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<div>I eventually blocked this guy from my e-mail but I felt the need to educate him before doing so. He clearly didn't respect my spiritual beliefs and even had disdain for them. I get this all the time: from agnostics, from atheists, from Christians who don't accept the new age side of me and from New agers who don't accept the Christian side of me. There are many different ways to be a Christian. The way I define it is that I am a follower of Christ. I decided to give up control of my life to Christ after I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer in 2004. I feel like my life was spared for a reason. I must have a purpose even if I don't know what it is. </div>
<div></div>
<div>But I have always been a spiritual person. When I was in the 5th grade, I wanted to be a nun. I am always trying to find the spiritual perspective on any situation. But if you bring up the word "spiritual" in any way, people flip out or freak out or both. I remember Oprah talking about this problem when she started to include a "Remembering Your Spirit" segment on her talk show. Sometimes the word "spiritual" is fine by people and it is the word "Christian" that triggers them. I can understand why given all the negative things Christianity has been associated with. But every spiritual faith has been associated with something negative. So, in order to avoid vitriol from others, should we be spiritual-less people all together? </div>
<div></div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015872016-10-15T17:00:00-07:002016-10-16T15:13:27-07:00The Star Spangled Banner<p>Lately, there has been a lot of talk about changing the national anthem from <em>The Star Spangled Banner</em> to <em>America The Beautiful</em> or some other song. It would be kind of cool to have more appreciation for female singer/songwriters such as Katharine Lee Bates who wrote the lyrics to<em> America the Beautiful</em>. I personally like <em>God Bless America</em> but I'm sure agnostics, atheists and other groups of people who don't call their higher power "God" don't like it as much as I do. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the debate about our current national anthem is being fueled by Colin Kaepernick who refuses to stand for the flag and national anthem at NFL games and is an expert at getting attention. Good thing he's using this gift for a good cause, right? Now, our current national anthem is being called a "celebration of slavery" and it apparently celebrates the murder of African-Americans. Supporters of changing the national anthem point to the 3rd verse which was removed from the version of <em>The Star Spangled Banner</em> we are most familiar with. The 3rd verse in question:</p>
<address>No refuge could save the hireling and slave<br> From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,<br> And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave<br> O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.</address><address> </address>
<p>However, there is another side to this debate, CNN writer Mark Clague, writes:</p>
<address>""The Star-Spangled Banner" in no way glorifies or celebrates slavery. The middle two verses of Key's lyric vilify the British enemy in the War of 1812, what Key refers to in Verse 3 as "hirelings and slaves." This enemy included both whites and blacks, largely British professional soldiers (hirelings) but also the Corps of Colonial Marines (slaves). The Colonial Marines were escaped black American slaves who joined British forces because of the promise of freedom in return for fighting their former masters."</address><address> </address>
<p>Clague goes on to says, "As a founder and officer of the American Colonization Society (1816--1964), Key viewed slavery as a moral wrong that required a solution" and "To serve this community, Key helped established the Georgetown Lancaster School for freed people of color and even taught there. Over 1,000 black children were students at the school, and most attended tuition-free." Clague also writes: "Speaking to the US Supreme Court, Key described the treatment of slaves as "extreme cruelty" and slaves as "unhappy victims." Does this sound like a racist to you? To me, it sounds like Black lives did matter to the songwriter of The Star Spangled Banner.</p>
<p>However, the author of the lyrics for <em>The Star Spangled Banner, </em>Francis Scott Key<em>,</em> was supposedly "taking great satisfaction in the death of slaves who’d freed themselves" when he penned the third verse according to <em>The Intercept</em> writer, Jon Schwarz. Never mind the fact that this verse was removed. The fact that it was there in the first place is so offensive to people that the baby should apparently be thrown out with the bathwater if any part of the song was written a "racist." Anybody and anything can be labelled as "racist" these days. My husband, one of the most culturally sensitive White men I know, was called a "racist" by a African-American co-worker. This co-worker retracted her statement once she discovered that he was married to me, a woman of "color." Apparently, being married to someone of any ethnicity other than White automatically saves you from the horror of being labelled "racist." </p>
<p>Forget about the fact that Francis Scott Key freed some of his slaves in the 1830's and apparently, hired one back for wages. Key also apparently criticized slavery's cruelties to such as degree that he was apparently called "The Nigger Lawyer" because he dared to defend African Immigrants on a voluntary basis in his job as a lawyer. </p>
<p>I guess we have to find the "perfect person" and songwriter to pen a song that resonates with all Americans. Boy, won't that be hard: Americans all agreeing on something or someone for that matter! This transcendent person cannot be a real person with good and bad parts. They have to be a perfect person who has never said anything or written anything they may come to regret or that is offensive in any way to others. </p>
<p>Apparently, your creative creations mean nothing if you've possibly made any mistakes in life. Apparently, it means nothing if you regret those things and try to atone for your wrongs by your present or future actions. The Star Spangled Banner is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Some of the things that make it such a great song is that it is very difficult to sing and therefore reserved for only the best singers, it has lots of dynamics and it inspires us somehow on deep level. Maybe Bob Dylan should write the next national anthem since he just won the Nobel Peace Prize. He's not controversial at all, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015862016-10-08T17:00:00-07:002016-10-09T03:53:09-07:00The Plus Sides of Call-Out Culture<p>I recently came across an article titled: <em>What Makes Call-Out Culture So Toxic</em>. This attack on call-out culture is very popular right now. There was even an article in <em>Time</em> magazine about it. It's like anyone who calls anyone else out is currently being called out themselves. I'm not hearing much, however, about the plus sides of call-out culture. I do believe there is another side to every thing. Here are some of the plus sides of call-out culture that I see:</p>
<p>- Keeps us from voting for the wrong president</p>
<p>- Holds people accountable, especially those holding public offices or in positions of power. There are some people who repeatedly get away with bad behavior because nobody says anything. I would choose to live in the throes of call-out culture than live in a society where you are rendered silent or you are too afraid to say anything. </p>
<p>- Lets people know what behavior, words or actions are inappropriate. Believe it or not, not everyone is socially intelligent. People with personality disorders, especially Narcissists, will continue to behave in appalling ways or say hurtful things unless others set a boundary with them or repeatedly let them know that it's not okay. </p>
<p>- Let's us know who's safe or not safe. It's a good thing that Jerry Sandusky was called out on his sexual abuse of children, for example. It's a good thing that Bill Cosby was called out by comedian Hannibal Buress as it led to many survivors of sexual assault finally feeling heard and also let us know that some people believes that one man's "legacy" is more important than bringing the issue of sexual assault on women out of the shadows. </p>
<p>- Let's us know where other people stand on issues. </p>
<p>- Let's us know that there are other cultures out there other than our own and other viewpoints out there other than our own which may make us less judgmental and provincial. In this way, we can learn about acceptance and unity. To say that a culture that always says the politically correct thing or that keeps most of their feelings/thoughts unexpressed is superior to a culture that just calls you out on the carpet, is close-minded and may even be racist.</p>
<p>- Helps us learn not to take things personally. After all, what's being said says more about the person saying it than who they are saying it about. </p>
<p>- Helps us to not feel alone or feel less shameful/confused/scared l if someone has the courage to call out someone when we either didn't have the words or the strength to do so but felt the same way about the person being called out. </p>
<p>- Helps us find the balance between repressing our feelings and thoughts and speaking out on them. It's not good mental health on a personal level or a societal level if people feel that they must not say anything for fear or repercussion, social death or other feared consequence. Repressed feelings can become physical disease or can build up to an explosion such as a mass shooting. </p>
<p>- Can help us change policies and unequities. Where would we be as a society if there weren't whistle blowers who speak out about sexual harassment on the job? Where would we be if we didn't have people brave enough to advocate and speak out for abused and neglected children, elderly or animals? When we blow the whistle or speak out against abuse, we are in essence calling out the abuser(s).</p>
<p>- Can help bring the truth to light and encourage others to speak their truths when others don't want to see it, accept it or acknowledge it. People usually deny your experience of someone because they have a different experience of that person. But that doesn't make your experience any less true. For example, females tend to bully by exclusion. Well, if you are the person being excluded, no one is going to validate your experience of the ring leader because they don't want to align themselves with the person on the outs and be excluded as well. Scientology thrives on this concept. Another example is when someone denies your experience of sexual abuse because they weren't abused themselves or can't imagine the abuser doing what they did. </p>
<p>- Can, believe it not, help develop compassion in our society. Unless a person is a psychopath, narcissistic, sociopath, or other category of person that lacks empathy and may never develop it, we all have the potential to develop our compassion towards others who are suffering without having to suffer with the same affliction or circumstance as well. When someone is calling someone else out, they are doing it for a reason. Their motivation could come from a good place or could come from a state of suffering. Perhaps, if we listened to the tears underneath the anger and rage rather than dismissed such people as "crazy" or "monsters" or any other negative label, we could learn something about the human experience even if we didn't experience it ourselves. There are many forms of trauma to be had. Most of us have been traumatized at some point in our life. Trauma can manifest as many things such as Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, violence, bullying, health issues, and many other negative states and conditions. I've heard people use the word "Bipolar" in a pejorative sense saying such things as "my bipolar boss." But some of the most amazing people in our history have had Bipolar Disorder. There can be a genetic component but there can also be a trauma component. </p>
<p>I do believe that people can take it too far or call-out with a "bad" intention of doing harm, humiliating, controlling, manipulating, or publically shaming others. But if the intention behind the call-out is to inform, to improve lives, to protect, to make people think of another side of the issue, to express our own experience, to challenge the status quo or bring a level of accountability to the table, then perhaps call-out culture isn't all bad. </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015852016-09-21T17:00:00-07:002016-09-22T16:35:11-07:00The Symbolism of the Flag<p>The American flag stands for many things including opportunity and freedom of speech. I find it hugely ironic that Colin Kaepernick is getting all this attention and support for disrespecting something that is symbolic of the two very things that he has benefited enormously from. After all, he had the number one selling jersey after all his attention-whoring. I get his need to stand up and speak out on the whole police brutality against Black lives but why do it in this fashion? If he is so against America, why not move to another country? Why not be grateful for all the great things about America and focus on all the positive things that the flag represents about America? I can see how the confederate flag got associated with racism but I don't understand why today's flag is being desecrated? </p>
