Starlette & Saint ~ A Memoir on Dualism

By Mae Edwards

Starlette & Saint ~ A Memoir on Dualism illustrates the journey from an ego based person to one who is spiritually centered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483514574

Book preview

Vol.III

(Starlette)

No Prayers Could Ever Save Me from the Love You Never Gave Me

Starlette

Each of the songs in this collection, illustrates the curse that comes for all of us who are self obsessed and self-absorbed. The ego/starlette, our primitive immature self, thrashes and sinks helplessly into the quicksand of need… need for external validation, need for external fame, need for external worship… an endless need to be well thought of in the eyes of others, stemming from the arcane reptilian brain’s need feed response. This primal structure may be how we react/act out when things don’t go our way boiling and fuming, hanging onto grudges, screaming and shouting or shutting down and going into self pity, self destruct/internal tantrum/passive aggressive punishment mode.

We don’t truly love the people around us - these external validators. We don’t care about them or their well-being. They are just there to facilitate our endless need to be seen. Some of us are clowns to gain attention and approval. Some of us workaholics, creating accomplishments that elevate us in stature above others. Some of us groom and enhance our appearance to seduce others and become promiscuous for validation. Some of us use our intelligence to feign expert status and superiority. But whatever the poison we’re swallowing, there is a needful hunger to place ourselves in the spotlight of our demented thoughts. We feverishly strive to control outcomes of unhealthy drama, that is real only in the effect of magnifying our narcissism. We inundate ourselves with distraction. We chase away all moments of stillness and self-reflection, for any pain at all is intolerable; for in our naissance, we lack the maturity to endure discomfort. So in truth, we are not able or equipped to crawl out of our cyclic mess. Existence in this consciousness is nastily habitual and like any habit or addiction takes resolve to even see, let alone change. These songs capture my saddest years in this realm of No Prayers Could Ever Save Me from the Love You Never Gave Me. I appreciate every note that wrote me out of those days but yet still pause to admire the process.

No Prayers Could Ever Save Me

from the Love You Never Gave Me

Die for Love

Rumors Will Fly

Sandpipers

Anything Anymore

I Believe You

Mercy from the Angels Above

Blood Into Wine

Ghost of a Woman

Airport Rain

Headed for a Fall

Winding Road

Starlette/Song 1Realm: Hell/Naraka

Die For Love

I wrote in my dream journal three consecutive nights about a reoccurring nightmare … where I hijacked an old frigate and in a demonstration of rage, sailed that broken vessel directly into the center of the most epic hurricane. I decided that maybe writing a song with this metaphor would exorcise whatever my subconscious wanted to communicate. And gratefully for me, that story ended its run in my dream theater.

The lore of a ship lost at sea, broken in the most tumultuous of storms is the backdrop of Die for Love. With all my romantic chips riding on another, I embarked on a misadventure. My generosity wished a connection to one who invested nothing in me. My expectation on the other to do the right thing was cruelly rewarded with my metaphorical death at the bottom of the deep blue sea. In hindsight, I realized I wove a stream of glowering self-deprecating sarcasm into every line of this lyric, suggesting that I knew all along, I was clearly the only one in error.

Dr. Brian Weiss in Many Lives Many Masters speaks of ascended masters regarding the human journey as one that is well respected in the spirit world. Earth or The Mill, as some spiritual masters refer to it, holds revered, profound powers of learning and transformation. In the Holy Bible, 2 Corinthians, there is a verse from the polarizing Apostle Paul that speaks to this song’s plot. Though he was the author of letters containing remarkable treasured beauty, he also penned much intolerant judgment and harsh sentiment that was arguably tainted with human anger rather than blessed with God’s Forgiving Compassionate Love. The venomous excerpts of Paul’s words have been frequently used by pastors to condemn others, recklessly applying the same fear based intolerance and judgment Paul was feeling for the specific events and people of Corinth to situations perhaps far removed from civilizations thousands of years apart. Paul thought, among so many of his life’s bitter reactions, women should never speak in church and for such remarks of exclusion, I can see his energy was constrictive and segregating and extremely different from that of Jesus’. But that is by the by. Accepting the helpful aspects of Paul’s psyche, I have been moved by many of his works, our scholars past and present have seen fit to include in the Bible. In this part of Paul’s life, in Corinth, he offers this warning letter as a defense to the attacks of the dubious Corinthians. It encapsulates Die For Love in its grimness.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English 2 Corinthians verse 11

Verse 25 Three times I have been scourged with rods, three times I have been shipwrecked, a day and a night I have been in the sea without a ship.

So my journey kicks off, here at the precipice of my soul’s first step off the cliff of the known, I begin the quest to end the rule of that false queen lording over me, aka as my ego/the devil/whatever name you want to give the naysayer, drama maker, tormenter, liar self/other hater. That beloved first step is made by being open to the concept that every single thing I see or think is only what I make it. I imbue the world with my own emotionally charged preconceived notions. They are as false as I am certain they’re absolutely true. A quiet tree lined winding road may remind me of the road on which my brother had his fatal car accident and fill my heart with sadness. That same road may remind another of her happiest day, when she and her love rode bikes to a picnic and became engaged. The road is neutral. I assign it either loving or fearful thoughts.

