I Know You

When I first saw you, I knew you. No question about it. It was a felt connection, and it is with me now. How do I know you? Your face is not familiar, your body is a foreign object…and yet I know you. My eyes cannot see the knowing. It’s my heart that captures your sweet familiar essence and revels in its recognition of your being.

Is it a sweet remembrance of a time, or perhaps no time? Could it be another place, or no place? Still, your presence is a comfort, and it awakens a remembrance that I cannot yet see or understand. Nevertheless, I know it is you.

Perhaps we found one another in a different life, or even on the mountaintop. I sense that we once played, loved and lived together present to each moment. Could it be that your essence once merged with mine and we floated on a cloud of unending Love. Can this be true? Can it? Perhaps you remember too.

Written with Love,
Barbara Rasp

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“The silent path to God is yours today. In the moment of awakening you travel the path of light with your brother side by side, and as the paths cross or diverge, you must honor them. Your need to use your brother as a crutch is ended when you choose to see him as the holy one he is. You will join your brother once again at the mountaintop where you flow together on the Holy Path as one mind, one universe. Remember, I am with you, now and forever.”

From “A Gift of Roses” by Barbara Rasp

Book available on this website www.wisdomsvoice.com or at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

FAMILY TIES

One day in December 2006, I awoke with physical pain from pool exercises and too much lifting and bending. Later that evening I watched the end of a movie about a loving family’s experiences. This combination apparently triggered something in me, and the words that follow are those that I wrote in my journal the next morning.

I am so stiff and so out of sorts this morning. I’m filled with a deep sadness. As I sit quietly, tears come through the pain, not only physical but emotional as well. I feel lost and alone…disconnected from a sense of family. There’s no one left that I am close to. I have scattered cousins, some of whom I haven’t connected with in years. We moved to Florida when I was eight and my intimate connection with my extended family was severed, except for the occasional summer vacation.

I’m grieving. I miss my family. It’s like a part of me was slowly ripped away over the years, and now I am left to go it alone. It’s lonely sometimes, very lonely. Nearly everyone I know has a family somewhere…people who are what we call “blood relations.” Although I have two cousins more than a thousand miles away that I occasionally talk with on the phone, I haven’t seen them in more than twenty-five years. I have never felt that I needed to see them, but the longing for something this moment is real and is permeating my being. It’s an emptiness that I can’t shake. It takes my breath away. Why, I ask, do I feel this intense yearning for the home that no longer exists?

Suddenly, I realize that I am home. The emptiness and the longing are only reminders that I forgot. In my grief, I am embraced by the energy of a deep and abiding Love. I know that I never really lose my connection to the One Loving Presence. I just forget sometimes, and in that forgetfulness I suffer. I weep for It. I yearn for It. In this remembrance, the Divine Energy of Love and Compassion fills me...and I can breathe again.

It’s so simple. I just drifted into an old story. Yes, my family members were wonderful, and so are the memories. But that is the past. They say that we can’t choose our family, but we can choose our friends. I realize that I’ve made some great choices. I am so blessed by the wonderful friends who have become my family. I take another deep breath as I embrace this exquisite moment of Grace. Now I just sit quietly with wet cheeks and a smile.

Barbara Rasp

Choose to live your life through the melodies of the Spirit, the harmony of the Angels and the love of the One. Live your life in only Love, for that is what you are. I am your strength and I am your Wisdom. Believe in me and we shall live in harmony and in completion of a journey well done. I am your spirit, your mother and father, your son and daughter, your master and teacher, your joy and peace.

Wisdom’s Voice

FYI: The photo above was taken in 1913. The young boy was my father surrounded by his older brother and four sisters.