Today is a most difficult day, for it is the day of the death of my former self, and the day for which I leave behind the past from me.  Everything gone now, I am left with only clothes, guitars, a computer, and myself.  The old Ryan is dying, and the real me is emerging at last.  I am saying goodbye to everything, just to embrace my reality.  It is the price of freedom, to take responsibility for ones self.

Always there is bloodshed and tears for real liberty.  Always there is loss. And this my former vain life is ending.  All the days, from this to that, I saw it coming.  And now it is here, finally here.  No one can stop what I must become, and no one can know it either.  So in this moment, the most severe moment of pain in my life, I wish to look to a different question.  I wish to again start walking the path of beauty, and the path of serenity.  I take this time to meditate on what I love, so that my darkness does not consume me.

And I dwell on beauty.  Beauty is a wondrous thing.  It is different to every set of eyes, and every beating heart.  We can calculate what is seen as beautiful, and we now know the mathematics behind the effect of beauty.  But is it really beauty to just see a thing?  Is it real beauty to sit and stare and desire something or someone?  If it is just a calculation, then where is the choice in that?

SO I meditate deeper beyond the physical world.  And I ask what is beautiful there?  I think of kids playing, a duck swimming, a pond rippling, a snowflake falling.  And still I am stuck in visuals.  Though these things affect my heart deeply.  So deeper we go into thought, and I find another place.  I find a beautiful place of wonder and joy.  It is the beauty we find in actions.  There sits a man with no hope, and another gives hope to him.  There sits a woman with no support, and there we find friends who help.  There sits an elder with no love, and we find a youth who visits him.  There sits a baby with no family, and we see a family welcome her to their home.  And this I marvel at for it is most beautiful.  To know that someone has taken their time to help another, clothe another, feed another, and to give shelter to another.

And then we go now even deeper.  And there is great darkness here.  Here I find the very lost and bewildered.  Here I find the drug addicts, the teenagers on the street prostituting them selves, the starving in another land, the homeless and helpless.  And I wonder what could be beautiful here?  But there is more to this then I know.  For in each of these I see myself.  And I see how I have been all of these at one time.  And I remember now these things and I know they had to come to pass for me.  And even now I would not give up my former sorrows.  For they made my character what it is.

Yes some die so that others may live.  But even in this there is beauty.  For there is always a sacrifice of one for another, whether we know it or not.  And in this great vision I find wisdom, which is also beautiful.  For I know today that my gifts are great, and I know today someone else paid for them. And so I look again to the blind, lame and hopeless.  And I see a few who desire to be free.  And I see how they admit to themselves their truths, and seek help once and for all.

And this too is beautiful.  For who can help the next, but those who came before?  Who knows such deep sorrow except those who had walked that isolated road?  And who cries more for one who is in pain, then one who was in the same pain before?  And in this there is beauty.  For it is the circle of life for some to seek, and others to not.  Some may take up their beds and walk, and others will be lost for this great cause.

But who decides this ill fate?  Does God decide who lives and who dies this way?  Well I look even more, and I go deeper for the answer.  And there in the still darkness it is found.  For no one is victim to be the sacrifice for another.  Each one may decide for them selves what it is they wish.  Each soul is offered one simple idea, which they can grab and make a difference. That Idea is HOPE.  And that Great Reality is available to every one, No matter what their circumstances.

So in this I again found much beauty and wisdom.  For I know that one soul can bring hope to another who has none.  And I know that one effort of love can restore a thousand wrong doings.  So I have learned that today my blessings are great.  And that today I can offer hope to the hopeless, so that they may remember this for themselves.  None of us are discarded or uncared for, no one is a throw away person.  And in this there is the greatest beauty.  Every soul can save a life, by simply giving care to another.  Every one has the power to create this gift of love within them.  And for all that you have today, many have paid a dear price.  But you can effect a change with simple words, simple actions, and simple ideas.  Deep inside everyone is the spark of hope.  Some just need to be shown what it is again.

And this is where we come in, for in our great blessings there is a responsibility.  That is to pass it on.  For nothing of the world will exist one day, and everything will die, but our love and our charity lives on forever in us.  And to those we offer hope to, they may also pass it onto more.  This is how the universe expands.  And this is the most beautiful thing of all, a thing of Love.  Forever and ever.

Ryan o0o