I decide subconsciously to either delight or trouble my heart with my preconceptions.

Learning to distance myself from my thoughts; to become an observer of those thoughts, is to take my first step to true sanity, towards the foothills up to the path of wisdom.

A Course in Miracles

Lesson 1: Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

Die for Love

Words and music by Mae Edwards ©

Intro:      Dm7

Dm7

Swollen full wind tearing at my sails

Lost at sea out of reach

If I lose my grip and slip over the rails

I’ll wash up with the seaweed on the beach

Cast my compass cast my charts

Over the starboard lip

There are no navigational arts

To guide a sinking ship

Dm7 Bbmaj7

What else am I left to do?

Bm7b5 Bbmaj7 Am7

It pains me so greatly to always dream of you

Dm7        Bbmaj7

In the chaos of the sirens calling

Bm7b5Bbmaj7Am7

And the tempest fury, And the cloudburts falling

Dm /Db /C /Bb Bm7b5

I died   for love

Am7 Dm7 G7/D Dm7 G7/D

For the illusion … of your love

Dm7

Tell me true

G7/D Dm7 G7/D

Would you die for my love like I did for you?

Dm7

Tell me was it proof enough

Bbmaj7

To show what you meant to me

Dm7

Should it be that I die for love

A/C# Ab/C G/B Bbm

In the arms of the deep blue sea

Na Na’s: Dm7 Bbmaj7 Bm7b5 Bbmaj7 Am7 ||: Dm7 :||

Dm7

Throw your letters and your photographs to the wind

And I’m watching how they scatter

Should I care about what could have been

Or does it really matter?

Then I heard the rigging snap and the masthead break

A wall of water crashed all around

Dear God this is the last breath I’m going to take

I’ve choked on the tears of loving you until I drowned

Dm7 Bbmaj7

What else am I left to do?

Bm7b5 Bbmaj7Am7

It pains me so greatly to always dream of you

Dm7 Bbmaj7

In the chaos of the sirens calling

Bm7b5Bbmaj7Am7

And the tempest fury, And the cloudburts falling

Dm/Db/C/Bb Bm7b5

I died for love

Am7 Dm7G7/DDm7G7/D

For the illusion … of your love

Dm7

Tell me true

G7/D Dm7 G7/D

Would you die for my love like I did for you?

Dm7

Tell me was it proof enough

Bbmaj7

To show what you meant to me

Dm7

Should it be that I die for love

A/C# Ab/C G/B Bbm

In the arms of the deep blue sea

Na Na’s: Dm7 Bbmaj7 Bm7b5 Bbmaj7 Am7 Dm

Starlette/Song 2 Realm: Hell/Naraka

Rumors Will Fly

I wrote this song as an admonition to myself, with the moral of the story: be careful what you’re willing to trade or sacrifice in order to be loved. It is a study of extrinsic reaching for outward approval rather than the intrinsic gift of self-love. The wishing well is for me the sad exchange, where usually one offers the mystical well a coin and in return a desire is granted. Here, I naïvely give my song to the wind, my blood to the earth and to bitter ends. I sacrifice my life’s breath for another’s acceptance, only to surmise I am as invisible as a ghost, merely the faint passing ignorable melody of a lonely song bird. Like the Mark Twain quote, Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it, I knew of my goodness, only when used and discarded by others. For me the lyric, No Prayers Could Ever Save Me from the Love You Never Gave Me is the most complete encapsulation of all the suffering in our world. Somewhere in us, the not being loved, seen and respected just as we are - fuels the hurt and anger that drives us to drink, to use, to abuse, to overwork, to over achieve, to cut off and harden our walls, to isolate, to spin, to fear, to fight and to grieve. The opposite of this however -- the unconditional friendliness, forgiveness and gentleness I learned to provide for myself – that maitri was my key to unlock the real ability to love and be loved.

Maitri (unconditional friendliness) came to me from reading the Buddhist teachings from Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche through his disciple Pema Chodron. Being a believer in Christ’s teachings, I looked for the similarities between the two. I remembered Jesus saying love your neighbor as you love yourself and it gave me great pause, for not every person loves him or her self. Perhaps culturally at that time, it was presumed for survival’s sake that one puts one’s own needs forefront. But in our time, I know so many of us believe pessimistically about the self, almost as if there was an epidemic of self loathing. So maitri comes into the picture to help us realize how to slow down with our self judgment, our self condemnation and learn instead to sit with our feelings and be gentle with our own wounds. A great deal of patience with our internal progress allows less and less room for our subconscious and our ego to beat us down with the criticism perhaps we first heard and learned from our parents. Sitting with one’s self and reflecting on how we did the best we could at the time and to smile at our efforts, the way we longed to be smiled at when we were children is the start of this friendliness with self. Self-encouragement, unconditional self-approval, regardless of what occurred is paramount to inner peace.

In A Course in Miracles (ACIM), there are many discussions about the ego and the insanity in which it operates. One of the ways our inner saboteur derails our inner peace is the thought: seek but do not find. The healing can begin with the ACIM text which shares, Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from the futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? [T573]

Rumors Will Fly

Words and music by Mae Edwards ©

E Esus

Rumors would fly, but you never can tell

E

When I saw you standing by the Wishing Well

A

I knew from that moment, I knew from the start