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Finding Stillness in the Chaos
- David Richards
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Welcome to Healing From Within with your host Sheryl Glick author of the newest book in a trilogy A New Life Awaits: Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening which shares stories and messages from Spirit that show us our challenges are not merely economic political or societal but a disconnect from our inner being and soul wisdom. Today Sheryl welcomes David Richards a decorated marine Corps officer and author of The Lighthouse Keeper: A Story of Mind Master whose main character Sam finds ways and transformational tools to manifest the life he truly wants and leaves behind the life he was currently living.
As listeners of Healing From Within are well aware Sheryl and her guests share intimate stories and insights into life as it really is exposing who we are and how this life enables us to remember much as we wade through the challenges of the physical world and find ways to create life as we wish it to be and not merely accept the mindset of others which may limit restrict or create fear and pain. We seek ways to understand life as both an energetic soul and physical being living in a duality that can be merged for best results.
In today’s episode of Healing From Within David Richards has written a fictional tale of a young man who knows how the life he’s currently living ends and it isn’t the life or the ending he wants. He makes a conscious choice to try his hand as a lighthouse keeper’s apprentice as the life of a lighthouse keeper promises responsibility and adventure as well as offering transformational tools which can be practiced in everyday life to improve himself and the conditions he is dealing with. We discover and share Sam’s journey as a lighthouse keeper’s apprentice finding adventures he could never have imagined and the changes that are possible when we engage life in a creative fashion
David tells us why he decided to write a fictional tale of transformation and life changing situations Perhaps what David has written about Sam the main character in the story reflects the need of all of us to learn more about ourselves follow our inner soul guidance and create the life we truly want to live or were born to live.
David writes, “His father was late getting back from town, but having sold all the eggs, called the day a success. Sam had spent the afternoon finishing his chores and then stayed outside, drawing trees and birds, and occasionally pulling out his ball-cup game. Now, as they ate, Sam wrestled with his thoughts. “Something on your mind?” his father asked in between bites of food. Sam pushed his fork around his plate, plowing indifferently through his mashed potatoes. Before he spoke, he felt the tremble in his throat rise. “I don’t want this.” “It’s what’s for supper.” Sam pushed his plate away from him. “No, not this. I want to leave. Leave here. Find my own way.” His father stopped eating and set his fork on the plate. “What about the farm? I need you here.” “But you don’t need me. You just need a body. You can find someone local to help out.” It was a truth, neither damning nor invigorating, but like a truth once spoken, it couldn’t be taken back.
“Sam’s father responded “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.” His father said, without turning back to look at him. “I figured you’d have gotten sick of this place two seasons ago. Was surprised when you stayed on. Happy of course, but surprised.” Sam looked at his father, then looked away. He had been wanting to leave. Had played out the conversation in his head so many times, but always met resistance”
Sam unfortunately, he thought, had to hurt his father if he ever was to realize his own needs to explore life beyond the narrow confines of his father’s farm. He tells his father since there is not enough money for going to college, he wants to go work at the lighthouse near the ocean. He describes the lighthouse as…. “Black Eagle Lighthouse sat atop a small cropping of rock a few meters above sea level. It reached up from the ocean floor like a hand, the dark, jagged appendage of some earthly celestial, its fingers spread wide, the fingertips disappearing into the sea on the island’s eastern side. The waves made splintered assaults into the grooves between the fingers, crashing against the rocks in their ceaseless assault. On occasion, reached more than half the lighthouse’s height. On the back of the hand sat Black Eagle Lighthouse. Slightly less than fifty meters high, it was painted in equal thirds of navy blue, white, and navy blue again before surrendering to the catwalk and lantern. A single door on the southern side supplied entrance to the lighthouse, which could be accessed by way of a small dock on the leeward side to the west. Once docked, one followed steps which had been dutifully carved out of the rock as they meandered their way up to the entryway.”
