I'LL HAVE ANOTHER WILL WIN THE TRIPLE CROWN

I'll Have Another (9), ridden and urged by Mario Gutierrez, beats Bodemeister, ridden by Mike Smith, to the finish line to win the 137th Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, Saturday, May 19, 2012, in Baltimore.(AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The heart of a true sports champion is always special to behold and that includes horse racing. ‘I’ll Have Another’ has just won two legs of the Triple Crown but what we are now witnessing is a rare bonding of a special horse and its jockey where they have become not only one but an unstoppable force on the race track ~ as they most certainly will be at Belmont Park on Saturday, June 9^th in New York: Allen L Roland

Watch this Preakness video closely and you’ll see jockey ( Mario Gutierrez ) and horse become one as I’ll Have Another over takes Bodemeister in the stretch to win by a neck ~ but he was literally flying at the finish while Bodemeister was obviously spent. Look carefully at this Getty photo and you’ll see a horse in his jockey in perfect sync with each other.

I'll Have Another Preakness victory / 3 minute video 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AAivdpjiV0

Veteran Racing writer, Martha M Boltz, saw it the same way ~ “ With his chestnut head low, his neck extended to its maximum and those hooves flying in the dust, I’ll Have Another with Mario Gutierrez clinging to his back, added the Preakness win to his string, making him 4 for 4 on the track. And the young rider who came out of virtually nowhere (Hastings Race Track in Vancouver) a few months ago, smiled and shook his head, wiping tears from his eyes, as he said in his soft Mexican accent, “It’s not me ~ it’s all about the horse. He’s just a great horse … Sometimes in the ephemeral world of horse racing, there comes together a perfect duo, a man and a horse, with a symbiosis that is basically inexplicable. The man knows and feels the 1500 pounds under him, and the horse knows the 125 pound jockey on his back, and they work together. This was one of those days”. See article ~ http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/sports-around/2012/may/20/ill-have-anotherand-he-did/#.T7lfhGJjkh4.email

Having owned a horse for several years in the late 1980’s ~ I can personally speak for the bond that often exists between a horse in its owner or in this case a horse in its jockey.  My horse was a Paint and his name was Scout. He was gentle and well trained but he loved to run and he knew all my verbal cues. I still fondly remember saddling up Scout and riding into the Sonoma vineyards and slowly trotting up to a quarter mile dirt road between the vineyards. Scout knew what was coming and shuddered in anticipation as I positioned him at the start of the straightaway. I verbally clucked just once with my tongue and we were off and running ~ at full stride with me clinging to his back and urging him on ~ Let’s go Scout !  

Riding 1500 pounds of horse at full gallop is beyond exhilarating, it’s a bonding experience in all its glory.

And that’s my point ~ Jockey Mario Gutierrez has that same bonding connection with I’ll Have Another which will provide the deciding edge at the Belmont as well as a triple crown victory. I can definitely identify with Gutierrez who still says in awe  “He’s a wonderful horse ~ he just wait till I give him the word, and then he does it.”

Here’s an interview with a humbled Mario, who had just won the Preakness, where he confirms the joy and delight of that experience of riding a gallant 1500 pound horse that responds to your cues and wants to run. 4 minute video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt3QVMf2VhA

As David Daniels writes in Bleacher Report ~ “Horses aren’t alone when they cross the finish line. Jockeys will forever play second-fiddle to the thoroughbred, but shot callers like Mario Gutierrez deserve more credit. His ability to push the right buttons at the perfect time is what led to I’ll have Another's victory in the 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.”

Tom Pedulla of USA Today reported that Steve Cauther ~ the jockey that won the last Triple Crown 33 years ago in1978 with Affirmed (and the last to do so) ~ is a huge fan of Gutierrez. He said of Gutierrez:

"They found this new kid like me in the day. They believed in him, and he can ride. He obviously fits the horse, and the horse responds to him ~ The horse definitely responds to him. I’ll Have Another concluded back-to-back Triple Crown competitions with finishes to remember. Bodemeister built a comfortable cushion between himself and I’ll Have Another each time only to have those leads evaporate. And I’ll Have Another isn’t the one flipping the switch at just the right moment ~ Gutierrez is.”    http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1190293-preakness-2012-winner-mario-gutierrez-just-as-impressive-as-ill-have-another

So there you have it, a horse with a gallant heart who loves to run and a gifted jockey who truly knows and respects his horse ~ but also knows when to turn him loose.

