Freedom to rise beyond limitations 1 - Never say the word can’t!

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What do you do in life when you toil and seek approval through success and meet rejection and failure in its stead? What do you do when the walls which hem you in seem insurmountably tall and everywhere you look around seems pitch dark and bleak? She was rejected at birth like an incompatible tissue graft by her biological parents and she had no legs. She was blessed beyond compare to be adopted by parents who loved her, brought her up like a child without handicap and taught her never to say can’t, not just by the pronouncements of her lips but by the dedication of her drive. She will force you to rethink the definition of handicap and lend additional credence and evidence to the fact that some of the most handicap people walk around in perfect bodies, while some of the least handicap people may have no limbs, but have super mental fortitude with impregnable and laser focused determination to transform tall walls of limitation into pearl gates of miraculous opportunity. Jennifer Bricker makes trail blazing opportunity where excuses to fail hang from every side and mocks the obstacles of life with infectious positivity. What is your excuse today? She is in every sense a champion in her own right like Oprah Winfrey and a host of others. 

There is a French expression which says "les chiens aboient, la caravane passe" literally meaning "The dogs bark, but the caravan goes by". It is full of symbolic truth... Let the dogs keep barking, let the obstacles keep trying to stop you, let the naysayers keep busy, let people say what they will... you  have only one business, one focus, one concern, let the largely symbolic caravan go on. 

Let this 4 minute video inspire you like it inspired me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES5_B-1Golw

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom to fight for love – Man to Man

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Hello, hello, hello, may I speak to Ntonwi please… This is Ntiante and you may or may not know me but I was sorting through my woman’s clothes yesterday for laundry and I saw your name and number on the beautiful love note from you to her…  You know every time people ask me why I grow these sinewy muscles, big broad chest and strong hands; every time they ask me why I stretch my brain and nourish it and grow its power and mental muscles; every time they ask me why I grow my spiritual clout and muscles; every time they ask me why I grow a muscular bank account… I usually greet these questions with penetrating profound silence, but now let me break that silence and give you the answer – it is for people like you. I am sure that by now you know where I am coming from… You should also be guessing by now and rightly so that I am not going to throw my woman to your trash can… I love this woman to the point that I will leverage my muscles, all my muscles to fight for her, to protect her, to secure her and her heart… one thing you may not know is the price I have paid to accompany her to this place in life… some day if you force me I will show you the scars of the battles I have fought along the way… someday if you push me to I will show you the stars which showed us the way through the nights of countless storms… next time you see me take a good look at my calloused knees from countless hours of prayer through treacherous routes...  some day if you invite me, I will teach you how to protect a woman like this but you may not have a voice to tell the tale later because I will take it… and after I do if you do not leave her alone you will be like the countless worms that eat from the dust of the earth… It really doesn’t matter what you think or feel… I just wanted to remind you that the woman you see in your dreams belongs to me… I will fight for everything she is from the soles of her feet to the hairs on her head… I will fight for her heart… I am having this discussion only once… So man to man… man to man… I just wanted to be sure you understand how much I love this woman and what lengths I am ready to go to keep her… maybe if you step into my shoes… you will know how I feel… and maybe you will understand that in my shoes you will do the same … So man to man… I hope you understand that I don’t want your trouble and that I will not let any man or anybody break up my home and its peace… Go figure how to leave her alone. Now let me go take a coffee and find my voice!

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© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom does not mean you are free to be dumb!

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Freedom,
No it does not mean you are free to be dumb,
Yes and you do not have to be or remain numb,
It means a chance to lift yourself beyond the labeling fog of teenage mom,
It means you are free to dare and rise from the discouraging slum,
A chance to weather the numerous storms of life and some,
You do not have to continue feeding from the falling table crumb,

Come,
Freedom means you get a chance to rise from every mistake to be a better you,
So let the fear of errors never paralyze you,
Freedom means to learn and grow towards the best person you could ever be.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom from the Fear of Fear

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Whether you are several awards holding Derek Sanderson Jeter who is running his final lap in American Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees and whose sterling career has him leaving as a five-time World Series champion and the Yankees' all-time career leader in games played, hits, stolen bases, and bats or you are part of the Indian Space Research Organization's(ISRO’s ) historic Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM); groundbreaking revolutionary ventures and lives involve risk and fear, both of which are overcome because of a cause and purpose and drive and end grander than the two(i.e risk and fear).  Ambrose Redmoon captures this timeless truth beautifully: "Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all." 

