It has often been a reminder to me, that we are products of our environment and orientation with continual adjustments, as this unique journey of life unfolds “moment to moment.” As suggested by Eckhart Tolle, “Now, is the space in which life happens,” and our role models from the very beginning give us substantial imprinting on our persception and perspective with the “now.” All of us have had a myriad of experiences with role models, and if we were inordinately fortunate, we had the ordained opportunity to participate, observe and witness . . . extraordinary human beings in what appeared to be, ordinary circumstances. With great humility and gratitude, I number myself amongst those who have witnessed phenomenal courage, restraint, motivation, intention, honor, and conscious awareness through self sacrifice, and discipline without regret or remorse through these role models. The gifts that were shared can not be counted in “pieces of silver or gold,” but in character, values, respect and reverence for all life, gratitude, humility, wisdom, compassion and love. In a quote by Joseph Campbell, “Eternity is not the hereafter . . . this is it. If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere,” and my role models “consciously got it . . . and with intention, shared it.” Of course, there were times, I felt “alien” to what I observed or experienced, and slowly began to see . . . with the eyes behind my eyes, what living on “the active side of infinity,” as Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests, is living with purposeful intention. Life for me, as I grew from childhood through adolescence to “now,” has revealed that living with intention is a process I have lived with for longer than memory serves . . . I just wasn’t in tune with the music. Once I embraced what was already there, by reflecting back through the concious behavior of my role models in every moment of every day, I understood how intention was guiding me. As William Blake states so beautifully, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” Given this concept and knowing that intention connects with “source,” I know now . . . my father and mother continue to exist . . . ad infinitum. JLR
