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Walls by Dane Allred

Walls can keep us in

Or shut us out.

We use walls to separate ourselves from others

When in truth we all share that common source.

The Bright Space where we all were once,

That place where I knew all there was to know about you,

And you knew all there was to know about me.

We knew everyone who has ever lived,

Who will ever live,

As well as we knew ourselves.

But then we realized there was more to us than that.

There was a something we were missing,

Hiding behind our wall of complacence

Knowing all there was to know.

We discovered we could learn more.

We could experience the universe by ourselves

Alone and away from each other

And the comfort we knew in each other’s company.

So we came here to experience this universe in our own way,

To add to the knowledge of all that has ever been

By finding our way through this solitary life.

We feel alone,

But it was meant for our paths to cross.

I am here to find my way,

But in finding that path,

I may also be here to help you find your way.

What a disappointment it is when we forget that past connection,

When we walk past each other every day

Wondering how to make this life better

And the answer is all around us.

We are here, but we are not alone.

When we reach out to each other,

There is that one instant of recognition

That spark of familiarity

That confirms the link with the time we spent together before this life.

Working together toward our future

We are finding all there is to know

In our own life,

Enriching the lives of others

And seeking that knowledge in perfect harmony

With this universe.

Reach out and break down that wall,

And help continue our search for all there is to know.

The answer is all around us.

We are here, but we are not alone.

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Broken Leg

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BROKEN LEG

I dream funny things that could never happen. In the dream it seems so real, but when I wake up I realize how strange it all was. Some people put great faith in dreams, seeing them as prophecies of the future. I dreamed I was putting Christmas tree lights in the walnut tree in the front yard. My wife doesn't really like the white lights on it during Christmas, but I thought with just a few more strands, it would be just perfect. In the dream, I am stringing lights from limb to limb, and then I fall out of the tree. Maybe one of these days I will learn to listen to warnings.

So when a warm November night came, it was too much to resist. Armed with just the right lights, I climbed to the lowest limb and began the adventure. I had been much higher in the tree before, as much as thirty or forty feet off the ground, and had never encountered a problem. But just ten feet off the ground, I fell straight down into the flower bed, bending my ankle and putting enough pressure on the bottom of my leg to crack the fibula. I've fallen farther before, and landed harder, but I twisted my ankle a bit on landing, and slipped sideways.

I lay in the flowers for just a second and limped into the house quickly, hoping no one had seen me fall out of the tree. I told my wife I had just fallen and thought I may have broken my leg. But since I was hopping around on it, we both assumed I was all right, just like always.

I had been cast in the musical "Oliver" and we were having our first read-through and cast meeting later that morning. I went to the theatre and listened to the details, but told the director and a couple of the other actors I thought I had a broken leg and needed to go to the hospital. Everyone laughed even me, since I was just hopping around -- how could it be broken?

At the hospital I was in for a long wait, although the staff did give me some ibuprofen for the pain. A major wreck had happened on the freeway south of town, and the nurses and doctors were very busy taking care of people who were much more seriously injured than I was.

As a non-emergency, I sat in the emergency room for about six hours while they took care of the people whose lives were in danger. As they passed my cubicle, they must have thought to themselves, "Oh, yeah. It's that guy who fell out of his walnut tree while putting up Christmas lights. We'll have to do something about him eventually." With all the pandemonium going on and the people who were really hurting, I almost felt like sneaking out so they could focus on the people who needed it.

After a couple of x-rays, the doctors weren't convinced there were any broken bones. But after I told them there was a pain a little higher in the leg than they had been looking at, another x-ray showed a hairline crack in the fibula. I had broken my leg falling sideways after landing, and the twisting had sprained my ankle.

I was expecting a cast, but everyone told me the bone didn't carry any weight, so it would heal fine by itself. I moaned enough that they gave me an ankle brace I wore for a couple of days.

The real worry they had was the ankle. I had to visit an orthopedic specialist, and as I looked at the team photos of past football stars hanging on the wall, I was duly impressed. Unfortunately, the doctor wanted to put a screw or pin in my ankle to hold it in place!! He said he would like to wait for a couple of weeks and check it then, and to keep wearing the ankle brace the hospital had given me. I was starting to be worried. I was almost afraid to ask the doctor about the broken leg, fearing another pin or screw higher up in the leg.

My luck held. After two weeks I went back and the doctor said the healing in the broken bone was amazing, and that the ankle was going to be fine.

I have since taken down the lights on the tree using a ladder and being very careful. The tree is old and it may not be around many more years, but when I cut it down, I think I want to save that one special limb, which broke one of my limbs.

Maybe I will carve it into a walking stick.

Or maybe a pair of crutches.

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Abundance Value Oct 9

This is the complete episode of Abundance from October 9th.

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Bargain by Dane Allred

Bargain

by Dane Allred

Am I a bargain?

A good deal?

Do I yield value for the money spent?

Or did you settle for the discount,

The second,

The factory reject?

Am I ready for a quick return,

In hopes of

A more perfect

A more functional

A more desirable model?

How you value me

In large part helps me know how

To value myself.

Step up for the best buy of the century!

What’s it worth to you?

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Value by Dane Allred

Value

by Dane Allred

Why would we value one person above another?

They had a mother, a father who cared for them.

Who guided their path into this world.

They were born into this world with the same

Potential

Hopes

Fears

And anxieties as each of us.

But when someone falls short of what they want to be,

Or someone falls short of what we think they should be,

Then that judgment devalues the world.

When one of us is dimished,

Then the world must be diminished.

When we strike out with our anger,

Express our disappointment

Give up our goals of being better today

Than we were yesterday;

This universe suffers.

When we are less than we can be

The loss is evident not only to those around us,

But to the mass of humanity hoping for a better day

For a day when we will use all our potential

For the day when we will strike down our fears

And reach out to the others on this journey with us

And make their path a little easier

A little more friendly

A little more exciting

Because we are now on the path together.

Walking alone against the struggles we find in this world is the loneliest path.

But when we reach out and take another into our world

When we let them know they are not alone

Then the unity of two becomes unbreakable.

Then when the world walks in unity

There is nothing we cannot accomplish.

There are so many hungry to feed,

Sorrowful to comfort,

Lost to direct,

So many searching for a friendly face

To greet them.

They are not alone.

As we direct our attention outside ourselves,

The world will open up and reveal itself to us.

Look outside yourself today.

What is there that this life offers you

That one problem that grabs your attention

And demands action?

Look closely.

It is not work.

It is an opportunity to make this world the place you and I can make it.

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SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS

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Sonnet Forty-five by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet XLV

by William Shakespeare

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;

Until life's composition be recured

By those swift messengers return'd from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assured

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

I send them back again and straight grow sad.

 

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Sonnet 45

Sonnet Forty-four by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet XVIV

by William Shakespeare

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way;

For then despite of space I would be brought,

From limits far remote where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But ah! Thought kills me that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that so much of earth and water wrought

I must attend time's leisure with my moan,

Receiving nought by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

 

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Sonnet 44

Sonnet Forty-three

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Sonnet XLIII

by William Shakespeare

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

All days are nights to see till I see thee,

And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

 

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Sonnet 43

Sonnet Forty-two

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Sonnet XLII

by William Shakespeare

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;

Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone.

 

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Sonnet 42

Sonnet Forty-one by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet XLI

by William Shakespeare

Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?

Ay me! But yet thou mightest my seat forbear,

And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,

Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

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Sonnet 41