An overwhelming response to Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s performance of “Shallow” at the Academy Awards was the assumption that the two were in love and lust.
“The world would be a nicer place if everyone had the ability to love unconditionally as a dog.”- M.K. Clinton
By Eileen Fleming
In a post Academy Awards interview Lady Gaga explained her musical expression of love with Bradley Cooper was great showmanship because, “That’s what we wanted you to see. … I’m an artist, and I guess we did a good job.”
I think so too; and so I share the Gaga Cooper Oscar performance of “Shallow” and note the best lyrics are at the beginning:
Tell me somethin’, girl
Are you happy in this modern world?
Or do you need more?
Is there somethin’ else you’re searchin’ for?
My searchin’ for happiness in this modern world has always led to my changin’ my ways, for better ways of being in this modern world.
Last year I deactivated my Facebook account and adopted two hound mix puppies that were birthed at the Misfit Animal Rescue in Eustis, Florida.
One required two blood transfusions during her first month at home and that experience underscored even more what Anatole France knew:
Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
Author Dean Koontz has also written my heart:
Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.
Prayer matures as it moves beyond expressions of thanks and desires into attentive listening understood as meditation.
Meditation is another name for contemplation, and contemplative prayer includes any practice in which a person seeks to pass beyond their mental images and concepts to a direct experience of the Divine Mystery of the Universe, we call God for lack of a better word.
In 2012, Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church in England, explained meditation or Contemplation “is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom—freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that come from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative prayer is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter….
Without the contemplative mind, all our talk about and action for social change and justice can actually do more harm than good. In working for social change, we all get angry, disillusioned, alienated, and hurt.
We make mistakes, we don’t agree with others, we discover that change takes longer than we’d hoped and the solution isn’t as simple as we’d imagined. I have seen far too many give up, grow bitter, or just nurse a quiet cynicism when they can’t hold disappointment with a contemplative, nondual consciousness.
Action needs to be accompanied by contemplation for us to stay on the journey for the long haul. Otherwise, we’re just constantly searching for victims and perpetrators, and eventually we start playing the victim or perpetrator ourselves.”
I began seeking peace in the political realm shortly after that day we call 911.
Until the fruits of a daily practice of meditation sprouted within me, I had also been one pissed off peace seeker! Learn More HERE
Many if not all emotional imbalances are self-created.
When one is influenced by outside events inner peace is impossible and that is at the root of much unhappiness.
However, a persistent practice of meditation builds the infrastructure that creates an abiding state of equanimity no matter the situation or circumstance you are in!
Meditating slows breathing, lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and can aid treatment of anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and a range of other ailments.
In a noted 2005 study an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, aimed to find out which parts of the brain become active when a person practiced meditation. The brain’s cortex, which is associated with attention, sensory awareness and emotional processing were thicker in meditators.
In fact, meditators’ brains grew thicker in direct correlation with how much they meditated and it literally changed their brains!
All forms of contemplation share the same goal: to penetrate illusion and touch reality- The Presence within/AKA GOD, who is beyond concepts yet is LOVE!
At the Academy Awards Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper sang like a couple in love.
Good actors -and liars- can make us believe all sorts of fantasies and erroneous concepts.
My experience has been the most lovingly honest of all beings are dogs, and at the top of that pack are rescued dogs— such as my one year old hound mix Maxine and her ‘cousin’ Rusty, a geriatric Golden Retriever who honestly loves everyone who crosses his path.
I cannot imagine a life without dogs and music for both are honest expressions of love.
And the more I learn, of less I am certain,
Except for the need to remain open to the Mystery we call God.
Creator of unfathomable diversity, Artist of intricate details who crafted verdant mountains where fragile flowers dwell
Who designed the ocean depths and no human eyes have yet to read their deepest tales,
So it is with us: Unknown reality within the Divine indwells
Thirstily seeking us as we search hungrily for what we desire to possess:
Peace of mind and life to the full!
So many voices in the world striving to convince, when all that really matters is the peace that can be within;
Begins with Detachment from outcome: just do your best.
When one lets go of the need to control and to self-defend
When one has a heart for the poor and oppressed
When one seeks and sees The Divine within all creatures and events
When one trusts The Holy is in control-although the daily news denies it.
When one accepts The Other has a plan and desires to find it.
When one comes to understand The Eternal Mystery is more than any concept and welcomes the diversity of men rather than deny them.
When one accepts we will not stand on any accomplishment,
But on our motives and the love that drives it!
When one is aware that evil as well as good cut through every human heart
And learns to make friends with silence The Light is ever present to guide us.
Silent time in nature is as necessary as bread,
Prayer is poetry and service her manifestation.
To forgive is divine and necessary to be divinely forgiven.
And therein lies the peace that passes all understanding.
And every drop of dew are but tears from heaven,
Shed each day a new,
For me, for you
For what we did and did not do
To help bring in The Kingdom.
And the Kingdom comes from above and it comes from within.
IMAGINE a kingdom of sisterhood of all nations; and men will love man and woman like dogs love ALL.
Eileen Fleming writes for TADN: HERE
Eileen Fleming produced the UNCENSORED:
“30 Minutes with Vanunu”
Contact her HERE
Eileen Fleming
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" who founded WeAreWideAwake.org in response to her first of 8 trips to both sides of The Wall in Palestine Israel.
In 2012, Eileen ran for US House of Representatives District 5, in Fl.
Read her FREE eBooks and more at:http://www.eileenfleming.org/