History will be made on June 9^th when I’ll Have Another wins the triple crown and Gutierrez will be right behind his ear in the home stretch ~ urging him on as both horse and rider share their exciting and historic moment in history.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/ill-have-another-will-win-triple-crown.html

  

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

THOUGHTS, VIDEO & QUOTES ON MEMORIAL DAY 2012

Could it be that we have lost the true cost of war as we morn its dead ~ could it be that flowers and flags can never justify the inhumanity of war ~ could it be that all wars are lost because there are no true winners and lastly why are we continuing to justify our current illegal occupations by falsely calling them wars. In wartime, everything is done to subvert the force of love but in the end ~ only love prevails: Allen L Roland

Here are some thought provoking quotes and serious thoughts to mull over on memorial Day 2012 but first let’s have a reality check and watch a must see Real News video of Larry Wilkerson discussing the National Defense Authorization Act that recently passed the Senate giving the president the power for indefinite detention without trial ~ which Wilkerson correctly asserts is a draconian violation of our rights. 7 minute video: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7688

Wilkerson correctly calls this “another step on the road to tyranny“ and also shares that the Defense (War) Department “now is completely in control of over two thirds of our intelligence facilities.”

The founders of our Republic were seriously opposed to handing this much military power over to the executive branch, fearing tyranny. If enacted into law, this provision will make Obama a dictator who can wage war anywhere and without the consent of the American people and it’s duly elected Congress. Events in the past have warned of the danger of an out of control war making machine ~ which we most certainly have at the present time.

Here’s a short video clip showing how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud, lie or false flag ~ with video of the insiders themselves admitting it. This includes the battleship Maine, Sinking of the Lusitania, Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty but not the yet to be admitted 9/11 cover up. 8 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkE94ayHlNg

President Eisenhower most certainly warned us about the out of control military/industrial complex but here is a 21^st century updated thought provoking warning by Joe Rogan that War Is indeed a Racket ~ with X rated but effective language, so be fore warned. Nine minute video ~ http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1119.html

When people say "support the troops" but aren't fighting to bring them home and keep the criminals who run these wars and occupations in check, I wonder how serious they are about helping anybody. Others have expressed the same doubts about the futility of war;  

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace - more about killing than we do about living." ~  WWII General Omar Bradley

 "In war, there are no unwounded soldiers"-- Jose Narosky

 "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore (individual citizens) have the duty to (refuse to obey) domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." ~ Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

“We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.” ~ Blaise Pascal (17^th century mathematician and philosopher whose father lost his entire savings because of France’s national bankruptcy caused by the debt incurred during the religious Thirty Years War)

“If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.” ~ The Duke of Wellington (celebrated for being the victorious British general at the Battle of Waterloo, June 1815)

“I confess without shame that I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is Hell.”~ Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman who orchestrated the infamous scorched earth policy that terrorized the Confederacy in his “March to the Sea” in 1864.

 "Every ambitious would-be empire clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie, and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it! ...

If America ever does seek Empire, and most nations do, then planned reforms in our domestic life will be abandoned, States Rights will be abolished ~ in order to impose a centralized government upon us for the purpose of internal repudiation of freedom, and adventures abroad.

The American Dream will then die ~  on battlefields all over the world ~ and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations."   George S. Boutwell  - (1818-1905) American statesman, Secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant

"All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice." ~  George Orwell 1984

And of course, the mass media more than plays its role in promoting and selling these larger evils or so-called wars and occupations for the benefit of the Military/Industrial complex.

In other words, no mass media promotion, no war.

Howard Zinn (1922-2011) shows how CNN and other "news" outlets cheer lead the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and other atrocities.