The very reason why the quest for fearlessness might be foolish is that fear in a way is essential for growing and living. There is a kind of fearlessness thrust onto people sometimes involuntarily which causes them to jump from tall buildings, take their own lives from nooses, and lie on rail tracks with oncoming trains; a fearlessness which many times shares a boundary with a rabid tiresome fearfulness. That boundary may symbolize the point where the individual becomes tired of being fearful and takes the plunging leap into a blinding fearlessness loaded with potential to stifle growth and steal lives. Fear is a part of our living and it is fear which triggers that extra speed you never knew existed when you are being chased by a stray hungry lioness; it is the fear of not meeting a deadline which unleashes that never before known genius just in time to save the day; it is the fear of mediocrity and not living up to ones fullest potential which is the shot in the arm, nudging you to go the extra mile, think an extra thought and stay an extra hour so that you can begin to scratch the surface of the fully blooming you. I am not referring here to the kind of paranoid fear of fear or just plain fear which paralyzes action, suffocates loving trust, courts inactivity and triggers that kind of caution which has condemned many to lives never really lived. 

To walk a path never before walked, to grope in space never before explored, to venture into areas never before embraced, to engage the kind of revolutionary change which leaves a mark and advances the world for ever, a fright might ricochet down your spine as you take the necessary risks and first steps of that daunting path, but you need to realize there is something at stake way more important than that fear itself. Through an informed realization you must give yourself permission to be free from the fear of fear, to realize that great feats were not achieved in the absence of fear but through an overcoming of fear rooted in a cause bigger than ourselves. We must learn to embrace and tap into our fears and channel them towards a never ending better which fully celebrates the best we can be. Become a rising star!

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom to be yourself… Kim Kardashian butt - a medical request!

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It is indeed true that the utopic and perfect definition of freedom, the kind of freedom which allows one to do as one pleases, anywhere one pleases, anyhow one pleases and in complete disregard of anything or anyone else is a far cry from reality, a pipe dream, a delusion, an illusion as real as wishing to live forever. Even in the freest of societies or spaces inhabited and co-inhabited by mankind, the basic expectation is that our freedoms hinge on a moral and human onus and lore predicated on the fact that in exercising our freedoms we cannot deny others the right to the same. In a weird sense any restriction to freedom is a contradiction to the inherent purity of a free concept itself. Nonetheless as practically as possible we can to a certain extent be free.

Today we live in a world so full of noise and voices clamoring for influence and attention, voices beckoning us to be like Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Sankara, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy; cultural voices pulling us to hip hop and towards the fitness of Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, pushing us to seek the handsomeness of Denzel Washington, the beauty of Marilyn Monroe, the sophistication of Angelina Jolie, the cool suaveness of George Clooney,  the fame of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Bob Marley, the idiosyncrasies of lady Gaga, the swag of Jay Z, Beyonce, Lil Wayne and Rihanna; the grace of mother Theresa, the piety of the pope, the feminism of Emma Watson, the riches of Bill Gates, the genius of Einstein, the poetic prowess of Maya Angelou, the love of Christ, the vanity of extremists; voices insisting that we should be this or that; voices entreating us not to indulge in that or that; religious voices dragging from many directions; tribal voices screaming for a place under the sun; voices shaping societal mores and the expectation that one must be a certain size and shape, that one must be a certain figure eight, shaped like a guitar, that one must transform their abdominal folds into six and four and eight and one packs or chocolate bars; voices which encourage us to get into this or that job because of its financial remuneration; voices rejecting us; voices accepting us; voices which demand marriage of us at all cost; voices commanding us to all be firsts, voices which demand of us to get into this or that profession; voices which have bullied and cowered what and who most people are into a place and space of perpetual hibernation and a constant quest for something conforming, accepted, boring, and suffocating, something totally alien to who they really are.  Today we live in a world where people can show up at the hospital/clinic and request a Kim Kardashian butt, Jenifer Lopez youth, Tina Turner legs and any anatomical manipulation conceivable, a reality which only some years back, in this same century was impossibility. As technological advancement expands the borders and boundaries of human possibility, without proper care it steals by the very same token something quintessential about the authenticity of humanity and it is increasingly demanding ceaseless doses of extraordinary courage to be our authentic selves. More than ever before mankind needs to find a way to quiet the noise enough to hear and heed that still small voice with the power to introduce and reintroduce us to our real selves.