David describes his military life and the values and dreams of that experience that are reflected in the Lighthouse Keeper. He tells us that perhaps military life was something like being a lighthouse keeper. Plenty of time for silence thinking and being alone…David writes, “He wanted to find it peaceful, but could only manage to find it depressing. This led him to think, How did someone find peace in this kind of life or perhaps in any life? David learned much from living and working with Armand the lightkeeper who was a mysterious man and in time he taught him a great deal about using your imagination and inner thoughts to create peace no matter what kind of life you were living. His entrance into a tavern was enough to quiet the crowd until he made his way to the bar and ordered his usual; a glass of water. He had discovered his name by accident. “Armand” was scribbled on a parcel he’d once delivered years ago. The first time he called him by his name, he seemed surprised at hearing it. He must lead a hollow, barren life, he thought. Alone, on purpose. By choice. Other captains had mused that lighthouse keepers were a tranquil lot, especially now that most lighthouses had moved away from oil lamps, which were labor intensive and called for multiple keepers per house. These speculations were issued side by side with stories of catches of fish too big to haul, mermaids, and other maritime tales.
David shares with us that the character of Sam could be any one of us moving through these treacherous and extraordinary times. In Sam’s memory of his mother we can all recognize qualities that sustain us and help us to grow more aware and trusting of life. Sam’s memory of the mother he loved before she died reminds us that there are people we meet in life who share the brilliance of their spirit and often that interaction helps us to discover the best within ourselves.
David wrote of Sam’s mother, “Her brilliant blue eyes shifted their gaze from his father to him. The spark in her eyes caught a different kind of fire. Her face softened gracefully, the way clouds soften sunlight. Her eyes grew bigger. He didn’t understand the look at the time, not in any comprehensible way he could articulate, but now saw it plainly. It was hope. Adoration. Joy. It was the look of love, the kind of look that is somehow reserved for mothers and their children. He was conscious of how close to the ground he was; he saw himself as a dragonfly, moving just above the blades of the tall, swaying grasses. He closed the distance between them as she pulled on a bunch of grapes. She extended her hand and he gingerly plucked one from its pedicle. She ran a hand through his hair and pulled him close to her. He felt all the warmth, safety, and tenderness of a mother’s embrace. Could smell her perfume. It was a sublime space of happiness.
David shares transformational tools found in the story and how they can be used and practiced in real life. Sam describes ways he learned to use his time while at the lighthouse, “Nor was he afraid of a little solitude. In school, he enjoyed time to himself. While the other boys tackled athletic pursuits, he wrote. He wrote poems, or stories of faraway, imagined lands with mystical creatures and people. Sometimes he wrote letters to different people in his life. One day, a note to his father. The next, a teacher. The day after that, a girl in class he liked. He never delivered the letters, but writing them made him feel better in some strange, unexplored way. He told himself it didn’t matter, and found an odd comfort in that. When he ran out of words, he turned to drawing pictures. These too he never shared with anyone, but they adorned the walls of his bedroom like errant pieces of wallpaper. Moreover, at the lighthouse, he wasn’t alone. True, the lighthouse keeper…Armand, he had introduced himself as…was there. He learned to express his innermost feelings and thoughts clearly and without judgement. This time at the lighthouse encouraged him to grow in confidence and becoming a friend to himself, so he was aware he was never alone. He learned time was not his enemy, but a chance for continued renewal of faith and trust in the universal plan, for him and for everyone.
Several valuable insights gleaned by David in order to write this story and become the man he is today, may be seen in the following story: The following story is how Sam learned to value “Focus” in completing all tasks and David wrote the following story of sweeping the steps at the lighthouse which was a daily chore.
David wrote, “Sam looked at him (Armand), confident that he had done a crisp, efficient job. Armand placed a crate on top of another. “Do you know how many stairs there are from top to bottom?” “Stairs? No.” It wasn’t something Sam had ever thought about. “Eighty?” “One hundred and forty-four.
Do you know how long it took you to clean them this last time?” Sam shook his head. “Twenty-six minutes.” Sam took in a deep breath as his chest swelled. “I almost cut my time in half.” Armand adjusted his glasses at the end of his nose and frowned without looking up from his watch. “Yes. True. And yet it you were truly focused, it would take you even less time.” Sam looked at Armand, then walked to the room center and looked up. It was a dizzying view. He couldn’t believe there were less than one hundred fifty stairs; it felt like twice that many. And how much more time could he cut out of the whole affair? “If you’re focused, you should be able to clean the stairs completely in less than ten minutes.” “That’s ludicrous.” Sam said, a laugh escaping before he could stop it. Armand grabbed the broom and went to the bottom step. He swept from the outside in with five successive sweeps, counting aloud as he did. “One, two, three, four.” “Each step takes four seconds. If you want to do the math, you’re welcome to.” Armand held the broom out at arm’s length and let go. The broom balanced on its bristles before falling towards Sam, who caught it as Armand ascended the stairs.