5 minute Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/4190.html

Only love can reach the common taproot beneath the primordial necessity to kill because love and the urge to unite is not only deepest within ourselves ~ it is also the driving force of evolution and we resist it at our peril. 

And this is the truth that shall set everything ablaze;  The basic underlying and uniting force of the Universe is a psychic energy field of love and soul consciousness ( the Unified Field ) which lies not only beyond time and space but also beneath our deepest fears ~  and whose principle property is the universal urge to unite.

The June 1995 issue of Scientific American featured an article titled The Arithmetic’s of Mutual Help in which it shared that computer experiments conclusively show how cooperation rather than exploitation can dominate in the Darwinian struggle for survival ...  ”In the course of evolution, there appears to have been ample opportunity for cooperation to have assisted everything from humans to molecules. In a sense, cooperation could be older than life itself. “  And what else but love and this innate urge to unite could be older than life itself.

But I am not alone in singing this song of innate connectedness, love and hope.

Chris Hedges, award winning human rights journalist and peace activist, makes this same point in his interview with Sarah Ruth Van Gelder in the Winter 2005 edition of YES Magazine:

SARAH: " In your book, you say, “Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours, is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us ... the kind that war alone is able to deliver.” That yearning suggests that we’re always going to be either at war or on the brink of war. Do you see any forces that can temper that tendency? "

CHRIS: “The only force that is powerful enough to subvert the force of war is love. Love is never organized. Love is always individual love. Love is a force that is built between two human beings. In wartime, everything is done to subvert that force.

 
I don’t know that there’s an organized force that can stand up to the allure of war, which gives us a sense of empowerment ~ allows us to be part of a cause, to ennoble ourselves, to rise above our small stations in life.

The need to find meaning like that, I think, is an indication of the huge deficit of our emotional life. In conflict after conflict, those who are able to remain sane, who were never able to hate the perfidious enemy (who, in places like the Balkans, were often their neighbors), were those who had good relationships, those who were in love."  See article ~ http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=1165

So in wartime, everything is done to subvert the force of love ~ but in the end only love prevails because it lies deepest within ourselves and we resist it at our evolutionary peril.

So on Memorial Day 2012 ~ let us honor those who have died, let us heal the countless wounded and let us take the necessary action to stop these illegal occupations, masqueraded as wars ~ which are actually mockeries of freedom and liberty.

 Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/thoughts-video-quotes-on-memorial-day.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

NATO / ROGUE ARM OF AMERICA'S WAR MACHINE MUST BE DISMANTLED

Graphic from Left Turn / Virage a Gauche

Let’s get something straight ~ NATO is the rogue arm of America’s war machine whereas it has become a global military alliance and obviously designed to engage in aggressive invasions, preemptive wars as well as collaborate with the CIA in numerous illegal activities. Don’t be fooled, America has created an unaccountable international cold war mechanism that enables it to willfully ignore and evade national and international law ~ and it must be dismantled: Allen L Roland

 “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

As I mentioned on Press TV earlier this year ~ The Obama administration has militarized the police force for the street protests yet to come which should reach a climax in Chicago with the two day NATO summit meetings. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/226114.html

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Chicago was designated a National Special Security Event, which puts the Secret Service in charge of "event security"; the FBI in control of "intelligence, counter terrorism, hostage rescue and investigation of incidents of terrorism or other major criminal activities"; and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in charge of "recovery management in the aftermath of terrorist or other major criminal incidents, natural disasters or other catastrophic events," reported the Independent. 

Chicago, under the guidance of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has become an armed fortress. As such it is now Show and Tell time for Obama’s newly minted civilian arrest and detention laws ~ and here’s some early evidence of what’s to come:

On May 18^th, a preemptive raid by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on the home of two Occupy Chicago activists appears to have happened without a search warrant, said the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), and led to the disappearance of nine activists into police custody without charge for almost 24 hours.

“ Occupy Chicago demands the immediate release of the peaceful protesters terrorized by the Chicago Police Department in Wednesday nights raid," said Rachael Perrotta of the Occupy Chicago Press Committee in a statement.” We are getting a taste here in Chicago of what it's like to live in a militarized police state, with non-violent demonstrators targeted for expressing their First Amendment Rights and for standing up against the NATO war machine."