<p>The American flag is especially important to veterans and none more so than Vietnam veterans who were the only group of veterans that were spat upon and called "baby killer" when they arrived home from war. Vietnam veterans had to sit and watch people burn the American flag on TV as they risked their lives, saw their comrades die and suffered chronic trauma that still haunts many of them today. I am proud to say that I am the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and I spent at least 5 years of my professional life working with Vietnam vets and listening to their stories. Anyone disrespecting the flag in anyway is just continuing to traumatize this under-served and under-appreciated group of people. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, PAPA!</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015832016-09-18T17:00:00-07:002016-09-19T03:47:49-07:00The Good Enough Christian<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I recently saw the headline to an online article that was disturbing: "Why Amy Grant Chose Gays Over God." There is so much judgment in that headline, in that statement. Though I was born and raised as a Christian, I don't like being associated with some of the most judgmental people on earth. Most Christians have their own definition of what being a "good-enough" Christian is. For some, this definition includes going to church regularly. For others, this definition involves not drinking alcohol or using substances of any sort. For most Christians, this includes decrying homosexuality. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I've spent years trying to find a Christian church that doesn't preach hatred about gays and I've yet to find one. Most Christians will say, "it's a sin like any other" but no church that I have attended has decried a "sin" more passionately and fervently than the "sin of homosexuality." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">To be a good enough Christian, you must also decry anything that is "new age." Because my beliefs are a blend of new age and Christian ideas, I have never fit in. I used to have a Christian friend who would lecture me every time I saw her. What kind of friendship is that? Who wants a friend who does nothing but lecture you? It was clear that she saw herself to be the superior Christian in our circle. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Another Christian lady who sold me some essential oils said to me, "we have to take them back from the new agers." Essential oils don't belong to any group of people. Spirituality doesn't belong to any group of people. But you are quick to be ostracized if you believe anything that falls outside the norm. I once had two Christian women gang up on me in a debate on whether or not demons and evil spirits exist. Their argument was that these things only existed at the time of Jesus. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I have seen so many Christians interfere with any sense of unity in the world. You either belong or you don't. You're either good enough or you're not. You either follow the bible to a T or you aren't truly a Christian and shouldn't be calling yourself such. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Amy Grant is one of my favorite artists. She got a lot of criticism for daring to venture outside of Christian music and go into pop music in the 1980's and 1990's. I'm sure that many Christians felt like their were losing one of their own to the world the same way that many Country fans are protective of their artists and resent it when any big Country artist dares to cross over into pop music. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">One day, these boundaries won't remain. They will all dissolve into unity when we discover that we are just as gay as the person we don't want sitting next to us. We already see the genres of music blending. Pretty soon, there will be no genres. Though most people won't admit it openly, most people do believe a blend of things when it comes to spirituality. I really don't want to have a sense of fellowship with any group that holds themselves apart as as superior to all the rest. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I call myself a Christian not because I have fellowship with any group of people, but because I am a follower of Christ. And I can have a direct connection with him. I don't have to go through a priest or have fellowship to feel a sense of belonging with him. Christ loved all people. And as follower of Christ, I aim to do the same.</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015822016-09-12T17:00:00-07:002016-09-12T23:02:15-07:00The Anointing of the Sick<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">With all this talk about who's more healthy among our current presidential candidates, I feel compelled to blog about how I believe health to be overrated. As a cancer survivor and also as someone who lives with a autoimmune illness, I know that being sick can make you stronger on all levels of being: spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I also believe that being sick can teach you lessons like humility, strengthen your faith in a higher power, make you wiser and enhance your spiritual growth, especially if you are here on this earth school to learn about compassion and unity. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Traditionally, those who are sick are viewed as "weak" or lazy and there is a history in our humanity of the infirmed being isolated and quarantined from the rest of society. We have it in our genes, in our history to be scared of those who are ill. After all, whatever ails them may be contagious and we fear that we may become ill too and possibly die from that illness. For some, the fear of death is the biggest fear there is. For those that fear death, it is inconceivable that one can gain anything from being sick for sickness if viewed mostly as a nuisance that you just want to rid of. The healthy and strong may not ever have the beauty of experiencing the truth: that illness can you assist you in overcoming your fears, even your fear of death. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">From the time I was a little girl, I suffered from Eczema. I was called a "leper" by my peers at times especially since my open skin sores left me vulnerable to even worse-looking conditions like Impetigo. Peers would mock the way I rubbed dead skin off my face and gossip about me behind my back, wondering amongst themselves, "what's wrong with her skin" instead of just asking me. I still have eczema - I never "outgrew" it like a lot of children do. My Eczema has taught me a lot about the need to look for one's inner beauty and spirit and seeing through one's outer charm or seemingly perfect aesthetics. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Some of the wisest people that have graced our earth with their presence are people that are sick. If you look at someone like Mattie Stepanek, the child peace advocate and motivational speaker that sold best-selling books of his poetry and was featured on Oprah, you can see that some of the wisest souls come in the most sickly bodies. He died at age 14 in 2004 from the <span class="_Tgc">rare disorder, dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, that his older siblings also died from. But in his short life, he spread his message of hope and peace. Sometimes having a rare condition makes you stand out and you can either choose to look at it as an opportunity to promote spiritual evolution and advancement in our society or you can choose to be as humiliated as you are sometimes treated and then hide in some corner of the world.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="_Tgc" style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It took me some time to adjust to every infirmity that I have been given but I have chosen to learn what I can from the rare cancer I survived. I learned things like gratitude and faith and I learned about the depths of my own strengths. I am still adjusting to autoimmune hearing loss but I have already learned a lot from this condition as well. I am learning about compassion for those who are hearing impaired and I am learning about self-love as you are often seen as someone is "stuck-up" when you don't hear people and they mistakenly believe that you are ignoring them. You can also be accused of many other things as you display behaviors that aren't deemed socially accepted or confuses others as you struggle to adjust to your new normal and communicate and connect with others in a new way. <br></span></p>
<p><span class="_Tgc" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">I believe that some of the oldest and wisest souls are those who choose to take on or be born with serious illnesses or conditions. Sometimes they aren't here to learn at all but have agreed to endure the "hardship" or pain in order to teach others lessons with their illness. My brother has Neurofibromatosis (NF) and I believe that he is an old soul. He is one of the most loving people I know. Those with Down's Syndrome are also some of the most loving people on earth. </span></span></p>
<p><span class="_Tgc" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Perhaps of our view of sickness needs to change. Perhaps those with illness and developmental disorders aren't sick or disordered at all. From a higher perspective, they really aren't the sick ones. They are the anointed ones here to anoint the rest of us with all the blessings that have been bestowed upon them. Will we listen to their messages? Will we learn from them? Can we learn from our own illnesses? Or will we continue to attack or mock or pity those who are ill in any way as we boast about our own supposed healthiness? </span> </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015812016-08-21T17:00:00-07:002016-08-22T07:24:15-07:00Let Yourself Fall Apart<p>"... You are not what will fall apart. Who you are can never fall apart. What will collapse is the haunted house of self-flattering and security seeking pictures you had mistakenly identified as a solution to your shaky life. These pictures are not the solution to your shakiness, they are the source of it." - Guy Finley, author of The Secret of Letting Go </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015802016-08-07T17:00:00-07:002016-08-08T05:33:03-07:00Go See Gleason<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Yesterday, I saw an incredible movie called <em>Gleason</em>. It is currently out in theaters in limited release. Though it is a documentary, I hope this movie will have a much wider release soon. It is already getting Oscar buzz and is getting a 96% on rotten tomatoes. I can't imagine what 4% of people didn't like it. The movie follows the life of retired New Orleans Saints' football player, Steve Gleason, who is from Spokane, Washington and played college football at WSU. While playing for the Saints, he met and went on to marry New Orleans native, Michel Varisco. Before the birth of their son, Rivers, he was diagnosed with ALS. The movie follows their journey as a family through the progression of the illness. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I have seen other movies about ALS including The Theory of Everything and Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet. Both are incredible movies but this movie offers something different. Before losing his voice, Steve starts making video recordings for his son since the life expectancy for ALS is typically 2-5 years following diagnosis. The movie focuses on the father son relationship with Steve and his own father as well. Steve's father, who is highly Christian and religious, goes on his own journey of accepting Steve's way of having faith, accepting Steve's condition, and accepting that there is only so much he can do other than develop compassion to help his son. I cried early on in the movie and didn't stop crying until the end. But the part where I had to keep myself from wailing was when Steve, with slurred speech and as loud as he can, almost yells at his father, "my soul is saved!" At that, his father takes him into his arms and holds him and they both cry together in a deep embrace. The whole thing reminds me of that excellent, powerful, Christian song "He's My Son" by Mark Schultz.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The movie also does a great job of including the caregiver's perspective through Michel's experience of becoming Steve's main caregiver and how exhausting it can be. Being a caregiver is highly stressful, exhausting and undervalued in our society. It is the patient who gets all the attention, sympathy and compassion while very few stop to ask the caregiver how they are doing. I like how the movie doesn't shy away from Michel's journey through anger, frustration, depression and apathy as a caregiver and spouse. In some ways, it is almost harder to be in the position of caregiver or spouse to a person who is diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. You have no control over the situation as you watch your loved one go through incredible pain. Mental health experts say that it can be more traumatizing to witness something traumatic than to actually go through the traumatic experience yourself. </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Above all, the movie is so inspirational. Steve starts an organization called Team Gleason with the slogan "No White Flags" to bring awareness to ALS and to assist those with ALS and their families in getting equipment and in funding the experiences one might miss out on due to the limited mobility and functioning those with ALS contend with. It brings in ideas about healthcare and Team Gleason's fight to get things like Speech Generating Devices covered under Medicare. These devices are what help those with ALS have a voice. If they aren't covered, you are in effect saying that their voice doesn't matter. The movie makes you think less about and complain less about the things in your life that aren't ideal. Since seeing the movie, I have adopted a new mantra to remind myself of this when I start getting in victim mode or start complaining about things that don't really matter: "No white flags." </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015792016-07-28T17:00:00-07:002016-07-28T17:39:14-07:00The Grace of God<p>"When we are aware of the divine spark that exists within us, we can go to any church, any synagogue, any temple, any mosque, any drum circle, and always find the grace of God." - Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015782016-07-26T17:00:00-07:002016-07-28T17:40:47-07:00The Goddess Reason<p>"Our present lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, so we assure ourselves, we have 'conquered nature.' " - Carl Jung</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015772016-07-25T17:00:00-07:002016-07-26T11:30:25-07:00Anthropology<p>"Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilization. