I have long been a believer in the power of positive thinking. I met a woman when I was in Grade 10. She was our supply teacher for a month, showing an interest in me when no one else seemed to. As it can happen sometimes with teachers and students, Edna Kully became a friend.
Edna was a spiritualist, a believer in ‘new thought’, and she introduced me to the world of meditation, positive thinking, Shirley MacLean, and other things that started me down a path towards self-awareness and, today I’d say, self-acceptance. In my late teens and twenties, I signed up for ‘personal best’ seminars, joined a centre of people who held a pretty enlightened view and unprejudiced view, in my opinion. Actually, they were just prejudiced towards positivity. Let’s be real: we’re all ‘prejudiced’. We all have a viewpoint.
For a few years, I explored my faith and dabbled with Buddhist teachings, held an interest in Hinduism, but never had the discipline to commit to much of anything. Mostly, I took my inspiration from a woman with firey red hair and spirit to match. Sue Rubin was the minister of the Centre for Self Awareness, and she became a mentor for me. She still is today. But we differed in our opinions, as I just could not accept the idea of ‘perfection’ to save my life. Babies born dying bring out the cynic in me. I have always had a pessimistic streak. It must be the yang that matches my yin.
Mine has been a circuitous exploration of faith. One could say I have made a great many pilgrimages in my time, while living in the Middle East. One such ‘pilgrimage’ was up and down on hobbled knees in the Annapurnas of Nepal. Another was to a burning ghat at the riverside of the Ganges in Varanasi, India. Still another in the desert sands, Nabatean caves, and volcanic craters of Saudi Arabia. These are all long stories. I won’t tell them today. Suffice to say, when you move physically, you move mentally and emotionally.
Either being an independent artist and having to promote myself is the cause of an addiction to the internet, or it’s feeding an addiction. Whatever the case may be, my email, MySpace, Facebook, and Skype keep me busy. Part of it is this compulsion to never lose my orientation towards ‘home’, Canada, and ‘keeping in touch’. A colleague of mine in Saudi Arabia said to me something very interesting: most people die within five miles of where they were born. Strange. It comforted me at the time, when I wondered if I’d always be a wanderer. Anyway, when you are on the road, friends become family, and it is coded in Arabs, this very fine embrace of hospitality, once there is reason to know you can trust a stranger.
So, this week has been intense. I have been ‘meeting’ people online, upgrading a Facebook account so as to separate the adults in my life from my former students who deserve their very own page to splash and ‘fun’ around in. I have turned my attention to MySpace again with a vengeance, not knowing why, really, except that I keep meeting these remarkable strangers, songwriters, musicians, and thinking: god, there are some amazing souls out there. And there are.
One thing has led to the another, and other, and without going into the telling of it too much, I was walking home from Starbucks yesterday (I have a weakness for coffee, and I love SBUX) when the phone rang. I fumbled for the cell and answered. “Hello?” Was this —— garble garble? (People always garble my name. Lorelllllllee. Loreeeeeeeeliiiiii.) “Yes, it’s Lorelei.” I sounded distinctly Canadian, I’m sure. Formal. Business-like. My head was in my business studies, which I’m much behind on, and it was blustery and raining in the dark of the Manchester night.
It was David Foster’s office. Producer David Foster. The man who has produced the likes of Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, and – I later found out – Michael Jackson and Madonna. The man is from Canada. Every time I run in the pro music circles there, someone has some degree of connection with him. My thinking was, when I wrote to him about Liz, that someone with some degree of connection would find someone else to find to get the letter to the man. I’ve no idea who the angel was, but if I had to hazard a guess it was either the performing rights organization, the record label I contacted and I forget which one, or it was his own charitable foundation in Canada, the one that doesn’t help dying adults, but does help dying children. Whatever. I didn’t ask. The call was brief. David will be phoning Liz and did I have her number. No idea if the song is at all a consideration here, but surely it is from the standpoint that this woman wrote this amazing lyric. Whatever the case, I’m pleased, touched, and almost struck silent by the fact that it is possible to make remarkable things happen in one’s life: if only we’ll try. Which brings me to my four points: inspiration, action, manifestation, and the six degrees of separation.
Unless we are motivated by inspiration, take action, accept ‘whatever is’ or is meant to be and detach ourselves from the results and from needing to know what, when, where, and how…it is my belief we’ll never fully know the magic of life. Furthermore, what most of us, including myself, forget is that it is possible to ask for a little help along the way. The worst thing that can happen is someone will ignore you or tell you no. The kindnesses of ‘friends’ I have quickly made and am making affirm for me that this isn’t a ‘task’. It is a living. It is the way I aim to live. And it will sustain me in ways that have nothing to do with getting and everything to do with giving.
I made other remarkable connections this week, simply through my willingness to say something real – and I do mean it – I have no time of day for superficiality, for ‘fakes and charmers’. I never let people post to my MySpace wall unless they’ve got something to say about my music or to say about me, and I never post anything but a positive ‘truth’ about a person or their music, because I believe that this speaks volumes more than a poster ad.I feel like I have undergone some sort of shamanic journey. I’ve reached out, expressed something real, responded as and when I have had the time (I know a few emails still need to be responded to), and wherever it seemed there was a connection I simply honored that with more of a nod than usual, because I love people.
Not only did David Foster’s secretary call, but others like Cari Cole, a most a-ma-zing performing songwriter and vocal teacher from New York City ‘understood’ what I was about, and was kind enough to offer to send music to my friend at a time when I didn’t know how to give, what to give. I mean, what do you give to cheer up someone who is trying to grapple with the loss of body, breath, and life as it was before cancer? This week has now spawned something quite important to me: an action to confirm for Liz her rightful place in the world as ‘a’ songwriter, something she didn’t quite fully accept or believe. It is a small mission I am undertaking blindly and in good faith.
So, I have now started (via MySpace) an initiative to send tiny, teeny stuffed creatures and either words (anything: a story, poem, lyric, personal essay or music) to my dear and faraway friend Elizabeth Ward. One of our online peers, a poet goddess, in the songwriters society I belong to has emailed to say that she is trying to find a way to get to Los Angeles in person, from Toronto. Neither has she met Liz before. We just all bonded for different reasons at the same time. So, as my mentor and friend Sue Rubin would say, it is. Miracles can and do happen. A language I’m not yet comfortable with, but I no longer doubt, if you do your ‘work’, your life’s work, and if you do it with love and passion.
I let Liz in on the fact that someone special was going to drop her a telephone call. Confusion. Surprise. Disbelief. Tears. Marvel. Some order of emotional responses that feed my inspiration to ’serve’ here with action, and to let things ‘manifest’ as they will.
Yesterday, I thought, as I stole off to bed in the wee hours, my back and muscles aching, my heart aching, I thought: we do not know what we are capable of until we try. We have no control over the ripples that our stone throws, our actions, can cause in the sometimes murky waters of life. But we should try. We (I) should lose the cynicism and try. Because the world is beautiful and so are we. If only we (I) will just believe it.
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If you wish to make a small donation of a stuffed ‘friend’ and send it with a few words of love and inspiration, contact me via email at info(at)orderlybazaar(dot)com, and I’ll give you Liz’s daughter’s mailing address in L.A. Please pass the word.