Central to human freedom is a society which allows human beings to be themselves. There is a reason why the rainbow in the collective beauty of all its colors eclipses and dwarfs the individual beauty of the colors constituting the rainbow as stand alones. Will you find and tap the courage to be yourself, to pursue those dreams you were born to pursue, reach those heights you were born to reach, touch those lives you are here to touch, learn all those lessons you are here to learn through experiences both ugly and great and countless interactions with fellow man? Will you find the strength to keep growing and to be that person only you can be, to be the best you are and can possibly be, focused like a laser beam on maximizing your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses. You must never apologize for doing so. That is the one way by which our collective humanity is celebrated and advanced and God is glorified.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

I am pregnant

Oh yes I am pregnant,
A pregnant man can be repugnant,
But this is different yet not indifferent,
Pregnant with a thousand different ideas,
Ideas too critical for still births,
No, they must be born with care,

Arrrrrrrh the birth pangs almost kill me,
I am in labor with no midwives attending,
I need a thousand different birth canals,
Ink the size of ten thousand oceans,
To indelibly capture the burdens of my mind,
On the tablets of human hearts,'

I am very pregnant and until I birth these babies,
I shall have no rest, no peace!
The amnion is broken,
Only birthing labor will free me!

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

The Naked Truth And the Freedom To Pursue It

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Lord Tennyson says “…Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:

The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,

And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear...”

I still remember standing  before the lady Godiva clock in Broadgate, Coventry, UK, waiting for the clock to chime the full hour and usher in Lady Godiva on her hourly naked ride and  wondering what would have made a noble lady of great standing with an arguably very good heart parade the streets of Coventry naked on her horse. One of the many tales of Legend has it that her compassion for the people of Coventry was so enormously immense that Godiva despised the shame and contempt of doing so in order to convince her husband, Leofric, the 'grim' Earl of Mercer and Lord of Coventry to relieve his subjects of the crumbling heavy tax burden  imposed on them. Today in her honor, she comes out many times a day and rides naked on her horse… you can see her here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRZ5BZemk4M

As I stood there I couldn’t help wonder how the drama of lady Godiva which unfolds every hour as she comes out naked on her horse symbolizes in metaphoric power, a truth that is significantly more profoundly empowering when it is naked.  Just as with her nakedness she despised the shame and overcame the powerful tide of tax oppression which enshackled the people of her day, when one begins to unmask and undress any perceived and tailored and clothed and veiled truths one begins to know an encouraging power that only the naked truth can give. When the truth is nude, bare, with nothing on, stripped, unclothed, disrobed, unclad, undressed, uncovered,  undraped, exposed, stark naked, there is something unbelievably invigorating about it and there are few things more powerful. 

Backed by the naked unvarnished truth we can be launched into many places from solid ground. I believe that our Freedoms must be inextricably bound to this all too important freedom to pursue the naked truth and to know its charms, liberating strength, catapulting power and beauty; where ever it may be found.

It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said that “No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”  This kind of beauty is endearingly and powerfully enduring. How drawn are you to the naked truth?

 © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

More precious than my iphone 6

His names was Hughes,

Favorite subject of my muse,

Met him on a boat cruise,

He was one of the many crews,

His father and mother were Jews,

Through his service I made him pay his dues,

All the way from Havana to Santa Cruz,

From then on we went everywhere in twos,

Like the inseparable gander and the goose,

We would go running and get wet in the morning dews,

It was hard to tell who’s whose,

We navigated our way through many religious don’ts and doos,

Caught in an affectionate loving which let love ooze,

Before you feel like you want to be in my shoes,

Let me tell you that after a while it was all a ruse,

Out of nowhere the love structure lost many screws,

Will all its falling parts desperately in need of glues,

With the folly of many ewes,

I refused to listen to the warning views,

I refused to heed the shouting clues,

I had waited for him in many queues,

As I queued I denied to take the cues,

While I waited I drowned in booze,

To check and reign in my anger fuse,

Encountered many a bruise,

Bruises which left me in many blues,

Certain the bruises will help me choose,

So I let the pain of knowing Hughes,

Give me many lessons and life-long choosing clues,

The news is that I am better and getting on another cruise,

The next adventure more precious to me than my iphone 6.