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organization disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. " - Carl Jung, from Man and His Symbols </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015752016-07-05T17:00:00-07:002016-07-06T14:45:06-07:00Master Stillness<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Remember that when the waters of a lake are absolutely still, the lake reflects the tress, the sky, and everything around it perfectly. At the slightest breeze, with the smallest ripple in the waters, the lake reflects nothing but itself. To see another with clarity and objectivity, one first must master stillness." - Alberto Villoldo, author of <em>Shaman, Healer, Sage</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015742016-07-03T17:00:00-07:002016-07-04T03:40:13-07:00Updated Information for Upcoming CD Release Party<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393997/5b952bef3273204daf19d25e8f03fd8d0b857b6e/original/cdreleaseflyer.png/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTc1NHgxMjQwIl0%3D.png" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1240" width="1754" /></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015732016-06-26T17:00:00-07:002016-06-27T05:38:43-07:00Death is No Enemy<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Death is no enemy of man; it is a friend who, when the work of life is done, just cuts the cord that binds the human boat to earth, that it may sail on smoother seas." - Matheno, from The Aquarian Gospel</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015722016-06-23T17:00:00-07:002016-06-24T09:06:25-07:00Spend Time With Nature<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"When one attunes himself with Nature, he attunes himself to the power of the universe. His strength then becomes limitless. When one attunes himself to the Divine behind all natural, universal phenomena, he makes himself a channel for the Divine to flow in pristine splendor into the dark alleys and buried chambers of this relative world." - Swami Kriyananda</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015712016-06-14T17:00:00-07:002016-06-15T15:40:46-07:00Quote from The Art and Science of Raja Yoga<p>"In even the darkest age [] some souls are fully enlightened. And in even the most enlightened age, some men live in a self-created darkness." - Swami Kriyananda</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015702016-06-13T17:00:00-07:002016-06-14T02:44:21-07:00Moment of Silence<address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">With this moment of silence</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May you feel the peace</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May you feel the love</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">and the unity</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">With this moment of silence</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I remember thee</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I remember your smile</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">and your beauty</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">With this moment of silence</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May we all believe</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">we can live as one</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">as we all live free</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">With this moment of silence </span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May we find the meaning</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May we celebrate being</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">who we are and could be</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">As we work towards compassion</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">and understanding</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">As we find in ourselves</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">acceptance and serenity</span></address><address> </address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">May we remember those</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">who lived their truth fully</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">and have a moment of silence</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">eternally</span></address>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015692016-06-05T17:00:00-07:002016-06-06T16:56:42-07:00Dreamless Sleep<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"If man's sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he is able to transfer his consciousness or sense of I-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying. A dreamer is contacting his astral and not his causal body; his sleep is not full refreshing." - Sri Yukteswar</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015682016-06-02T17:00:00-07:002016-06-03T06:25:35-07:00Indian Music and The Cosmic Song<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Krishna, is the East Indian version of the pied piper. He is always shown in Hindu art with a flute, on which he plays enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the human souls wandering in maya-delusion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The Sama Veda of India contains the worlds earliest writings on musical science. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The foundation stone of Hindu music is the ragas or fixed melodic scales. The six basic ragas branch out into 126 derivative raginis (wives) and putras (sons). Each raga has a minimum of 5 notes: a leading note, a secondary note, helping notes, and a dissonant note (the enemy). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Each of the 6 basic ragas has a natural correspondence with a certain hour of the day and season of the year. The Hindole Raga is heard only at dawn in the spring to evoke universal love. The Deepaka Raga is played during the evening in summer to arouse compassion. The Megha Raga is a melody for midday in the rainy season, to summon courage. Bhairava Raga is played in the mornings of August, September, and October to achieve tranquility. Sri Raga is reserved for autumn twilights to attain pure love. Malkounsa Raga is heard at midnights in winder, for valor.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Indian music divides the octave into 22 srutis or demi-semitones. These microtonal intervals permit fine shades of musical expression unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The Hindu musican does not read set notes; he clothes anew at each playing the bare skeleton of the raga, often confining himself to a single melodic sequence. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 talas or time-measures. The traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have isolated 32 kinds of tala in the song of a lark. The origin of tala or rhythm is rooted in human movements - the double time of walking, and the triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is twice the length of exhalation. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">India has always recognized the human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music therefore largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For the same reason, melody is stressed, rather than harmony.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The deeper aim of the early rishi-musicians was to blend the singer with the Cosmic Song which can be heard through the awakening of man's occult spinal centers. Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Oversoul. </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The above is an excerpt from <em>Autobiography of a Yogi</em> by Paramhansa Yogananda</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015672016-05-31T17:00:00-07:002016-06-01T14:51:06-07:00The Soul Has No Sex<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"In sleep, you do not know whether you are a man or a woman," he said. "Just as a man, impersonating a woman, does not become one, so the soul, impersonating both man and woman, has no sex. The soul is the pure, changeless image of God."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Sri Yukteswar never avoided or blamed women as objects of seduction. Men, he said, were also a temptation to women. I once inquired of my guru why a great ancient saint had called women "the door to hell."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"A girl must have proved very troublesome to his peace of mind in his early life," my guru answered causticly. "Otherwise he would have denounced, not woman, but some imperfection in his own self-control."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- The above is an excerpt from <em>Autobiography of a Yogi</em> by Paramhansa Yogananda </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015662016-05-30T17:00:00-07:002016-05-31T07:57:06-07:00The Real Renunciates<p>"I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real Renunciates! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys."</p>
<p>- Bhaduri Mahasaya (The Levitating Saint) as quoted from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, reportedly the only book Steve Jobs ever downloaded on his iPad </p>
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<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015652016-05-17T17:00:00-07:002016-05-18T16:49:16-07:00Group Feeling and Belief<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"As I mentioned in <em>The Divine Matrix</em>, one of the most powerful examples of group feeling and belief affecting a broad geographic area was documented as a daring experiment during the war between Lebanon and Israel that began in 1982. It was during that time that researchers trained a group of people to "feel" peace in their bodies while believing that it was already present within them, rather than simply thinking about it in their minds or praying "for" it to occur. For this particular experiment, those involved used a form of meditation known as TM (Transcendental Meditation) to achieve that feeling.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">At appointed times on specific days of the month, these people were positioned throughout the war-torn areas of the Middle East. During the window of time when they were feeling peace, terrorist activities ceased, the rate of crimes against people went down, the number of emergency-room visits declined, and the incidence of traffic accidents dropped. When the participants' feelings changed, the statistics were reversed. This study confirmed the earlier findings: When a small percentage of the population achieved peace within themselves, it was reflected in the world around them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">[]...the data was so consistent that the researchers were able to identify how many people are needed to share the experience of peace before it's mirrored in their world. The number is the square root of one percent of the population. This formula produces figures that are smaller than we might expect. For example, in a city of one million people, the number is about 100. In a world of 6 billion, it's just under 8,000. This calculation represents only the minimum needed to begin the process. The more people involved in feeling peace, the faster the effect is created. The study became known as the International Peace Project in the Middle East and the results were eventually published in <em>The Journal of Conflict Resolution</em> in 1988." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">- Gregg Braden, author of <em>The Spontaneous Healing of Belief</em></span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015642016-05-14T17:00:00-07:002016-05-15T04:30:16-07:00Prince Edition of Rolling Stone<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">You must read the latest Prince edition of Rolling Stone. It contains great tributes to Prince and the best article I ever read about Prince by Brian Hiatt. Here are some excerpts:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"If Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, then Prince should be the Emperor." - Stevie Wonder</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"He was singular in his music - he was his own genre - and that same singularity extended to everything in his life." - Questlove</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It's nearly 2 a.m., and Prince is done for the night. He walks me through the depths of Paisley Park, his shoes glowing in the dark, to retrieve my jacket and bag. As we walk, I hear doves cry - actual doves that live in a cage somewhere in the rafters. As I put on my coat, Prince invites me to join the band in London. The zipper catches badly on the way up. "F@!#," I say, and my host looks stricken. "So much for not cursing," he says. I apologize. Prince looks me in the eyes, and wraps me in a tight hug. I am, as promised, dismantled by his instant forgiveness. I can still feel that embrace as I walk outside, where moonlight shines on a thick layer of immaculate, freshly fallen snow. - A Final Visit With Prince by Brian Hiatt</span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015632016-05-07T17:00:00-07:002016-06-01T14:54:51-07:00Miracles Versus Work of the Devil<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Four days after Pope John XXIII died, his apparition reportedly appeared to Sister Caterina Capitani, a nun of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul who had been suffering from severe gastric hemorrhages, a condition thought to be incurable. She had just had unsuccessful surgery for the condition and was in a hospital in Naples preparing to die when she felt a hand upon the incision which had opened on her abdomen. She turned to see the spirit of the late pope who said to her, "Sister, you have called to me so many times, as have so many of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, that you have turned torn out of my heart this miracle. But now do not fear. You are healed!" The moment the spirit of the deceased pope diasappeared, Sister Capitani was able to rise from her bed and reported no pain. The open wound on her abdomen was gone. Not even a surgical scar remained. The event was deemed a miracle in May 1966. Among Christians, the act is often deemed a miracle. However, whenever similar phenomena occur among members of other spiritual groups, orthodox clergy are likely to denounce the "miracle" as the work of the devil. Is a reported healing by an intervening ghost or spirit entity any less valid than a miraculous act performed by a religious figure or saint?