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9235-nato-protesters-held-without-charge-after-raid-as-chicago-steps-up-police-activities

As thousands of activists rightfully gather in Chicago now ~ expect more of the same with indefinite detention and aggressive militarized police state action while under the banner of national security. Everything will be done (or spun) to justify the heavy handed police tactics that will be seen in Chicago over the next few days.

Mayor Emanuel is spending millions entertaining NATO ~  and millions more to stifle protest at Chicago's dire levels of poverty which includes the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of black unemployment and the highest levels of black poverty ~ at 21% and 33% respectively. See article ~ http://bit.ly/KvjSS0

There is much to both question and criticize about NATO but primary is the fact that America has created an international organization that is not answerable to international or constitutional laws and is still mired in a cold war mentality.

In an awkward recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta insists that the UN and NATO can provide the Administration with 'legal authority' for military action without congressional approval ~ as the generals’ nod in agreement behind him.

In fact, it would seem that Congress isn't even necessary and Panetta’s answers all but underscore this fact.

Once "legal permission" had been granted by NATO or "some kind of UN Security Council resolution," Panetta maintained, the President wouldn't need authorization from Congress. Panetta literally says that NATO operates as a rogue arm of America’s war machine and answers to no one.   7 minute Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/9770.html

Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers make the same case on why they oppose NATO in The Rag Blog ~ “The new NATO is a secretive and costly instrument of war and aggression. It makes its own rules and confirms its own authority. As a tool of global intervention NATO undermines democracy and constricts citizen participation on issues of war and peace. It has no place in a democracy, and an authentic democracy should have no business with NATO.”

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/bernardine-dohrn-and-bill-ayers-why-we.html

David Swanson also agrees in Veteran’s Today ~ “The U.S. dominated NATO holds up the past year’s war on Libya as a model for the future, with an eye on various potential victims, including Syria and Iran. In so doing, NATO serves as the armed enforcer of the exploitative agenda of the G-8, which has fled Chicago for the guarded compound at Camp David.”  http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/05/15/veterans-for-peace-calls-for-an-end-to-nato/
  
The focus of the NATO summit this year is Afghanistan. “Operation Enduring Freedom,”, is now and get this, officially a NATO operation.

Another Obama straddle whereas Obama can escape Afghanistan’s ominous consequences and spread the cost and blame under the cloak of NATO. An auspicious step in the rapidly approaching New World Order.

 If you’re not outraged, you’re on life support.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/nato-rogue-arm-of-americas-war-machine.html
 

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

VIETNAM WALL TURNS 30

The Vietnam Wall, Washington D.C.

Experiencing the Vietnam Wall is a literal descent into the hell and human cost of war for as I descended from ground level into the depths of the war memorial dwarfed by the magnitude of the 58,256 names scripted on its black granite wall ~ I was profoundly filled with sadness but as I eventually ascended into the daylight it suddenly became a peace memorial and a heartfelt reaffirmation that war is no longer an option in a world that is being forced to unite or perish: Allen L Roland

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing In Action) during the War.

The black granite memorial was completed in 1982 and receives around 3 million visitors each year. The Memorial Wall was designed by the American architect Maya Lin.

In the early 1990’s, while in Washington, DC for a speaking engagement, I visited the site but nothing could emotionally prepare me for a visit to the memorial or the shock that this war and its incredible human sacrifice was politically motivated and based on lies. Just like during the war, the names of the dead slowly appeared on my left as I descended the gentle slope to the main wall and then suddenly the scope of the carnage overcame me as scores of names became hundreds and then thousands and finally over 50,000 and the brutal truth of this unnecessary tragedy overwhelmed me as I slowly and somberly climbed back into the sunlight.

Only a musical tribute can possibly capture the emotion and feelings evoked by experiencing the Vietnam Wall ~ so here’s The Wall Song. 5 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y64zTRlrmo

Maya Lin’s own comments about her creation are worth noting;

“I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.”