© September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Freedom, mental, physical or both?

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When one pauses to look at the greatness which has every once in a while been forged behind jail walls in the course of history, one is tempted to wonder if it is not indeed possible to be within the confines of tall walls with guards and be more free than those without the same. It is even more tempting to flirt with that question when one looks at the iconic Nelson Mandela who had the effrontery to turn down release from prison until certain conditions were met. He was keen to ensure that his core principles and the heart of the things he stood for, the very things which brought him to prison where not compromised. He was released on his own terms not just from a prison of physical walls but also from that jail of a heart which harbors hatred and bitterness. He himself captured it beautifully when he said: "As I walked out  the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind I'd still be in prison."  

Today as the scales of justice swing like a pendulum and the sword of punishment swings teasingly over the head of Oscar Pistorius, I am left wondering what kind of tumultuous emotional storms he has to weather, whether  he harbors any hatred and bitterness towards himself, whether he has or is capable of forgiving himself for his planned or unplanned(we may never know) atrocity even if the justice system acquitted him of every charge. If Oscar Pistorius ended up in a jail of physical walls, will the family of Reeva Steenkamp ever be able to purge themselves of the bitterness and hatred which naturally should ensue from circumstances so inexplicably painful? Is it possible that irrespective of Judge Thokozile Masipa's ruling,  in end some will remain trapped in the jail of a heart which harbors bitterness and hatred? What does it mean to be free? Is it a physical or mental thing or is it both? Is it possible to be physically bound and yet be free? Is it not possible to walk freely yet with every step walk with or towards an imprisoning entrapment of bitterness and hatred for self or others, rocked by mental and emotional agony of proportions so epic one would prefer to be trapped within the tall walls of a prison cell? What does it really mean to be Free?

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Laxative of Love!

Its worst toxic effects are in the heart that harbors them,
So with the laxative of love purge yourself of bitterness and hatred,
For the hate and bitterness you harbor,
Will make you irritatingly labor,
From a futile emotional exhaustion,
That drains you and leaves you thinking unclearly,
Potentially pulling the trigger of the loaded gun of self destruction,
Let love be my aim,
Let love be my method,
Let love be my end,
Help me God.

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Never been loved like that before!

Dear dear dear gone away Bradley,

You said and showed that you love me madly,

Giving me ample permission to love you gladly,

The joy I knew with you now visits me hardly,

The pitch dark vacuum of your absence comes to me sadly,

Today I remember all the tiny little things which made you mine,

The tsumanis of your love uprooted me for years numbered nine,

And launched me into orbits I have never been before to shine.

On many things with the spice of our love we would dine,

Cruel destiny dislocated the bonds which allowed our love intertwine,

Now I feel like I eternally lost my spine,

As I sit here over this glass of your favorite wine,

Getting ready to ride through your bus line,

To go for a walk in our favorite park by the grape vine,

There I‘ll be sure for a little while to whine,

And pray on my way back I’ll see a sign,

Pointing to and directing me to where you are,

For I have never been loved like that before!

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

My Freedom is tied to yours!

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My freedom is inextricably bound to yours. This is one of the theses which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., espoused in his “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963. It appears to be one of the things which many a great freedom fighter agree upon. Nelson Mandela also expressed it when he said: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Through and by a design which was orchestrated independent of our will and consent from the creation of time, we share this world and the earthly space we inhabit. Advancements in science and technology are increasingly facilitating our ability to move around and shrinking the distances which separate one end of the world from the other. We are now even daring into space and areas of the universe uninhabited by man.

When we look around today it is not hard to come to the undeniable conclusion that a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. It is not hard to see how a lack of freedom in parts of Ukraine engendered a recklessness which has consequences that have now stolen the lives of citizens spanning many countries around the world. It is easy to see how the seeds of extremism are spreading around the globe, from the Middle East to Africa and the Americas, threatening the ability of every single person in the world to live freely from the palace of kings and presidents to the poorest persons in the hamlets of the hinterlands, in church and out of church, in schools and you name it. It is hard to think of a place on earth where one can run to certain freedom. A lack of freedom like disease knows no boundaries and nobody except in folly can claim a disconnection from a threat to freedom anywhere in the world. We cannot turn a blind eye to it and must be concerned by it.

