Confessions

By ALUR

Confessions is a collection of riveting collection of twenty-four very poetically written personal essays and twenty poems, all inspired by a spirit guide who appeared to Alur.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ALUR
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465775528

ALUR

ALUR is a graduate of George Mason University. A single mother of three, she found a talent for writing after incurring several traumas that pushed her innate talent for story- telling to emerge. Her natural love for story telling about the altered side of life through fiction, non-fiction and poetry is brought to life in her work! Check out ALUR on facebook.com

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Confessions

the Smashwords Edition of

an ALUR publication

Copyright@2011 RULA

Smashwords License Notes

This book and or e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person to share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the same bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the authors' work.

Disclaimer

This is a work of a personal journey and the author's inspiration from recent travels. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All images, essays and poems are property of ALUR

Credits

Editing by Holly Russell and Bijan Bayne

Cover design by Holly Russell, [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Preface

Letters to a Shaman

Confessions of a Soul

The Intention

The Prince

Honor My Name

The House of Alur

Spirit’s Calling

Motherless

Damaged No More

Let There Be Light

The Rest of This Life:

Vatika: There Are No Coincidences

The Vampire’s Song

Open Letter to My Accusers:

Affirmations for a Better Today

Dancing With Diablo

The Samurai’s Sword of Love

The Poet’s Curse

Night Vision

Throne of Redemption

A Story

The Enigma of Love

The Passing

Prayers for the Earth: Poems

Three Sisters:

To Be:

It Simply Is:

The Ignorant:

Petals of Shame:

Red Rocks of Sedona:

The Prowess of a Panther:

Pagan Dance

Tomorrow’s Prayer

Pray for Me

The Stuff Life Is Made of:

Girls in Waiting

Me and You

The Room of Judgment

One of My Own

Ode to My Daughters

Worthy Scars

Truth: The Silent Witness

Statehood Denied

The Dandelion

Funny, Silly, Me

I’m Cool Like That

About the Author

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Confessions

Preface

This collection of essays, short stories and poetry is dedicated to the apparition that graced me with her presence in the circle of a decayed agave plant high on the mountains of the Red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.

Earlier this year, I set out on a mission for the purpose of self healing. I had a calling if you will, to immerse myself in the desert land of Sedona to rekindle a dying flame that had long burned out: my intent was to bury the debris and furor of the scorching wounds, inflicting harm on myself and others.

It is she that came forward with silk words of comfort, giving me the confidence and the fluidity to write and speak of ancestor’s past and those present that all have a story to tell or retell. It is evident in every word that I write whether in fiction, poetry or other prose that the gifts of my muses will follow me where I go; with wisdom she parted her lips that day on the mountains of a vortex unknown:

"Are you not aware of the grandeur of the gifts bestowed on you? You are a woman of spirit and sensuality, the prowess of a panther. The moon serves you as its lure opens your true essence: the seduction of a woman that dares to dream. You are of desert blood past and a golden lineage present. You are broken and have died to resurrect the authenticity of your true voice, giving honor to stories that will provoke thought and insight. This gift is rare and it is yours to share. I am with you always, my child. We all are."

Call it what you want, but I went on a mission to find magic and mysticism within myself, and with her as my guide I believe…

Ends

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Letters to a Shaman

Dear Shaman,

I have just begun my return to the place I once called home, yet I feel the place I am venturing back to is no longer my domain. I did not sleep again last night. I have lost count of the number of times the eyes shut, desperate for a moment’s peace, only to be haunted by the teasing mind. I fear this journey is incomplete without your shadow as my guide. The apprehensions are rising to the surface threatening to suffocate the breath of possibility I have just found.

There is a looming presence of doubt that will surely engage my soul, dismissing the mysticism as mere coincidence. I struggle now in hurried script, to capture the beauty of the experience before it dissipates into the faint mercury of the sky. I am weary of being entrenched in the tides of conformity upon my return. It is far too easy to melt into the status quo, than to stand against the waves of criticism. But life has never been easy for me; I suppose I will carry the stories and exchanges of the land I left behind regardless of what others will make of me.

How will I walk without my Shaman by my side? How selfish of me to call you mine, when you are a healer of the Earth and belong to all. How inane to imagine that I knew you in another life and was meant to dance in your circle at just the right time: where grief, loss and pain mirror our recent past.

But I am not ashamed.

It was you that taught me to shed the inhibitions of man’s dogma, accepting my inner light: illuminating a path for the unjust and the suffering. And so I don’t mind to claim you in spirit as part of my life. It is the way it is.

Simple. Beautiful. Pure.

In the short period of time we merged, a transformation occurred confirming all that I had innately known but feared to express was true. Who will I speak this foreign language to when I return?