Armand shares with Sam another insightful way to achieve your best in life and writes. “The questions we ask ourselves are the pathway to the kind of life we will have.” “Explain more,” Sam said, intrigued. Armand scratched his beard, reminding Sam of a dog feverishly scratching at fleas. Such an odd man. “If I wake every morning with the thought, ‘What dread is life going to throw my way today’, my mind will come up with an answer. ‘Mind’ will respond with something like, ‘Today you’re going to have a terrible argument with your brother’ or ‘Today you’re going to step in a puddle and ruin your shoes’. In other words, ‘mind’ will look for things to make my day full of dread.” “That’s silly. No one asks themselves that question.” “Possibly true,” Armand said, finally leaving his beard alone, “But people talk negatively to themselves more so than the opposite. More than that, they worry about the things beyond their control.”
Sheryl tells us one of the stories in the book that she likes from the book. Sheryl likes that David tells us about Sam having a waking vision or as mediums receive messages in dreams or even while awake from Spiritual guidance: prophetic visions, and David writes, “Something by the desk flashed again, and this time he was able to center his attention on the area of the flash, but could see no objects. It flashed again. Sam saw himself. He looked a little older than he presently was, and smiled in a childish, pained way at the fitful, patchwork beard his older self was trying to grow. There was a young woman with him, though her features weren’t clear to him. He was tripping over himself with excitement, walking in front of her, darting from side to side, hands gesturing wildly as he talked. Sam could make out none of the words his older self was speaking, but understood the scene readily enough. The young woman was hesitant, but attentive. She followed him with her eyes (what color were they?) he insisted to no avail, and frequently her gaze lingered long enough where she would catch herself. She would then gracefully look down on the path they walked. He thought her hair blond, but the vision was unclear. It fanned coolly off her shoulders, like curtains stirred by an evening breeze. She did her best to measure her smiles, so as not to convey enjoying his company too much. For his part, Sam sensed his older self in love. It wasn’t a love of hopeful anticipation, or short-lived fiery passion. It was a defining love. A love that would alter the flow of his life, become his life. And somewhere within him, he felt pride well up. Pride in seeing this version of himself recognize such a thing at an early age.”
David continues to share with us some ways we may find “stillness” in the chaos. David writes of the routines Armand who had been at the lighthouse for a considerable time told Sam, “There was the morning ritual Armand had of sitting cross-legged on the ground floor on a small mat. Just sitting. Perhaps meditating. Eyes closed. Sam thought him a fool. These odd events together were cause enough to re-think this entire venture. “I’m not mad.” Armand said as they passed the seventh floor. It was Sam’s turn to stop. Had he been talking out loud? They ate in silence—Armand at his usual pace, Sam anxiously swallowing his meal. When he finished, he broke the swollen silence between them. “What disease are you talking about?” The disease of distraction Armand set his plate down next to him. He ran his fingers through his beard, inspected what morsels had been caught there, Your thinking is distracted.
Distracted thinking makes it harder to accomplish things. Look at that ship.” He pointed to the north. Several miles away from them, a large schooner headed west, its sails gleaming in the sun and full of a steady wind. Armand continued. “Focus on that ship. By focus, I mean direct your attention to it. And rubbed his hands together. “
Focus on that ship. By focus, I mean direct your attention to it.” Sam looked at the ship. “Okay.” Now, assign it some meaning.” Armand grew animated. He stood, walking to the railing nearest the ship. “What do you mean?” “Imagine for example, it’s a ship in distress. That ‘meaning’ leads to possible actions, right? We might light the lamp, signal the coastal guard or, were they closer, row out to see how we might assist.” Sam set his plate down and joined Armand on the railing. “I guess so.” “Of course,” Armand continued. “Now, don’t focus on the ship.” “What?” “Ignore the ship for a moment. Ignore it, and all the meaning we just assigned to it.
“Focus. Meaning. Action.” Armand said matter-of factly. “This is our first crucial decision cycle. If those are pirates, our actions would be very different than if it were a ship in distress. A person’s life…how they view their past, how they live in the present, and how they look to the future…all depend on the meaning they assign to each.”
David might want readers of The Lighthouse Keeper to take away with them after reading your book that they should remember what Armand told Sam….” Crazy or not, long after we finished the day’s tasks, Armand’s words stayed with Sam, and if I’m honest with myself, I wanted to hear more. We picked up on our catwalk conversation at dinner. He expanded on some of the things we had discussed earlier. I’m not sure it all makes sense, but I surprised myself by grabbing for my journal, even before readying for bed, to write down all the recollections from the day.
