I prefer the 

                                                                                        Perception of Being 

                                                                                To a concept 

                                                                                         of a self

                                         Everyday thank creation by enjoying your "self."

                                           Outside events are real but "inside" is forever

                         

                              There are kindred souls

                                            In all peoples.

                                      Spirits of Belonging,

                                              of caring,

                                               of sharing 

 

                                                             What can unify the Earth? 

                                                       Realizing that our lives are sacred.

      

                                Everyday thank creation by enjoying your “self.” 

                                  Outside events are real but ‘inside” is forever.

 

One sister was my fathers pick.

My other was my mothers.

I guess that left me somewhere in between.

Life is a long hard road

when you’re so young

and you don’t know which way to go.

Somewhere deep down you know 

That you’re lost and nowhere is a friend.

Mattered not the frame of mind

for deep, way down inside

a spirit cried.

Even through this existential despair

an attitude was formed.

I didn’t need any of them.

There was no God.

How could someone who loved me

throw me into such a plight?

For me, time stood still.

Somewhere at the center of it all

I came up lacking, never full.

The worse thing, I was never here,

in balance with the creators reality.

So it was for many a year.

I had quit crying for love

How could I know a non-existent thing?

It was a road stretching into nowhere.

The quest for being emerged in a Buddhist book 

And a ray of light opened in me

If I could only know then perhaps I’d be satisfied,

A reason for everything somewhere could be seen.

So in sandaled feet I walked the Earth

Forgotten was the child within.

It was not for others perhaps, but was with me.

Then one day, I gained my place

Or so it seemed.

Deep, still, down inside

The pleasures of Earth could not fill.

The void when I closed my eyes

Grew far, grew wide,

Grew forever.

Was this all there was?

I felt lost and turned to take my

Wants where I found them.

Now drinking began to fill my time

For time loomed long into a far, distant destiny.

Late, when the sun was gone, on a winters eve,

I found my spirit or it found me.

Up mountain, down hill, every direction

I had it, it had me.

All my life had come to be,

Perhaps freedom was for me.

                                 True power comes with mastery of the self in harmony with the rest of life