“A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time.”

“I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.”

“The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost. “

“ When  I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business. “

“You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it.”

Read more Lin quotes at ~

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maya_lin.html#FbDEOtzMeiXVMMKk.99

Maya Lin was interviewed in San Francisco on October 24, 2008 and discussed the meaning behind her once controversial design for the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial and her desire to go beyond Vietnam and make a universal statement about the moral futility of war itself. Two minute video ~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_V1grA-SFQ

Lin more than succeeded in her effort to create something that would both transcend Vietnam and yet touch and reconcile our injured soul by returning to nature.

Want to visit the Virtual Wall ~ First click on a state. When it opens, scroll down to the city and the names will appear. Then click on their names. It should show you a picture of the person, or at least their bio and medals. This really is an amazing web site. Someone spent a lot of time and effort to create it.  http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm

Let us hope that deep black scar in the earth that represents the wound the Vietnam war left on the American soul is not a prelude to Lin’s thoughts regarding a possible monument to World War III ~

“I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere.”

Amen!

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/vietnam-wall-turns-30.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

MEMORIES OF MY MOM

My mother’s reoccurring dream and call.

Those who we love deeply become part of us forever for they live in our hearts, as my Mother most certainly lives in mine. We certainly had our issues but she was always there: Allen L Roland

Speaking as a psychotherapist, I can unequivocally say that virtually everyone has issues with their mother ~ think about it ~ it is the first great love of our life and the messages from it quite often resonate throughout our lives and especially our relationships.

But reflecting back now on my relationship with my late mother ~ one of the most endearing qualities of my mom was that she was always there. I still fondly remember walking home from school and the first thing I would say as I walked through the door of our home was “ Hi Mom, I’m home “

Mothers Day is very special to me as well as for countless others so here’s a brief backgrounder of Mothers Day and a short video tribute to activist mothers from the past and the present. Six minute video ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSsdvcfqKxA

As Timothy Egan recently wrote in his online commentary from the New York Times entitled The Last Mother’s Day ~ “When the last of your parents dies, as Christopher Buckley wrote in his memoir, “Losing Mum and Pup,” you are an orphan. But you also lose the true keeper of your memories, your triumphs, and your losses. Your mother is a scrapbook for all your enthusiasms. She is the one who validates and the one who shames, and when she’s gone, you are alone in a terrible way.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/the-last-mothers-day/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120511

My mother died suddenly and unexpectedly 25 years ago in Connecticut.   

She appeared sitting on my bed at that exact moment in

Sonoma, California ~ just as I was

falling asleep.

I could feel her deep love for me and she

whispered ~  "Allen, I know .. 

Allen, I know  " 

I fell asleep saying to myself ~ that can't be

my mother.

Two days later ~ I learned of her death

from my brother and I realized that I

had an after-death experience with

my mother.

Over 50% of Americans have had such an after-death

experience with a loved one ~ according

to Gallup.

My mother had read my Unified Field Theory

at least a month before she died ~

so she must have been telling me that

she now knew what I knew. 

The Unified Field is, in essence, a state of

love and soul consciousness that exists

not only beyond time and space but ALSO beneath our deepest fears. 

As such, it is entirely possible to experience someone you love after they have passed on and millions of Americans have had this experience ~ although they may be reluctant to share it with others.

This was an incredible act of love from my

mother and most certainly from beyond death and obviously

in a joyful state of soul consciousness. 

She actually looked young and happy when she was sitting on my bed.

When I went back to Boston for my mothers

funeral ~ I decided to share the loving

and joyful moments I experienced with my

mother during the Eulogy, including my after death experience with her.  

I remember lying outside my mothers door before

I could walk and wondering why my mother

was crying inside ~ and wanting somehow to

help her.

I remember sitting on my mothers lap for a picture

with my twin brother, at four years old, and realizing how extraordinarily beautiful my mother was ~ she looked

like Greta Garbo.

I remember the last time my mother spanked me

with a hairbrush when I was probably seven or

eight years old ~ the hairbrush broke in half

and we both burst into spontaneous laughter

that literally brought us to our knees.