</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015622016-04-26T17:00:00-07:002016-04-27T12:11:28-07:00The PTSD of Ilness<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"PTSD tends to pile on top of itself. Once you've been sick for any period of time, and you start believing your body is letting you down, and you're lost in a non-diagnosis or misdiagnosis or a diagnosis that leads to no healing, and the financial strain starts to build, and maybe you feel your hold slipping on your career or relationships - it makes you a likely candidate for a unique composition of posttraumatic stress disorders." - Anthony William, Medical Medium</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015612016-04-20T17:00:00-07:002016-04-21T16:34:52-07:00The Transcendence of Prince<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I feel fortunate to have been raised on Prince's music and to have been heavily influenced by him as a musician and singer. I have always listed him as an influence and was lucky enough to see him perform at the Gorge in George, Washington. Besides being a musical and creative genius, Prince was transcendent in so many ways. There's no way you can't take for granted someone who transcends gender and race and blends sex and religion, female and male into one. He was so gifted on so many instruments that he could and did create and produce whole songs all by himself. Despite getting recognition and success at a early age, he was so humble that he performed other people's songs at the 2007 Superbowl Halftime show and went under other names like "Christopher" on work he did for other artists - such as the awesome keyboard part he played on Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back." He was so generous with his talent and supportive of other artists, especially women in music, that he championed people like Vanity, collaborated often with other artists such as Madonna, Sheila E and Gwen Stefani, and wrote amazing songs for others like Nothing Compares 2 U for Sinead O'Conner and Manic Monday for The Bangles. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It seemed that Prince never got old or out of style yet at the same time he was a throwback to the greats like James Brown and Little Richard. His music videos were always entertaining, beautiful and stylish. He had an amazing work ethic and was so respected as a well-rounded and extraordinarily talented artist, that just showing up to any award's show as a presenter garnered standing ovations without him having to say a word. Purple Rain is one of my favorite movies. My favorite Prince music videos include: Cream, 1999, When Doves Cry, and Seven. My favorite Prince songs are:</span></p>
<address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">1) When Doves Cry</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">2) Gold</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">3) Little Red Corvette</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">4) Raspberry Beret</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">5) Seven</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">6) Cream</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">7) 1999</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">8) Diamonds and Pearls</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">9) Let's Go Crazy</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">10) Erotic City</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">11) You Got the Look (duet with Sheena Easton) </span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">12) Purple Rain</span></address><address><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">13) Kiss</span></address><address> </address>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">He wasn't afraid to step outside the box and experiment with different sounds and styles. He was gorgeous and inspiring and unique. He was one of the first artists of mixed race to come to the forefront, was a quiet humanitarian and was willing to speak out on issues such as artists' rights. In a growing climate of diminished creativity and musicianship, reduced diversity as far what genres and artists get promoted on the mainstream radio and on music video television, and an increasing entitlement for free music among the general public, I feel very lucky to have shared earth time with someone like Prince who was beyond genre and so out of this world that he brought the art form of music to a whole new level. When he performed at the Superbowl in 2007, he didn't let the downpour get in his way but took advantage of it by performing an unforgettable rendition of Purple Rain. His music transcends and we should be grateful for all the songs, performances and art (videos, movies, etc.) that he left behind. I'm sure there is more to come from his vault posthumously. Talk about leaving the world a better place!</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015602016-04-07T17:00:00-07:002016-04-07T18:07:02-07:00The Essence of Love<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"... consider radiating your aura with the essence of love. Let any negative energy that comes your way to simply flow through, around and from you and be changed to love and light to feed you and sent to God's light. When you are connected to the Creator, negative thought-forms and psychic attacks will melt as snow in spring to create pure water to wash you clean." - Vianna Stibal, author of <em>ThetaHealing</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015592016-03-22T17:00:00-07:002016-03-23T13:26:44-07:00It is Done!<p><span style="font-size: medium;">My fourth and quite possibly last album, The Music Our Love Makes, is finally done after nearly 2 years of working on it. I'm very proud of the work that I and my producer, Jeremy Cays, put into the project. It turned out to be my best album so far. It will be available for digital sales (i.e. iTunes, etc) sometime next week. It will be available for physical CD sales around 4/13/16 through CDbaby. I will also be doing a CD release party sometime this spring or summer. More to come!</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015582016-03-15T17:00:00-07:002016-03-15T18:48:25-07:00Belief Work<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"When you change belief systems in the morphogenetic field, some illnesses and diseases can heal instantly. One of my clients was suffering from cancer of the colon. This was his third bout with this illness. After releasing the belief of 'I hate my father' from his core and genetic levels, he found his cancer disappeared."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">- Vianna Stibal, author of ThetaHealing</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015572016-03-07T16:00:00-08:002016-03-15T18:39:46-07:00Exercise as a Behavioral Prescription for Depression and Anxiety<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"... Exercise regulates the release of the three Neurotransmitters most commonly associated with the maintenance of mental health: serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Although exercise cannot substitute for psychiatric treatment, the role of exercise on mood is so pronounced that many psychiatrists have begun adding a regimen of physical activity to the normal course of therapy. But in one experiment with depressed individuals, rigorous exercise was actually substituted for antidepressant medication. Even when compared against medicated controls, the treatment outcomes were astonishingly successful. For both depression and anxiety, exercise is beneficial immediately and over the long term. It is equally effective for men and women, and the longer the program is deployed, the greater the effect becomes. It is especially helpful for severe cases and for older people." - John Medina, author of Brain Rules </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015562016-03-05T16:00:00-08:002016-03-06T15:17:35-08:00Brain Rules<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"We have created high-stress office environments, even though a stressed brain is significantly less productive." - John Medina, author of <em>Brain Rules</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015552016-02-26T16:00:00-08:002016-03-01T03:20:00-08:00The Voice Produces Only What the Ear Can Hear<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Dr. Alfred Tomatis once said, "the voice produces only what the ear can hear." He had an "electronic" ear and challenged the medical, educational, and musical world with that statement. Don Campbell, author of Creating Inner Harmony, writes about Dr. Tomatis and how he was influenced by the doctor:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I realized that I'd never been taught about the ear's ability to listen; I only understood the basic mechanism. When he amplified specific ranges in my left ear, I actually lost track of my vocal control and felt like I was a total non-singer. Then he switched the frequencies to the right ear, and suddenly I was in tune with myself again.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">While serving as director of the Institute of Music, Health and Education, I formally tested more than 500 students with right- and left-ear stimulation and observed how the texture and tuning of their voices changed. By looking at their audiological listening charts, there was often an obvious way to see if the students' ears were hypersensitive to certain parts of their vocal ranges. It was in those places that the ability to sing in tune was challenged. Often, there'd be a place where tone perception in one of the ears was weak - and it always showed up in the voice.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Dr. Tomatis told me the story of the melancholy monks at Benedictine abbey in the south of France. He was called there a few years after Vatican II because they were experiencing stress, fatigues, and sleep disorders. The abbot thought that there was some kind of virus slowly killing the monks. After many specialists had examined the men, only Tomatis realized that they'd been slowly weaned off their routine of singing Gregorian chants nine times a day. This had been replaced with only a few services sung in French in a new style.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The despondence of the monks wasn't physiological, but audiological! Tomatis put the monks back on a full diet of chant. Within weeks, the elongated tones of devotional praise and prayer had restored the health of the abbey residents. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">As a hearing-impaired singer, I can relate to the above. I lost my left ear and some pitches in my right ear in 2009/2010 and I went from a first soprano to an alto. Where music had once been a coping skill for me, I was no longer able to hear in stereo and loathed songs that didn't pan all instruments straight down the middle. I could no longer tone the same as a singer. The assault of auditory abuse in certain work environments led me on a crusade to speak up for myself on behalf of all hearing-impaired individuals and dare to ask for accommodations. This lead to backlash from my superiors, bullying and career execution. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Whereas I was once profoundly afraid of becoming completely deaf and have been legally deaf at times given my illness, I feel more at peace with the idea now that I have started taken sign language, have learned more about the deaf community and culture, and have met amazing people within that community. I will still choose to make as much music as possible while I have hearing because music was always my first love. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I remember watching a special on TV about Jackie Evancho - the singer who gained worldwide attention at age 10 when she competed in the fifth season of America's Got Talent and finished in second place. On the news special, Jackie's vocal chords were looked at in an attempt to see what makes her sing so well at such an early age. I remember thinking at the time, why aren't they looking at her ears instead?</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015542016-02-24T16:00:00-08:002016-02-25T09:52:09-08:00Music is the Answer<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Music is the answer to the mystery of life; it is the most profound of all the arts; it expresses the deepest thoughts of life and being in simple language which nonetheless cannot be translated." - Arthur Schopenhauer</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015532016-02-24T16:00:00-08:002016-02-25T06:47:44-08:00Our Inner Voice<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Our deep inner voice is often hidden by all the stimulation of daily life, and we also learn to use our thoughts to cover it." - Don Campbell, author of<em> Creating Inner Harmony</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015522016-02-18T16:00:00-08:002016-02-19T02:36:07-08:00Enter the Pen<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif; font-size: medium;">John 10:7-15 Jesus emphasized, "I can guarantee this truth: I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before I did were thieves or robbers. However, the sheep didn't respond to them. I am the gate. Those who enter the sheep pen through me will be saved. They will go in and out of the sheep pen and find food. A thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But I came so that my sheep will have life and so that they will have everything they need. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. A hired hand isn't a shepherd and doesn't own the sheep. When he sees a wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and quickly runs away. So the wolf drags the sheep away and scatters the flock. The hired hand is concerned about what he is going to get paid and not about the sheep. "I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep as my Father knows me. My sheep know me as I know the Father. So I give my life for my sheep." </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015512016-02-16T16:00:00-08:002016-02-16T16:58:08-08:00Shaken Babies<address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Shaken babies, awaken</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">to the sound of My singing</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">For the day has come</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">My glory has risen</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">May all that you have lost</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Be returned to you tenfold and more</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">More than you could ever imagine</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">More than you could ever ask for</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">The quakes will quiet down</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">But for now, they roar</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Echo in your darkest places</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Flood into your pores</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">But for all My children</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Who suffered at the hands</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">of the wicked, wayward world</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">and who with the demons dance</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Remember My promise to you</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Think of the kingdom that awaits</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">And forgive the demon dancers</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Let your hearts bloodlet the hate</span></address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">as you leave them to My fate...</span></address><address>
<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span> </address><address><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">-NMJS</span></address>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015502016-01-24T16:00:00-08:002016-01-25T02:51:06-08:00Hidden Resources<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I believe that fear is compassion in seed form. Heal the fear, and compassion bursts forth. The instinctual self must not become the enemy. Anger, greed, and lust are all hidden resources that can be transformed into love, clarity, wisdom, and courage. Everything in nature is holy, and every chakra holds the seeds of our illumination and of who we are becoming.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Alberto Villoldo, author of <em>Shaman</em>, <em>Healer</em>, <em>Sage</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015492016-01-12T16:00:00-08:002016-01-12T18:43:19-08:00The Lord Looks at the Heart<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- 1 Samuel 16:7 NKJV</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015482016-01-09T16:00:00-08:002016-01-10T03:55:02-08:00The Unconscious Group<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"A good example of the way the unconscious group operates is the way a group selects a 'troublemaker' who then performs a function on behalf of other members of the group as well as themselves. This is a person who always challenges administration, who constantly argues, who gives off nonverbal signs of frustration in meetings but never does anything positive, who is always tardy, and who bullies other people. Many groups and organizations have a 'difficult', 'disturbed', or 'impossible' member whose behavior is regarded as getting in the way of the others' good work. There may be a widely shared belief that if only that person would leave, then everything would be fine. This view is very attractive, hard to resist and tempting to act upon... As happens very often, no sooner had one troublesome person left, than another one appeared... this unconscious suction of individuals into performing a function on behalf of others as well as themselves happens in all institutions."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Sandra Bloom, author of <em>Destroying Sanctuary</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015472015-12-30T16:00:00-08:002015-12-31T04:34:19-08:00The Story of Psyche<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">People in the transition often have limited amounts of strength, health or energy as they go into the underworld. For example, the </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">story of Psyche speaks to people living with cancer. They say, "Cancer was a cure for my co-dependency. Cancer was a way in which I could say to people, "I can't do that." The ability to say "No" is one of the challenges for a feeling man or the feminine psyche. When other people expect you to always be there for them, and you break form by saying "No," you create a crisis in a relationship. It may be that you need to not stay in the underworld of your own depression or your own addiction or your own whatever it is, it is there. Addiction, illness, and depression are images of the underworld that you need to get through in order to get out. This liminal period of transition is a very long one. The tasks to be done keep on growing. It's hard. It's scary. If you're going to make it through this transition to the new phase of your life in which you have integrated the new you, with all that you are for the next phase of your life, you've got to often learn to say "No." Otherwise the people who have expectations of you will use your energy. Say "No," and they'll say, "You're selfish." Psyche manages to do all of that. She returns to the upper world. She's no longer in the underworld. She has made it through.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.peace.ca/mythofpsyche.htm</span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015462015-12-30T16:00:00-08:002015-12-31T04:03:27-08:00Happy New Years!<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393997/f4e90f6d6486d33c502d78688350f9d541971238/original/ap-01-13-2013-44896917-l-1024x683.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTAyNHg2ODMiXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="683" width="1024" /></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015452015-12-15T16:00:00-08:002015-12-16T04:33:01-08:00Trauma-Organized Systems<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"The outcome of a traumatic experience will be in part determined by the pre-traumatic level of organizational health and integrity. We believe that at this point, our social service network is functioning as a trauma-organized system still largely unaware of the multiple ways in which its adaptation to chronic stress has created a state of dysfunction that in some cases virtually prohibits the recovery of the individual clients who are the source of its underlying and original mission, and damages many of the people who work within it." - Sandra Bloom, author of <em>Destroying Sanctuary</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015442015-12-15T16:00:00-08:002015-12-16T00:56:31-08:00The Touch of Trauma<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"Just the encroachment of trauma into the life of an individual client is an insidious process that turns the past into a nightmare, the present into a repetitive cycle of reenactment, and the future into a terminal illness..." - Sandra Bloom, author of <em>Destroying Sanctuary</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015432015-12-13T16:00:00-08:002015-12-14T14:31:09-08:00Broken and Beautiful<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393997/0a121a34fe556488ed932e302f47cc29698b1103/original/10533456-800807283293096-6604592750565235800-n.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NzAweDcwMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="700" width="700" /></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015422015-12-07T16:00:00-08:002017-07-20T03:25:32-07:00Trauma Stewardship<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The</span> following are excerpts from the book <em>Trauma Stewardship</em> by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Ethical work cannot be sustained in an eroding environment that fails to support its workers."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"... when people perceive their organizations to be supportive, they experience lower levels of vicarious trauma." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Service rationing refers to the process that workers go through to bridge the everyday divide between the ideal of how they would work if they were free to function to the best of their ability and the reality of how they can work, given the numerous obstacles in their way."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Our responses to trauma exposure can foster a defended, exclusive, and hopeless culture in the organizations we work for. Think about how your workplace feels. What's the energy level? What's the vibe? These qualities have nothing to do with the intensity of the work. Instead, they have to do with the degree to which the organization's structures, policies, and attitudes support or impede the workers' efforts to fulfill the mission." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"An organization's culture can become so steeped in notions of scarcity that it enforces policies radically incongruent with the original mission."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"We frequently see trauma exposure response manifest in our work in two other ways: lack of accountability and unethical behavior."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"One example of systemic oppression is structural violence. This concept was introduced in the 1970s by Johan Galtung, a pioneering Norwegian researcher in peace and conflict, and founder of the International Peace Research Institute. He describes structural violence as: a form of violence which corresponds with the systemic ways in which a given social structure or social institution kills people slowly by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism, racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism and ageism are just some examples of structural violence."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Caregiver stress is directly related to the way our society views the elderly and the people who care for them," elder-care expert Vitaliano says..."Today, caregiving is viewed largely as a burden in this country. If it were viewed as more of a societal expectation and people were willing to offer more support, fewer caregivers would suffer in isolation, [Vitaliano] says. In turn, fewer elders and disabled people would experience abuse or neglect at the hands of caregiving individuals or institutions." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Many of our fields and places of work seem to function [] from a place of tremendous urgency. This sense of urgency distracts many organizations from addressing how to best retain healthy, happy people who will continue to contribute to the betterment of the world."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"The deeper we sink into a culture of trauma, the less flexible and original our thinking becomes." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Only the person who is relaxed can create and to that mind, ideas flow like lightning." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"When we contend with trauma exposure [] we often find ourselves craving more structure and less creativity. We may resist change even when existing structures are out of date and detrimental to us personally and professionally."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Taking sides can surface in workplace dynamics. We may see it in the form of gossip, cliques, divisions among staff, and rigid expectations of workers."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"People who bear witness to a range of human experience may become increasingly inoculated to others' pain. We may start being moved by each person's story, but over time it may take more and more intense or horrific expressions of suffering to deeply move us. We may consider less extreme experiences of trauma as less real and therefore less deserving of our time and support. Minimizing occurs when we trivialize a current situation by comparing it with another situation that we regard as more dire."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Minimizing is not setting priorities in our work, it is the experience of losing our compassion and ability to empathize because we are comparing others' suffering or putting it into a hierarchy." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"Often when individuals try to deal with their anger honestly, directly, and in a good-faith way, it can be so unnerving for those around them that they may be viewed as a bitch or labeled intimidating."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"The system is perfectly designed to produce the results it does - I keep hearing that quote. The frustrating part for me is that when you have a system that is producing a lot of trauma, people focus on that trauma, and there's very little attention focused on the source. What is this system that is churning out so many people who are suffering? I know there are not infinite resources, but if we could put even 10 percent of our resources into what is generating trauma, then we could make a difference. Otherwise, I think we're all going to just get overwhelmed. I'm learning that it is incredibly hard to manifest all this in your own life. There is a huge burden of responsibility on the individual to shift things, and of course that's true - the individual is the first place it starts. Still, it's very, very hard to take responsibility for my own health when the systems and the culture around me are designed to provide minimal support for health." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"While the rubble of the World Trade Center still smoldered, then-president George Bush implored us to go shopping as a testimony to our nation's resolve. Not to grieve, not to be kind to each other, not to reflect deeply and humbly on the series of wounds and tragedies that preceded the hijackers' confoundingly violent and hopeless attacks, not to pitch in and make a difference in our own communities, but to shop. While this comment has often been remarked upon, it remains a shining example of how distracted and numbed-out our culture and governance can become. It also indicates how alienating it can be to work for social and environmental justice. For many people, it can be crazy-making and lonely to see that there are tangible causes of suffering, but at the same time to be surrounded by people who are committed to obliterating any such awareness from their - and our - consciousness." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">"An important roles of the community we create around us is to refuse to collude with our harmful internal patterns." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393997/f18a2269a51e58d8957adbcbbab66abb535c59ce/original/cartoon-002.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTM3NHgxMTc2Il0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1176" width="1374" /></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015412015-11-30T16:00:00-08:002015-12-01T07:59:59-08:00Evil Exists<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"... people believe that you're some kind of basic religious nut if you believe in the devil." - Kate Bagby, mother of murdered son and grandson featured in the documentary <em>Dear Zachary</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015402015-11-19T16:00:00-08:002015-11-20T00:38:54-08:00Too Sensitive<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The other day, a colleague told me I was "too sensitive." I've been told this many times in my life and I used to internalize it and think that something was wrong with me. After all, being "too" anything means that you have too much of that thing, right? Usually, when someone says that you are "too sensitive", they are discounting what you are saying, how you are feeling or what you are thinking. And then, you start to discount yourself as well because they said that. Well, now I've come to honor my empathetic abilities and see them as a strength rather than a weakness. After all, my sensitivity is what allows me to be compassionate towards others and meet them at their pain and walk with them in their pain and through their pain. My sensitivity is what allows me to write songs that reach people on a deeper level and songs that translate pain that not only I feel but what others may be feeling as well. My sensitivity is what drives me to try to understand other people rather than just dismiss them with judgments. My sensitivity is what drives me to advocate for those that are less fortunate or cannot speak for themselves. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I believe that God doesn't make mistakes. I was born sensitive and I was born this way for a reason. So, if you are also someone who has been labeled as "too sensitive", see it a strength and see it as a good thing no matter what anyone else says. There have been so many great sensitive people throughout history that stand as wonderful examples of how to use your sensitivity for a higher purpose. Some examples of my sensitive heroes include Oprah, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Kurt Cobain, Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, Marsha Linehan, Wayne Dyer, Jon Conte, Rumi, Brian Weiss, Langston Hughes, Gary Zukav, Eckhart Tolle, Princess Diana, Arianna Huffington, Maya Angelou, and many more. So, if you too are someone who has been called "too sensitive", know that you stand in good company.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Back in 2003, I wrote a poem called:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">One of the Last Great Sensitives</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"> know that I am </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">one of the last great sensitives</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">for the world is warping us </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">into one of their own</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">telling us we're too sensitive </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">telling us to toughen up</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">touching us in our soft spots</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">sneaking cold into our hearts</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">and thick under our skin</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">and hardness into our souls</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Don't let it work on you</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">and I won't let it work on me</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">for we're much too loving to lose what we believe</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">They can turn the tide whichever way they want</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">but if I'm to be swallowed, I am to be swallowed whole</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">not broken down piece by piece</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">by that pushy sales lady posing as a concerned caregiver</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">by that sea of angry mobsters posing as day care workers</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">by the exclusive, by the bullies, by the gossipers, by the mindless, by the selfish, by the lazy, by the unethical, by the corrupt, by the materialistic, by the chauvinistic, by the powers that be</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">They may all band together against me but</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I will not sway, I will remain</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">one of the last great sensitives</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"> </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015392015-11-07T16:00:00-08:002015-11-08T05:12:15-08:00For the Hearing Impaired and Those Who Love Them<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Hearing impaired individuals such as myself can choose to advocate for themselves, seek assistance from their loved ones and from doctors at times in order to navigate through a world where those with normal hearing often are not sensitive to or compassionate towards them. Like with any disability or impairment, doing something as simple as requesting accommodations at your job, such as asking for a quiet place to work, can bring a lot of resentment and bullying from co-workers who may feel that you are receiving special treatment. If you have an inexperienced or unsupportive boss, supervisor or lead worker, the problem becomes magnified especially if they want to please those who are complaining. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I was trying to find a quiet restaurant to go to with my husband on a date night yesterday evening. While he wanted to go to The Ram, I declined going there because I find it too loud and then we wouldn't be able to have much conversation. So we decided to check out a new restaurant by our home. The cement floors must have added to the acoustics of the place because it was so loud, I wanted to leave as soon as I walked into the place. I decided to give it a chance and sat down in a booth with my only hearing ear out to the waitress. At one point, it sounded like a lawnmower was coming through the place. After a few minutes of trying to deal with that sound, I decided I had had enough. So we left and went to Duke's Chowder House which has a nice quiet ambience. Though it is a little pricier, I was willing to pay the extra money to be able to dine out and have a conversation with my husband. Sure, we had a really loud woman sitting at the table next to us, but overall, the experience was pleasant. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Though I have some really good hearing aids, most people don't understand that wearing hearing aids isn't like wearing glasses for those with visual impairments. You can't all of a sudden hear well, especially in a loud, noisy environment. I have worked with co-workers who have mocked me by becoming louder after I have asked them to quiet down. They probably feel that they shouldn't have to change who they naturally are. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">My husband gets tired of having to repeat himself and may accuse me of not listening to him but on the whole, he is pretty good at hearing and speaking for me when we are out in public in noisy places. Given my hearing loss, those with high-pitched voices, those with soft voices, those who mumble, and those with accents are extremely difficult to hear. If there is a meeting going on, I am not capable of having a side conversation at the same time. If I am on the phone with someone, I am not capable of hearing anything someone else who is trying to tell me even if they are standing right by me. I've gotten accused of ignoring people, of being stuck up and of many other things because of my hearing impairment. I bump into people more often and get startled more often because I can't always hear people approaching me. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">When I first lost my hearing, it was one of the worst experiences in my life. Being someone who listened to people for a living and whose passion is listening to and making music, losing my hearing was depressing to say the least. While I have decided in my soul to continue to persevere and explore my own resiliency in order to inspire others and get on with living, I have found that the lack of compassion from those with normal hearing has been the biggest stressor in all of this. For this reason, I am recommending that those who wish to have more compassion for the hearing impaired read the excellent article below that explains while those with hearing impairments struggle in noisy environments. I know that for me, it is like swimming against a riptide:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q3/study-hearing-impaired-ears-hear-differently-in-noisy-environments.html" data-imported="1">http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q3/study-hearing-impaired-ears-hear-differently-in-noisy-environments.html</a></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015382015-11-04T16:00:00-08:002015-11-05T12:44:38-08:00The Dream Keeper<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Bring me all of your dreams,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">You dreamers,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Bring me all of your</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Heart melodies</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">That I may wrap them</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">In a blue cloud-cloth</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Away from the too-rough fingers</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Of the world.</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015372015-10-30T17:00:00-07:002015-10-31T05:40:02-07:00The Best Shepherd<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"It is also my opinion that even though we have a free will, God can sovereignly intervene and block some wrong choices. I know that His "messing around with my plans" prevented me from accidents, wrong relationships, and hidden traps. And there are undoubtedly a multitude of things in the unseen world that never occurred because Jesus is the best Shepherd." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Mickey Robinson, author of <em>Falling Into Heaven</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015362015-10-27T17:00:00-07:002015-10-28T15:18:40-07:00Counterintuitive Thankfulness<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"I am training you to thank Me not only for obvious blessings but also for situations you would never have chosen - a wayward child or spouse; loss of health, home, or employment. This is counterintuitive thankfulness, and it is possible only to the extent that you trust Me at a deep level. It is also a matter of self-discipline; willing yourself to thank Me even when your circumstances are screaming at you to find a way out. Though it is wise to look for ways to improve your situation, you cannot force My hand - or My timing. Just keep coming into My Presence with thanksgiving. Your persistent thankfulness may actually provide the long-awaited key I will use to unlock major difficulties in your life. Giving thanks to Me can open doors in ways that transcend your understanding."