Central and core to the concept  and pursuit of Freedom and the ability to be free is therefore a security that in doing so we allow others and give them permission to do the same. While this may not be easy I think we all have a responsibility and need to go about living forward towards freedom with a consciousness that we are not robbing fellowman/woman in the process. In a weird way my freedom is inextricably tied to yours and yours to mine. Let us make a genuine effort to live it out in a manner which reflects this. Is this possible? Now that is the million dollar question.

©anhilaire

Freedom Thoughts

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I lay on my back, peering at the ceiling, trying to rest from a long day's labors when I suddenly wandered into a mental space where my mind settled and wondered, contemplating what it means to be free, what it has meant for me in the past, what it means for me now and what it will mean going forward. Even though some of the madness in the world today seems to have been with mankind for a long long time, the world is truly becoming stranger than fiction. The flip side is that it makes any semblance of sanity and normalcy look liberatingly miraculous and maybe can trigger a greater sense of gratitude for the things we take for granted,like just being alive - it is not a given, it really isn't. When freedom is introduced into the equation it becomes even more interesting and exciting as freedom in every sense and every meaning it conjures appears to be as vague as it is a rabidly strong desire. 

Being alive and free is even less of a given, it really is. Countless men have pursued freedom, whatever they perceived it to be and many have lost their lives in the process, paying the ultimate price, making the ultimate sacrifice. Out of a keen desire to be free myself I look forward to spending a lot of time on the topic of freedom with you, exploring it, dissecting it, looking at all its possible facets and hopefully inching closer towards knowing that holistic freedom which mostly eludes us, in the process. 

As eloquently captured in the picture above the plan is to either get free or die tryin! The eloquence of the art in the picture also tells us in unmistakable terms that it is not all pretty and smooth and flawless, that irresistibly attractive pursuit of Freedom. 

Once more welcome to CreedofFreed and let the ride begin.

© anhilaire

Do not be afraid to dream!

My dear child,

Do not be afraid to dream,

It is the loftiness of the apparently impossible,

That hitches to and revs the engine of untapped potential,

Powering it with an indefatigable hard work,

Towards the apparently unattainable,

Until the impossible and unattainable,

By passionate drive become possible attainable reality.

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

Screaming to be a woman!

Consistent through her glamorously public life,

Was a tricky and painful scream which no one heard,

One which rose from a place no human eyes could see,

One drowned by the caterwauls from within and everywhere around,

Inhuman calls to be this and this and this and that,

Calls to be a perfect woman, a perfect wife, a perfect sister, a perfect cousin,

A perfect niece, perfect employee, a perfect human being,

Superhuman extractions only fit for God,

Calls with an inviting diabolical stir,

All along she screamed screams drowned by all the noise of life,

Screams so dulled by the bedlam of life she couldn’t heed herself,

She wanted to just be a human being,

To be a woman,

The best one she could be,

She wanted permission to be foolish and unserious and silly sometimes,

Permission to be unwise and unrealistic and annoying sometimes,

Permission to be good but also to be bad and ugly sometimes,

Permission to be fallible and vulnerable and weak sometimes,

Permission to be naughty and broken and imperfect sometimes,

She was screaming for just one thing, one thing, just one thing,

To be a human being,

Not a goddess!

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary

A friend indeed!

His name is Fareed,

He is a friend indeed,

A friend in need,

One who is not shy to lead,

One not too proud to concede,

He’ll  bring the tourniquet/band aid when the heart does bleed,

One always ready to sow a hopeful seed,

He helped give our friendship a selfless creed,

One which allowed us to choke our instinctive greed,

When our friendship is as fragile as a feeble reed,

He’ll help probe the friendship area/aspect we need to feed,

And sometimes all it needs is an apparently trivial deed,

Like saying I’m sorry or going slower than the current speed,

Many times from my folly I have been freed,

Because he did run to me to plead,

To be sure I swallowed my pride and heed,

The call to rid my life’s garden of a certain weed!

Brussels © September 2014 afesehngwaHilary