- What we focus on—this is the most important decision we can make. We can put our energy towards things we can control, or lose it by focusing on the things we can’t control. We can direct our focus to the past, the present, or the future. ILL.
- What meaning do we assign to it—the meaning we give to the thing we focus on creates the feelings. Two people can look at the same thing and have completely different feelings. This is based on their experiences, their thought patterns, and their values and beliefs. The past, present, and future all have different meanings, depending on the meaning we assign to them. (Must ask Armand more about this…isn’t my past unchangeable?) The feelings that come from the meaning given lead to…
- What actions we take—based on the meaning we attach to what we focus on, we choose what to do.
- We develop patterns of thoughts—These patterns become habits. These habits become our beliefs. These beliefs become our lives. We cannot focus on two things at once…Armand said this. It seems so obvious, and yet I play with the idea over and over in my mind. He said, ‘there can only be one master’ and I’m quite certain I don’t know what he’s talking about. Further, he said the quality of the questions we ask ourselves leads us to the quality of our lives. If we ask questions about why life is unfair, our mind will come up with answers to reinforce that perspective. But if we ask what are the things that make life so enjoyable, the mind will answer that question in a similar fashion
Sheryl would like to thank David Richards for sharing a most courageous story both of himself and his main character Sam in The Lighthouse Keeper as like each of us, we move through life experiences with certain questions in mind…Who are we? Where do we come from? What is life really about? And if we are lucky, aware, and insightful, we find answers which help move us past the chaos to allow, accept, and surrender to all things, become more of who we have always been, our soul essence, and to mature, so we may move past fear and limitations to know love, compassion, and peace as our natural birthright.
In summarizing today’s episode, David Richards author of The Lighthouse Keeper and Sheryl have discussed the fictional tale of a young man Sam who seeks to know who he is and how to find a path to a life of adventure, creativity and sensitivity, and to become the best version of himself. Sam has the courage to leave his father’s farm and go to be an apprentice in a lighthouse, where the lightkeeper teaches him a great deal about the mysteries and wonderment of life and how to focus, find meaning, and act on those references.
David shares a story of how Sam began to realize his dreams could materialize and how he didn’t have to listen to the negative attitudes of others, but needed the courage to pursue what interested him most.
Sam tells us “He poured himself a cup of water and drifted back to what he had seen yesterday beyond reef. The pages in the water and image of the woman. His family. His book. It excited him, awakened something inside that he had put to rest in recent years. He had set aside any dreams of writing when he left school. It simply hadn’t seemed like a realistic way of making a living, not when so many of his classmates were pursuing what he thought of as ‘real. And his father had deterred him. He remembered in particular a conversation he and his father had shared while extending the fence line of their property “Writing,” Sam had offered, fighting off the urge not to curse as the wire chewed into his dry fingers, “I like it. I like telling stories.” His father had chuckled. “What’s funny?” Sam asked, the wire digging deeper. He could see a blossom of blood open on his index finger. “The people who write are professional writers”, his father huffed, “they have a gift, and hone their craft”. Sam released the wire. He looked at his father. A wound opened somewhere inside him. Not unlike his cracked fingers, it too bled. It was something he couldn’t verbalize and nothing he could point to. But it was there, bleeding. And that had been that. The idea had been shelved!”
David and Sheryl would have you remember that the thoughts we focus on and intentions we set within our mind, as well as the dreams we seek to make real, are truly possible and must keep trying to make them materialize, for it will, if it is in your life plan and soul destiny. No set back will stop your goals from finally happening, in the right time and best way to support your soul journey and refine your spirit, often filling it with greater love and compassion for yourself and others. It is not in the doing, but in becoming and BEING, that we discover the truth about our eternal selves!
Sheryl Glick, host of Healing From Within and author of a trilogy: Life Is No Coincidence The Living Spirit and her newest book A New Life Awaits: Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening invites you to visit her website www.sherylglick.com to learn more about the true nature of life and energy and to listen to leaders in the metaphysical, spiritual, scientific, educational, medical, and arts, and music share stories of finding out the truth of improving life both personally and collectively Shows may also be heard on www.webtalkradio.net and www.dreamvisions7radio.com