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Sarah Young, author of <em>Jesus Today</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015352015-10-16T17:00:00-07:002015-10-16T23:44:05-07:00Stung by Jesus<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Want to share the story of an atheist who encountered Jesus during a near-death experience after he was stung by 5 jellyfish while scuba diving:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.near-death.com/experiences/notable/ian-mccormack.html" data-imported="1">http://www.near-death.com/experiences/notable/ian-mccormack.html</a></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015342015-10-09T17:00:00-07:002015-10-10T04:13:14-07:00Hiding in the Light<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Sharing excerpts from an excellent book I just got done reading: Hiding in the Light by Rifqa Bary</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">So much for the "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy. There's something about a prison jumpsuit that equalizes the playing field and passes sentence without saying a word. But like before I was intent on my public face being as bright and unaffected as I could make it. So as I approached the group, I smiled at one of the guards and chirped, "Good morning!" "Humph!" he snorted, mocking me. "You look so happy to be in jail. <em>Bless your heart</em>," he smarted off sarcastically whle attaching heavy chains to my hands, waist, and feet..." ... I kept telling myself, <em>What an honor, Rifqa, to be suffering for Christ, walking in the footsteps of your Lord</em>." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I actually had two types of cancer. One of them (rhabdomyosarcoma) was commonly found in young children, while the other (adenocarcinoma) was generally seen only in menopausal women. I was neither, of course. And yet I had both. Taken together, they gave me one of the worse and weirdest forms of uterine cancer anybody had ever seen.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">In the basement of this kind woman's house on a rainy night in Ohio, looking for the first time at my brown bald head, I made a deal with God. "You know, Lord, the Bible says a woman's hair is her glory. Well, I am laying down my glory tonight, all my strength and my beauty, for Yours." I paused in my thoughts as the weight of this truth consumed me. "And when it grows back," I said to myself in utter, undeniable faith, "will You let it be more beautiful than it was before?"</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">...my oncologist, of course, who looked me straight in the eye, trying to convince me with his solemn countenance. "Rifqa, dear, do you realize what you're doing? You are going to die if you go through with this." I wouldn't be moved. I'd decided. I was dying anyway. What the cancer wasn't doing, the chemo was. The path I needed to walk had become - I don't know how to describe it exactly - very clear to me. And chemotherapy wasn't part of it. ... I knew in my spirit that God was calling me to do this, and I decided I would rather die in obedience to Him than live in disobedience and possibly survive the treatment. ... my life was not my own anymore...</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Through my own experience, I have gained a passion for justice that has not left me. Ultimately, I know it is God who executes true justice. There is no judicial system that can restore to me everything I have lost; it is God who avenges.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Not everyone's story can be laid over everyone else's and used as a grid or template for determining how a person is supposed to react.</span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015332015-10-09T17:00:00-07:002015-10-10T00:40:13-07:00All Songs Considered<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Check out this great podcast I've discovered:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/10/02/445007469/all-songs-1-mark-ronson-on-making-something-old-new-again" data-imported="1">http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/10/02/445007469/all-songs-1-mark-ronson-on-making-something-old-new-again</a></span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015322015-10-03T17:00:00-07:002015-10-04T13:10:43-07:00The Honor of Being a Scapegoat<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Whenever there is hardship in life, one of the best ways Christians deal with it is by finding honor in the hardship and by taking up our crosses proudly like Jesus did. After all, Christians always try to emulate Jesus as much as they can. For example, when part of my rib was removed after cancer was found in my abdomen, one of the things that got me through the whole cancer experience was wearing my new scar and deformity as a badge of honor. After all, wasn't Jesus speared in the ribs when he was still on the cross? Did he not bear a similar wound? The rib is also mentioned in other parts of the bible such as in Genesis when God takes a rib from Adam to make Eve. Perhaps removing my rib was creating something wonderful and powerful in my life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The situation that I am currently trying to transmute is the whole experience of witnessing the scapegoating of others as well as being scapegoated myself. I find great peace in the book of Leviticus where the bible speaks of the scapegoat needing to be innocent in order to atone for the sins of the people that are sacrificing it. I realize that this annual ritual on the day of atonement ended, for Christians, when Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. But there were 2 scapegoats in Jewish tradition, one that was sacrificed and perished and one living scapegoat that was shunned from the community and took away the impurities and sins of the people to the wilderness. The high priest would place his hands on the heads of the goats and symbolically transfer the sins of the people onto the goats. Together the goat sacrificed and the living scapegoat showed that the goats were substituted for the people and that they bore the penalty of sin.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">While I do believe that Jesus was both the sacrificed scapegoat and the shunned scapegoat whose spirit lives on, I believe that Christians too and anyone for that matter can be a scapegoat as Jesus was. So if you have been shunned, excommunicated, or scapegoated in anyway, think of it as a honor as you are following the footsteps of Jesus, and performing a great service to your community by expunging its sins. </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015312015-09-28T17:00:00-07:002015-09-29T15:41:19-07:00In the Midst of Wolves<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Matthew 10:16 NKJV</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015302015-08-25T17:00:00-07:002015-08-26T12:21:57-07:00A Friend Who Cares<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not caring, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Henri J. M. Nouwen, <em>The Road to Daybreak</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015292015-08-12T17:00:00-07:002015-08-12T21:26:56-07:00On True Stewardship<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">- From <em>The Parable of the Unrighteous Steward</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015282015-07-22T17:00:00-07:002015-07-23T15:06:25-07:00We are all One<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Soon I began to see and feel Jesus and he was smiling. I felt the most intense love coming from him and at the same time emanating from my heart. That love was just like the love I had felt in the presence of Sai Baba and Anandamayi Ma. But it was now within me in the form of Jesus. I kept trying to quiet the thoughts but suddenly my conscious mind popped out and shouted, "Jesus?" "What are you doing here? I'm Jewish and looking for my Indian guru. How did Jesus get here?"</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Then I heard him gently reply that he was Jewish also, that in fact he was every religion and no religion. He had many amazing teachings for me. One of them was that "God does not want us to be divided in His name. God wants us to be united in His name. We are all One."</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The above is an excerpt from <em>Longing For Belonging: Pilgrimage of Transformation</em> by Diane Zimberoff</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015272015-07-22T17:00:00-07:002015-07-22T23:17:51-07:00Victory of the People<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"... the victory of a single soul over any darkness lights the path for all who follow." - Guy Finley</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015262015-07-13T17:00:00-07:002015-07-14T16:32:23-07:00Growing Into a Love That Lasts<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Here is a simple set of instructions for those who want their love to last:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><em>Don't try to please each other, for each of you has constantly changing pleasures. </em> Instead strive to please love... and in this you will please what is capable of being loved in one another. This understanding alone nourishes your love, and in turn love will nourish your life together.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><em>Teach and help each other to be independent. </em> Wrongful dependency on one another breeds fear and cruelty. Instead, learn to depend on love, for love breeds love ... and real love is always independent and kind.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"><em>Don't try to change each other, either subtly or openly.</em> This creates resentment. Instead, let the other find his or her way. This doesn't mean to condone whatever is seen as being wrong or obviously mistaken. It simply means don't condemn one another for a weakness, as love never lashes out but always strives to lift.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The above is an excerpt from: <em>The Secret of Your Immortal Self: Key Lessons for Realizing the Divinity Within</em> by Guy Finley</span></strong></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015252015-07-03T17:00:00-07:002015-07-04T07:02:29-07:00Mental illness<p>When we dismiss those with mental illness as simply "crazy", we miss an opportunity to develop our compassion, understanding of the problem and ability to correct the problem.</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015242015-06-05T17:00:00-07:002015-06-07T02:51:37-07:00Endorsement of Tolerance<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Just want to put it out there that I support Caitlyn Jenner and feel that she's being an excellent role model not only for her children but for all the children of the world, especially transgender youth who are no doubt hating themselves or living in fear at this time in history. As I am following the online stories about Caitlyn Jenner, I am saddened to read all the hateful comments in response to her willingness to be a trailblazer and brave public figure in order to bring the issues of tolerance and self-acceptance to world's attention. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I am a Christian but I am not any brand of Christian that spews hate. Jesus loved everyone and I will attempt to do the same. Regardless of my own spiritual beliefs, I am evolved enough to know that you cannot and should not expect everyone else to share your same beliefs and values. Otherwise, there would be no diversity in the world.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I do hope that part of Caitlyn's journey will be to over come the victim mentality that she has regarding her ex-wife, Kris Jenner. I think Kris, more than anyone, has every right to be angry as she's grieving and questioning everything about their relationship, wondering what was real. Anger is a natural part of grief. Who wouldn't be angry and confused in such a situation? I don't feel people should be attacking Kris for being intolerant, including Caitlyn. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">When you are married to someone who is living a lie, you are married to a miserable person who is likely projecting their anger onto you, especially if you are someone who gets to be the gender they want to be. You also become part of their lie unknowingly which isn't fair. Things obviously weren't completely communicated honestly in their marriage. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, as you are struggling to accept yourself and know who you truly are inside, you can only communicate to your partner that which you are completely conscious of yourself. We get so good at denying and repressing parts of ourselves out of fear of what our families and society will think or say. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I can understand the concern that Caitlyn Jennner's children have about how much hate will be heaped upon her from the world. I realize that most of these hateful remarks and comments that I read are due to people being afraid and confused. Hopefully, our society won't see the violence that we saw during the civil rights movement when fear and hate threatened desegregation. Of course, we must admit that we are still working on equal rights for all. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Intolerance can be insidious but it appears to be more directly vicious at this time with Caitlyn Jenner coming out. As I see more and more people follow their hate and justify their judgments upon others, I hope I can be like Caitlyn and dare to be different. I hope I can choose love at every turn on this winding road towards tolerance of others and self-acceptance. </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015232015-05-30T17:00:00-07:002015-05-31T15:29:38-07:00Compassion<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Pema Chodron</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015222015-05-28T17:00:00-07:002015-05-29T11:19:24-07:00Courage<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">- Mary Anne Radmacher</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015212015-05-11T17:00:00-07:002015-05-12T15:08:09-07:00Letting Go of the Negative<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I challenge you today to let every NEGATIVE thing go in your life and do not pick it back up! Throw it away! Discard it! Flush it! Bury it! It is DEAD WEIGHT! Throw it overboard and allow it to sink to the pits of hell. It is your time and purpose to be free and delivered from bondage! If things and people are holding you back, release them!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Remember, you cannot go up higher, if you are hanging on to dead anchor weight! Just LET IT GO!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Dawgelene Sangster, author <em>Behold You: Change From Within</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015202015-05-11T17:00:00-07:002015-05-12T15:04:04-07:00Healing Power<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">When you link, in love, to the light that is everywhere - healing must follow.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">- Jack Angelo, author of <em>Your Healing Power</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015192015-04-27T17:00:00-07:002015-04-28T08:58:44-07:00Two Wolves<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Ours is a world that two wolves try to devour - the first is the wolf of skeptical science and religious fundamentalism (they are the same one). The second is the wolf of our cosmic connection, synchronicity, astral realms, and manifestation by intention. The wolf that dominates our life is the wolf we feed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">- Mark Ireland, author of <em>Soul Shift</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015182015-03-12T17:00:00-07:002015-03-14T00:58:07-07:00New Light<p> <span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">"The light does not push out the darkness - the light penetrates the darkness, infusing it with brightness. Growing means bringing your fears inside of you, seeing the beliefs that make them seem so potent, and then infusing them with new light and understanding." - Mira Kelley, author of <em>Beyond Past Lives</em></span></p>