There are few that will understand the lyricism of the melody that the winds sang for me. I heard them clearly whisper your name as I turned to greet you. All discourse disappeared for a moment when our eyes met. I would say I was insane, but I have been proven less feeble minded as of late, simply by watching those that walk as corpses of routine. Their placid smiles painted on with a fine brush of tradition.

Had it been another place or another time, I would surely not have met your eyes. I have trained the vessel that holds the truth to avoid giving permission for anyone to stare into my soul. Other than a glance, I have not vested my fragility in the arms of another. I am grateful for the presence of the red rocks of ancestors divine surrounding me these past few days so that I knew you.

I had known prior to my visit conjuring in my mind a warrior to come for me. Call it a premonition if you like, but I am complete, content and thankful to have not dismissed you.

Dear Shaman,

Is it true that you believe in all of your disciples? Of course I am calling them that, for you are too humble to post labels on anyone including yourself. I like that about you: an open window for fluid interpretation. I imagine you now standing on the mountain tops poised for the rampant energies from strangers, lovers, mourners and followers, all seeking your guidance as you commence yet another cleansing ceremony. Are they worthy of the ascent to the divine tops where the Native Indians still reside? All of them wanting to receive the message of a new dimension. Or perhaps, they carry with them the contaminants of the old paradigms, tainting sacred space. It is not for me to judge. I suppose I was one of those that followed behind, snapping photographs in a desperate

Reviews for Confessions

[alexanme-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Essential medieval/Christian philosophy.

[georgee53-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the great works in philosophy and religion.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Veelvormig: gedeeltelijk autobiografie, gedeeltelijk getuigenisliteratuur.Soms zeer moeilijk leesbaar, soms gewoon storend door zijn pathetiek en door het kinderachtige zondebesef.Geen regeling voor het probleem van het kwaad.Qua intellectueel is hij wel de eerste die in de buurt van Plato en Aristoteles komt, maar om een heel andere manier. Vooral literair wel onderdoend.

[sprite_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What can I even say about this book? I am standing too close to say anything sensible. Fortunately other people have written plenty of actual reviews.Memo to future me: the quote you're (I'm) usually looking for is book 10, chapter 36, first paragraph. "You know how greatly you have already changed me, you who first healed me from the passion for self-vindication, [...] you who subdued my pride by your fear and tamed my neck to your yoke? Now I bear that yoke, and it is light upon me, for this you have promised, and thus have you made it be. Truly, it was this but I did not know it when I was afraid to submit to it."

[deborahjade · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book has been one of the slowest reads so far this year and took around 41 days to finish. My main struggle was with the language the book was written it. The underlying story was interesting, but there were so many extra words around everything. Especially in the first books, Augustine is constantly referencing back and forward between the past and the present and the relationship between his past actions and God. He regrets choices and actions that he took, but acknowledges that God was present in them and worked through them.
The more I read, the more the underlying story of Augustine's journey became clear. It showed that his was a slow meandering journey to finding God.
His mother, Monnica, is one of the main characters in the book, who is constantly praying to God to save her son. And her prayer is answered before her death, albeit not by many years.
The last chapter ended by tying up the experience with an honest look at how Augustine was living in the present. He struggled with wanting to follow God in his heart, but also wanting to follow his own wills/passions. It is an encouraging insight into the life of such a well-known, influential Christian theologian and philosopher showing that he never attained perfection, but was reassuringly human.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Veelvormig: gedeeltelijk autobiografie, gedeeltelijk getuigenisliteratuur.Soms zeer moeilijk leesbaar, soms gewoon storend door zijn pathetiek en door het kinderachtige zondebesef.Geen regeling voor het probleem van het kwaad.Qua intellectueel is hij wel de eerste die in de buurt van Plato en Aristoteles komt, maar om een heel andere manier. Vooral literair wel onderdoend.

[quaintlittlehead · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The "Confessions" of Saint Augustine is a hard work to pin down--part conversion story, part apologetics text, part philosophical treatise, part Bible commentary. It is also a hard work to read. There are many points of interest within the text, but it is not something you just read straight through without a lot of stopping and thinking, and preferably some supplemental research. There were many times reading the book that I felt that my time would be better spent just reading hours of the Bible, and that I was trying to force myself to grapple with a seminary-level text without the prerequisite educational background. This is a vitally significant work in Christian history, to be sure; it lays out fundamental arguments against the Manichaeans, has been looked to by the Roman Catholic church in support of purgatory, and even influenced the philosophical writings of Descartes. However, this wide-ranging history is far beyond the scope of the book itself, and it almost needs its own commentary to be understood by the layperson. The Barnes and Noble edition contains a historical timeline, an introduction, endnotes, a brief essay on the Confessions' influence on later works (which I found to be the most helpful supplemental piece in the book and wish I had read it before the text), a selection of famous quotes responding to the text, and a few critical questions to consider in thinking about the work.

