Fiddleosophy Blogs

Courage and Fear 

I’ve been reading again. Today I read a chapter in Florence Scovel Shinn’s “The Game Of Life (And How To Play It)” (1925). In it is a passage I want to quote directly that treats the subject of Fear:

“I have a friend who said nothing could induce her to walk under a ladder. I said, “If you are afraid, you are giving in to a belief in two powers, Good and Evil, instead of one. As God is absolute, there can be no opposing power, unless man makes the false of evil for himself. To show you believe in only One Power, God, and that there is no power or reality in evil, walk under the next ladder you see.” Soon after, she went to her bank. She wished to open her box in the safety-deposit vault, and there stood a ladder on her pathway. It was impossible to reach the box without passing under the ladder. She quailed with fear and turned back. She could not face the lion on her pathway. However, when she reached the street, my words rang in her ears and she decided to return and walk under it. It was a big moment in her life, for ladders had held her in bondage for years. She retraced her steps to the vault, and the ladder was no longer there! This so often happens! If one is willing to do a thing he is afraid to do, he does not have to.

“It is the law of nonresistance, which is so little understood.

“Someone has said that courage contains genius and magic. Face a situation fearlessly, and there is no situation to face; it falls away of its own weight.

“The explanation is, that fear attracted the ladder on the woman’s pathway, and fearlessness removed it.

“Thus the invisible forces are ever working for man who is always ‘pulling the strings” himself, though he does not know it. Owing to the vibratory power of words, whatever man voices, he begins to attract. People who continually speak of disease, invariably attract it.”

I have often heard that fear is an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real”. Our imagination creates scary situations based on false reality, and when we add real facts, real reality to the situation, it no longer seems so scary. In fact, the scary situation seems to disappear altogether.

Regardless of whether the situation one is afraid of is real or not, confronting it head on always seems to minimize the actual fear. If you don’t confront or face your fears, the imagination feeds the fear and makes it more intense, often debilitating.

I’d be interested in knowing how you have dealt with fear in your life. What have you discovered that works for you?


Celebrating Unexpected Blessings 

I came home last night to find my sweetheart in the middle of meditating. At the end of the meditation, she pulled a card from her Tarot deck for each of us. My card? Prepare to celebrate!

I realize that you may not believe in Tarot, which is cool. But my blog today is not about that. It’s about celebrating unexpected blessings.

You may or may not know that my parents lost everything in the big Bastrope, Texas wildfire over Labor Day weekend, just two days after my dad retired. He worked an extra five years in order to afford remodeling their home, in which they planned to spend their retirement. Thank God they were able to evacuate safely, along with all their grandchildren and four dogs and one (of two) cats. Unfortunately, the chickens didn’t fare so well. KFC wouldn’t even touch them after that fire!

When they were finally allowed back on the property to view the results, my dad (who has a pacemaker) collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where he spent the next five days. Again, thank God he is okay. Upon his release, though, he somehow managed to run himself over with his own car, breaking one of his legs and sending him back to the ER. I’m thinking it takes a lot of talent to run oneself over like that, and I’m glad that he’s found a use for his.

The doctors told him he needed to get the hell out of Texas for a while, because it was killing him! So mom and dad made plans to visit my daughter up in Utah, and then travel up through San Francisco and down the Coast Highway to visit me and my boy in Long Beach. UNFORTUNATELY, dad broke a crown and had to wait to have it replaced . . . two weeks after having made plans to leave.

Adding insult to injury, as it were, my parents’ insurance company refused to insure their property for it’s full value until the skirting went in around their house. That was scheduled to go in the week of the fire. Therefore, they are getting a fraction of what they lost in the fire.

What does this have to do with celebrating unexpected blessings? Well, let me tell you:

I decided to plan a benefit concert for my parents, and was surprised at the huge amount of support I received from friends, family, fellow musicians, and members of the community. Six of the top Irish bands in Southern California volunteered to perform, and their fans threatened to swamp the small venues I had in mind to host the concert.

So just this morning, I met with Phil Morin and Vanessa Sepulveda, the General Manager and Manager of the Tilted Kilt in Long Beach, CA. They enthusiastically volunteered their venue to host what has become one of the largest gatherings of Irish music in this area outside of the festivals . . . AT NO COST TO ME!

So right now I am basking in the warm feelings that come from people in my community sharing their love and their talent and their skills and their material goods to support my parents. They are giving to people they don’t even know, simply because they are my parents.

In a way, they are giving back to the people who have made it possible for me to pursue a career that allows me to entertain and uplift them. God, this feels good!

Unexpected? Yes! Blessing? Yes! Am I celebrating? YOU BET!

If you would like to participate and enjoy this concert yourself, here’s the information:

Saturday, November 19th, 2011
1:00pm til closing!
The Tilted Kilt
6575 E. Pacific Coast Hwy
Long Beach, CA 90803
(562) 795-0163

Let me know what unexpected blessings you are celebrating this week!

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Golden Rule (Tuesday October 4th, 2011) 

I’m sitting here at Westminster Cafe in Westminster, CA listening to Akshara Weave’s Cho Ku Rei: Reiki Healing. In addition to writing this, I am drinking coffee and water and smoking the occasional cigarette. This is what I do when I want to relax and process my thoughts.

I’ve been reading a free e-Book called “Napoleon Hill’s Hidden Secret in Think And Grow Rich: Why This Law Of Success Principle Proves The Master Keys To Success” by Gary Vurnum (www.ThisChangedMyLife.com). It’s a short but very enlightening read that anyone in love with “The Secret” would do well to read.

In a nutshell, it explains why Napoleon Hill’s “Golden Rule” is the KEY to making everything else work. What is the Golden Rule? Simply this: “The Golden Rule means, substantially, to do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you if your positions were reversed.”
Page 97: The Law of Success Lesson 16 – The Golden Rule.

The main point that I got from reading this short text is that it is not enough to do good deeds. Rather, your whole thought process must be based on this rule. Think about others as you would have them think about you.

I find that a lot of my thoughts are negative, especially while working in such an ego-centric field as music. How can I NOT think negative thoughts about a fellow musician who has just dropped a clam during a live show? How can I not take personally the perceived glare from one of my fellow musicians?

And yet, I tried this out last Saturday with amazing results. Both of the situations described above happened. Rather than following my normal thought routine of negativity, I thought loving, understanding thoughts instead. I immediately had a feeling of greater connection, not only with my band mates, but with the audience as well. The feeling transported me, the energy created by such a connection literally palpable. I was reminded of the reason why I chose to pursue music as a career. The final result was a fabulous performance that even our sound tech was moved by.

So, did the Golden Rule help me achieve success that day? My definition of a successful show is one that develops an emotional/spiritual connection between me and the audience. So yes, I achieved success that day. And I felt enriched and uplifted by doing so.

I am resolved to make the Golden Rule the central operating principle in my personal philosophy. Success feels great!

I encourage you to read the book and experiment with this KEY idea yourself and see if it works for you, too.


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