I remember her playing the piano with myself

standing behind her ~ my hands on her shoulders  

while I sang the words of the old standards she

loved to play.

Songs like That Old Black Magic , As time goes by and

Danny Boy .

Those two songs are linked to my CD which is under BOOK & CD AUDIO on my website www.allenroland.com  plus another appropriate vocal by myself which is backed up by Scott Deturk and Mel Martin You are My Mother, Earth  

Those were magic moments and, in some ways, we bonded through the music we played and sang together. 

About ten years before she unexpectedly died she shared with me a reoccurring dream from childhood ~ which still haunted her. The dream was a young golden haired little girl running free in a meadow and laughing in total delight. I told her that the little girl was herself and the dream represented her deep desire to reconnect with that same childhood state of love, joy, delight and soul consciousness.

She said that it was too late for her ~ but the sad reality was that she was getting far too many secondary benefits for being a victim and martyr. In essence, she was afraid of the joy and delight deepest within herself and her deep unworthiness kept her from claiming it. 

So, obviously my most precious memory of my mother was when she came to me after she died ~ for it was only then that the shackles of her victimhood had finally been released ~ it was only then that I could truly experience her profound love for me ~ as well as her joyous need to share with me her new awareness of this state of love, joy and soul consciousness deepest within herself.  

Finally she was once again that blond haired little girl she longed to be, laughing and running free in that meadow "Allen, I know, Allen, I know " 

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/memories-of-my-mom.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com ) 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

TO THE UNH CLASS OF 2012

 

I’ve always wanted to give the commencement address at my Alma mater, The University of New Hampshire, so I finally decided that this was the year ~ so here it is, Class of 2012: Allen L Roland, Class of 57

Distinguished guests, faculty and UNH graduates ~ it is a distinct honor to be standing on this blue and white decorated podium today and deliver the commencement address to the class of 2012.

55 years ago I was one of you and perhaps feeling the same excitement and jubilation that many of you are feeling today ~ but there was another feeling I felt that day; it was a profound twinge of awareness that there was nothing I could not accomplish if I set my mind and heart to it.

Two years prior to my graduation, at the end of my sophomore year, I came to the sad realization that my hotel management major was totally wrong for me, I was not the least bit interested in managing my step father’s hotel in Miami Beach and had neglected my true interest in English Literature and the Arts.

I had spent most of those first two years having a great time partying with my friends, hosting a nightly campus jazz radio show ( The Rock Roland Show ) and dating as many beautiful girls as possible. I vividly remember driving my black hearse (with my name on the side) on to this very same playing field during half time of a football game with people hanging all over it and a keg of brew sitting on its roof ~ I was something else!  

I didn’t pledge a fraternity during those two years and had a small single room in one of the dormitories ~ I would describe myself as fairly self centered, emotionally immature and somewhat lost.

However, once I gave up making a career choice to please my step father and switched my major to my real love, English Literature and the Arts ~ my world changed.

My friends changed also as I excitedly plunged into a new curriculum heavy with Arts and English Lit courses. I had a lot of wasted time to make up for and I was taking a heavy class load to accumulate the units I needed to graduate. So I began to write, I began to paint; I began to sing; I took piano jazz chord structure lessons so I could develop a piano style that was uniquely my own. My inspiration was Errol Garner, a self taught genius whose childhood exuberance and joy was expressed in all of his music and particularly his own composition ~ Misty.  4 minute Video:

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/336.html

So I played like Errol with his lagging base line, diminished chords and crashing discord endings and adapted that to my own arrangements. I was still having fun but was now beginning to share my gifts with others. My best friend was Shawn Malloy and Shawn convinced me to pledge his fraternity Phi Mu Delta in my junior year. I’m still grateful to Shawn for pushing me in that direction ~ because I emotionally needed that caring group of brothers and they enthusiastically accepted and supported my music, energy and projects. They, along with the house mother, became the supportive family I never truly enjoyed as a young child. Phi Mu Delta was easily the most attractive building on Fraternity Row and, at that time, had the reputation of housing the campus gifted or perhaps strange ones ~ not so much athletically gifted but intellectually and creatively gifted. I had found my home.

