By Analyn Revilla

At dinner last night, my husband said, ‘how lucky we are to have so much food.’ I asked where his comment came from, because we were talking about something different. ‘It’s all related,’ he said. He observed that I had refilled my wineglass; we were talking about the probability that this might be the last Thanksgiving for two of our friends, because of cancer; we remembered that it was at our home where another friend had celebrated their last Thanksgiving before dying from a heart attack. ‘Don’t tell anyone that,’ he teased ‘or nobody will come.’ All joking aside he recognized that we were blessed with the company of friends, family and we can gather and celebrate with plentiful of good food and spirits. He said, ‘just be aware.’

‘Awareness’ seems to be popping up in books I’ve been reading, conversations I’ve engaged in and in practicing something religiously like yoga and meditation. In metaphysical writings by Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and BKS Iyengar they describe awareness as the true self. It’s always there, but it is overshadowed by the eye of the ego, the one we identify with as “I am” this or that.

When I’m writing I’ve started to sift through the impulse of the words. Is it my ego expressing itself, or is it my consciousness (awareness) that’s speaking? I’ve been struggling with my identity since I quit my long-time career in a corporation. I wonder if I’m reconnecting to my truth or if I’m reassembling what I am. I’ve experimented with burning my ‘stream of consciousness’ writing based on the advice of John Rogers (of “Spiritual Warrior”). His idea is that ‘free-form writing (with a pen and paper) is a kinesthetic activity: The neural impulses from the fingers are sent back to the brain so that writing actually releases and records the patterns of the unconscious… called ‘beach balls’, those things we have suppressed for a long long time and have expended energy to keep under the surface.” Following the free-form writing then “do not read it over. Rip up what you have written and burn it”. He recommends not to read over and look for the beautiful writing bits, because the energy and negativity released onto the paper can return to you if you reread it.

I tried this exercise of free-form writing and burning it up, and it wasn’t easy to do the second part. I’ve been journaling since I was a teenager, and I’ve hauled my collection of notepads and diaries in different shapes and sizes wherever I’ve camped. I thought about Anais Nin’s diaries and wondered if she had ever considered or experimented with burning her writing. When I’m doing stream of consciousness writing it’s a lot of crap that comes out. Often, I’ve come to accept, that I write to normalize my mind, body and spirit. It’s all these parts of me that are competing for self-expression without fear of judgement. Writing is an exploration and not necessarily the truth of what is. It’s a process of seeking out the truth.

I remember two occasions when someone invaded my privacy by reading my journals on two separate occasions. The first was when I was breaking up with my first husband. He tore the red hard-covered journal from my hands and looked for ‘evidence’. The evidence being my thoughts. The other occasion of invasion of my privacy was when I asked a friend to clean up the hard drive of my Sony Vaio and he came upon some stream of consciousness writing. When I came back from Japan my ‘friend’ was cool and distant towards me. It was much later in the relationship he divulged reading my writing. I tried to explain to him that it was just stream of consciousness stuff – things I’m working out.

Anyways, I’m still on the bench as to the validity of ‘truth’ in free-form (‘stream of consciousness’) writing. It’s a dance between my ego and my awareness. It’s all of me that is coming together to confer what is the truth. This truth can shift based on the parameters at hand. It’s very much aligned to the principles of the physics of quantum mechanics and relativity. There is truth in both sides of the argument. The shift of which is truer than the other is the degree of awareness. I can be convinced that your argument against mine is allowable based on how illumined my mind is to your perspective. And this can happen on your side of the camp where your awareness shifts and you can say ‘you’ve got a point’.

I’ll tie this all up with a link to a Youtube video of a song written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David. By the way, I was so lucky to have the opportunity to watch Burt Bacharach perform his music live at UCLA last summer. The guy is a legend whose music spans 6 decades and he’s still writing cool tunes. The song “Be Aware” was written to be sung by Barbara Streisand, but I like Dionne Warwick’s version better. Here it is: “Be Aware” written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David; sung by Dionne Warwick

“Be Aware”

When the sun is warm where you are
And it’s comfortable and safe where you are
Well it’s not exactly that way
All over

And
Somewhere in the world
Someone is cold, be aware.
And while you’re feeling young
Someone is old, be aware.
And while your stomach is full
Somewhere in this world
Someone is hungry
when there is so much
should anyone be hungry?

When there’s laughter all around me
and my family embraces surround me
If I seem to be forgetful
Remind me

That
Somewhere in the world
People are weak, be aware.
And while you speak your mind
Others can’t speak, be aware.
And while your children sleep
Somewhere in this world
The child is homeless
When we have so much
Should any child be homeless?
Homeless?

No, not even one child!
Be aware…