<p> </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015172015-02-27T16:00:00-08:002015-02-27T23:27:28-08:00I Remember Your Heart<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I can't remember your name</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Might not recognize your face</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Bits of your story have fallen away</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">as beautifully as snow flakes</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The details don't stick</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">in this ancient mind of mine</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">but when I look in your eyes, I feel the spark</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">For it's then that I remember your heart</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">And a flood of memories enters in</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">to nourish the barren fields I'm left with</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">and suddenly I'm swimming in a sea of love</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">where I can recall what's most precious</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Your beauty as simple as a Rumi poem</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Your story as timeless as a gemstone</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Your heart as gentle as the fallen snow</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Still pure despite the bitter cold</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">You will always mean something to me</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Though circumstance pulled us apart</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">And as I remember less and less, dear</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Please know that I'll always remember your heart</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015162015-02-24T16:00:00-08:002015-02-25T13:52:18-08:00The Christian Mystery<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"></span>"The Christian mystery involves knowing that we are saved by grace and yet living as if our entry to heaven depended on our service to others." - Laura Beth Jones, author of <em>Jesus in Blue Jeans</em></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015152015-02-12T16:00:00-08:002015-02-12T21:05:31-08:00Quote of the Day<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">The quote that is inspiring today is: "Follow me now. Let those who are spiritually dead care for their own dead." - Mathew 8:21-22</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Great quote when you are needing to let go and start a covenant with the present.</span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015142014-09-30T17:00:00-07:002014-10-01T11:57:56-07:00Halloween Greetings!<div class="irc_mutc"><a class="irc_mutl" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=wxJVkjcmK02L6M&tbnid=FCDbMQBHmT5XaM:&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.orkutwala.com%2Fhalloween-glitter-scraps-1.html&ei=rrAsVICQJYq6igL3nYAw&bvm=bv.76802529,d.cGE&psig=AFQjCNHwh0o62A9c5Bq-5ytWDzsieTiR9Q&ust=1412300215290712" data-ved="0CAcQjRw" data-imported="1"><img src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQrPJfjJ2yZJXLJQ7KSTL2E4Z9iPI0Ba3GuyIpZpFG1DU7A4qsx" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="255" style="margin-top: 189px;" width="450" /></a></div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015132014-09-30T17:00:00-07:002014-10-01T11:54:16-07:00Cool Halloween Pic<div class="irc_mutc"><a class="irc_mutl" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=hQConNHWGPflvM&tbnid=2Vkac92A2jfFnM:&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhalloweenbackground.blogspot.com%2F&ei=8q8sVLiPEeq1iwLHtoCICw&bvm=bv.76802529,d.cGE&psig=AFQjCNHwh0o62A9c5Bq-5ytWDzsieTiR9Q&ust=1412300215290712" data-ved="0CAcQjRw" data-imported="1"><img src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdNhyqYgJHGSsJT5L49LWqRTVVcI0vqWNgR5L0BRkkYm0Dqd2K" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="495" style="margin-top: 69px;" width="495" /></a></div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015122014-09-30T17:00:00-07:002014-10-01T11:51:57-07:00Trick or Treat<center>
<a href="http://www.JellyMuffin.com/images/holidays/halloween/" data-imported="1"><img src="http://images.jellymuffin.com/images/holidays/halloween/images/11.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="JellyMuffin.com graphics & Images" /></a><br><a href="http://www.jellymuffin.com" target="_blank" data-imported="1">www.jellyMuffin.com</a>
</center>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015112014-09-18T17:00:00-07:002014-09-19T15:31:04-07:00Repentance<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">"...when we repent, anything that we have done that was wrong or sinful in nature and was recorded in the books is erased for all eternity. No one can find the record, not even God."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">- Richard Sigmund, author of <em>My</em> <em>Time</em> <em>in</em> <em>Heaven</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015102014-08-15T17:00:00-07:002014-08-16T07:22:11-07:00For Survivors of Suicide<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">In the Darkest Hour</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">When the skies are blue, but there's darkness all about</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Just think of me as your light,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Just ask for help and I will be there,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Because I am the guardian of your light.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Through your eyes you will see me</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">As I am your angel in the darkest night.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">As I watch over you when you sleep,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I will protect you as you sleep,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I will let no harm come unto you.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">When times are hard and tears will flow,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I will wrap my wings around you and let my love flow.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">So don't give up, my beautiful one,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">As we are not to meet just yet.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">There will be a time when we will unite,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">But until then, I will see that only</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">Joy and love will surround you.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;"></span> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">- Sue Nicholson, author of <em>A Call from the Other Side</em></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015092013-11-06T16:00:00-08:002013-11-07T09:13:57-08:00For All You Aliens<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower', sans-serif;">I have always felt like an alien in this world trying to appear normal while feeling strange inside. I also feel like a hypersensitive person trying to fit in by becoming cold and hard inside. I wrote this song, <em>Cold World</em>, based on a dream I had where I was wandering through a dwelling in a tree's stump in the dark. In one rooms of the dwelling, a couple were having sex. In another room, someone was shooting up and at one point a black cat stood in my path. Anyway, based on this dream, I wrote the lyrics and the music to this song on my piano immediately upon awakening. This song was never mixed properly for reasons stated in my last blog. Even though it is incomplete, I think you can still hear the haunting beauty of the song. Click on this link to listen: <a href="/files/434548/cold-world-w-back-vox.mp3" data-imported="1">Cold_World_w_back_vox.mp3</a></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015082013-09-09T17:00:00-07:002013-09-10T16:48:00-07:00Happy Halloween!<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><a href="http://youtu.be/maUH91X9_bI" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://youtu.be/maUH91X9_bI</span></span></a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015072013-05-17T17:00:00-07:002013-05-18T00:49:22-07:00Becoming Love<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;">Welcome the release of my second book "Becoming Love" about recovery from love addiction. It will be available at the following: Apple iBookstore (for ipad), Amazon (for Kindle), Barnes & Noble (for NOOK), Reader Store (for Sony Reader), Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, eBookPie, eSentral, and Scribd. </span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015062013-03-25T17:00:00-07:002013-03-26T12:51:00-07:00New Music Video<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Check out my music video for All the Lights of Heaven at </span></span><a href="http://youtu.be/T-Ebvm_j7xo" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://youtu.be/T-Ebvm_j7xo</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015052013-03-18T17:00:00-07:002013-03-23T07:55:07-07:00Music Video Project<p><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just finished editing my first music video. I know I went crazy on the effects but it's my first attempt so gimme a break already! Here's the youtube link if you'd like to check it out: </span></span><a href="http://youtu.be/bcqPSotorGk" target="_blank" data-imported="1"><span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower',sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">http://youtu.be/bcqPSotorGk</span></span></a></p>
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</div>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015042012-06-01T17:00:00-07:002012-06-02T06:47:13-07:00First Short Updated<p>Had to make a few edits to my first short film. It is set to public now so all can view. Here's the new link: <a href="http://youtu.be/XFnGsnL7L_A" data-imported="1">http://youtu.be/XFnGsnL7L_A</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015032012-05-28T17:00:00-07:002012-05-29T08:39:47-07:00My First Short Film<p>I just completed my first short silent film on 8 mm. I am taking a class at Seattle Film Institute: Fundamentals of Filmmaking. I'm so glad that there is a film industry starting up in Seattle. My movie is a comedy inspired by the movie What About Bob and it stars my brother and my husband. The film can be viewed at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMWYn_p8Z8g&feature=youtu.be" data-imported="1">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMWYn_p8Z8g&feature=youtu.be</a></p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015022012-03-17T17:00:00-07:002012-03-18T01:16:24-07:00Pray for Me<p>I believe in the power of prayer. I already lost my left ear in 2010 to Meniere's Disease. Now, the hearing in my right ear is going. I am asking anyone out there reading this to pray for me, that my hearing is restored that I may continue to make music. My birthday is tomorrow and the best birthday gift I could ever imagine would be for my hearing to be healed. So please pray for me. Thank you for your support. Love always, Nicole-Marie</p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015012011-11-06T16:00:00-08:002011-11-07T12:53:07-08:00Check Out My New Singles<p>Yeahzers! My three new singles are finally finished! Strobe is the only dance song I have produced thus far. A Song for Peace sounds like an anti-war song but it is actually a call to songwriters to write more peaceful songs inspired by the rapper Eminem. I Smile is an upbeat and uplifting song dedicated to those you want to see again. The songs were recorded at Blissman Studios in Federal Way, Washington and feature Frank Seeberger, the best guitarrist in Seattle, on the electric guitar. Chris Crumpler is a killer drummer who played on all three songs and really slayed it on Strobe. Wayne Bliss played bass and did the mixing. I wrote and arranged the songs, played keyboard, acoustic guitar and did the vocals. The songs will only be sold digitally at this time through various digital outlets such as Amazon and itunes. </p>nicolemariemusic.comtag:nicolemariemusic.com,2005:Post/62015002011-08-17T17:00:00-07:002011-08-18T11:51:29-07:00New Releases<p>Howdy! I have three new singles with the projected release date of 9/3/11. Keep an ear out for my three new songs: I Smile, Strobe and A Song for Peace!</p>nicolemariemusic.com