For example, my senior art project was a series of paintings of a famous rock on the shore of Nahant, Massachusetts ~ Castle Rock. I created three huge paintings ~ one was realistic, another was semi-abstract and the third was totally abstract but all were a different medium and all had to capture the essence of that rock.

My fraternity brothers, who I entertained almost every night with my house musical trio, suggested I use the huge basement wall to create the abstract fresco of that rock ~ which I did much to their delight and at times amusement and eventually to the astonished pleasure of my senior project acceptance committee.

The only teacher I vividly remember from my time at UNH also became an inspiration. He was a substitute teacher who was teaching Shakespeare. Shakespeare was like music to me and he lived Shakespeare as well as all the great poets.

I vividly remember to this day watching him lean out of the classroom building window while quoting Shakespeare ~ “ If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more;
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,”

The gift he gave me and the class was the gift of him living his dream and sharing and celebrating that gift from a place of deep joy and delight. He was my greatest teacher because he fully gave the gift of himself ~ and became an inspiration for me to do exactly the same thing in my on going work with others, both as a psychotherapist and writer.

I was a voracious reader at UNH and devoured Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway but as a child I also loved Jack London and this London quote could eventually be my epitaph ~ “I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them ~ I shall use my time”

As I began to grow in self acceptance and discover and share my artistic gifts ~ my tough and armored Rock Roland shell began to disintegrate and I gradually became the Allen L Roland I am today ~ but it wasn’t a painless process.

It was here at UNH that I also fell in love and was emotionally shattered when the object of my affection returned to a former love and I was left weeping in my Fraternity House mother’s arms. Thank God I allowed myself to feel that deeply because, in so doing, I tapped into a far deeper level of feeling and creativity that profoundly manifested itself eventually in my writing and poetry.

I did not graduate with honors ~ far from it, for I barely accumulated enough units to be standing on the stage where you will soon be receiving your diploma.

But I did graduate with the acute awareness that I was prepared to live my dreams, whatever they were, and fear and self doubt would not stop me.

I believe it was W.H. Murray who wrote ~ “I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

I graduated into a troubled world in 1957, the Vietnam conflict was just over the horizon and the draft was facing me. With my college degree, I embarked on another dream ~ to become a Navy carrier pilot. I signed a five year service extension and entered the Navy Aviation Officer Candidate program and within two years was assigned to the West Coast and was flying F3H supersonic Jets on the USS Ranger off the coast of Japan and China ~ I was once again living my dream.

Eventually I found the courage to fully open my heart and live my deepest dream ~ to re-discover the truth of a joyful state of love and soul consciousness, that I once knew as a child, and utilize it in my everyday work as a psychotherapist especially with Veterans with PTSD. I have not found great wealth in finding this field of psychic energy and consciousness, that exists beyond time and space as well as beneath our deepest fears ( a Unified Field that physicists, scientists and dreamers have and are still searching for ) but I have found immense satisfaction in proving its existence to myself and countless others.

I prove its validity every day in my work and if you Google “ The Unified Field “ ~ as I see many of you are now doing ( chuckle ) ~ you will see my Unified Field perched in the #1 position, after Wikipedia’s definition of the Unified Field Theory, with well over 1 million results.

In other words, dear soon to be fellow graduates of UNH ~ I’m making a difference and that’s all I’ve essentially ever wanted to do on this brief journey to planet Earth.

The words of William James would seem to sum up my feelings as I enter the last chapter of my life ~ while you coincidentally are just finishing the first chapter of yours; “ I am done with great things and big things and great institutions and big successes, and I am for those tiny invisible moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets or like the capillary oozing water, yet which, if you give them time, will bend the hardest monuments of human pride.”

In other words, dear graduates ~ It’s not about making money, It’s all about making a difference.

Thank you,

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/to-unh-class-of-2012.html 

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his  weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on  www.conscioustalk.net

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations (allen@allenroland.com)