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Augustine's Confessions are his biography, and they contain a lot of his theological and philosophical thoughts, as well details of his surprisingly interesting life. He didn't become a Christian until later in life, first being a Manichean, an interesting gnostic religion which died out in the middle ages. He writes about the bad things he did, how he regrets them, and speculates on psychological reasons for human behavior.Augustine was fairly well educated, and the chapters where he muses over problems of time and memory are quite thought provoking. The book is notable for the frankness of the author, his perceptiveness, and his variety of internal struggles. The literary impact of this book has also been huge; as the reader progresses numerous phrases will stand out, either because they have entered the common idiom, or because there is something very poetical captured in them. This book is notable for so many reasons.

[andrewlovesoldbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Has been called the greatest autobiography of all time.Exceedingly eloquent; the entire book is a prayer which reflects on the author's life and the work of God's grace within it.

[maryh10000 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Actually brings up the idea that some parts of the bible are to be understood metaphorically, rather than literally. Including Genesis. I always have big trouble with the way Augustine just "sent away" his mistress when he converted. Lots of agonizing over how much it hurt him, but not much on how it affected her. Seems to me he should have married her.

[socialtrinity_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Chadwick's notes that accompany this version of Augustine's Confessions do the best job of understanding the deep Manichaean context of not only the book but Augustine's early (and, some would say, entire) intellectual life.

[nesum_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book that at once balances a true confession of a life without God with the awe and wonder of knowing and seeking the Almighty. Augustine masterfully recognizes God's hand in every part of his life, and he makes his reader want to seek that hand as well. A masterpiece in both a religious and literary sense.

[theologicaldan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely fantastic. I've read it several times and will wear it out eventually.l

[beau0p0laurence · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I profoundly disagree with Augustine's conceptualization of God/spirituality and truly wish he had kept his macho guilt to himself (our world would be so very different if he had). But his influence on Christian (and so U.S.) culture is undeniable, and so this is a good book to have read.

[lassiter_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If anyone struggles with desires within themselves and wonders why the struggle and if it can be overcome they need to read Confessions. The struggle has never changed and Augustine had to fight through his passions and his intellect to find trust and relief in Christ.

[agentjade · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Gorgeously written, though I suppose Latin generally translates into very lovely prose. I loved the introspective wanderings into the human consciousness, and recommend the book to anyone, especially one who puts the saints on an unattainable pedestal--the holy have never seemed so human.

[endersreads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is very dear to me. I read "Confessions" in a very difficult personal time and quickly became overwhelmed by Augustines sincerity, intellect, and love for The Immutable Light. Augustine presents us with a very interesting time period in as where Christianity and Roman Paganism lie in juxtaposition. Besides Augustine's personal confessions, I enjoyed his examination of Genesis and his hefty discourse on time, or perhaps I should say the lack of the past and future. Rather than prattle on in the present, which has become past, I will urge you, reader, to introduce yourself to an author you most assuredly will hold very close to your heart.

[audacity88_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Powerful in its honesty, but also hard for me as a nonbeliever to read. The constant reference to God occurs not on the scale of once every page, but more like every other sentence. The effect is to make me skeptical of even the best parts, such as the brilliant discussion of the nature of time and the excruciatingly honest effort to understand the theft of the pears, when they end up being folded into Augustine's religious narrative. Yet the passion of Augustine's thought and the force of his writing is impossible to deny and those insights that do hold relevance beyond the Christian are presented powerfully here.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A marvelous autobiography of a Church Father. How he coped with avoiding the "call" to God. He sought the truth in pganism, then Aristotelian philosophy, then Manichaeism. All the while relishing a sinner's life. Then he visited Milan, called upon Ambrose and began his conversion to Christianity. He portrays himself, warts and all, living with a mistress, his quest for easy living and money, only to be confronted by a voice telling him to read the Bible. It changes his life. He converts. He pursues Catholicism with devotion and eventually finds himself the Bishop of Hippo, ministering to the poor of all faiths. Quite a man.

[a1abwriter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the most excellent books I've every read. From start to finish I was captivated letter by letter, word by word and so on.You do not have to be a catholic, or even a christian to enjoy this mans tail of finding faith.

[jpsnow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What makes this such a popular testimonial and classic of Christian writing is the profound thinking he shares about the depth of his own spiritual life and his contemplation about creation and God. Most of the early chapters are about the wretchedness of his life and those of anyone before they find God. He starts at infancy and works his way through boyhood to the point where he was a young man of 30. Book 8, #13 includes a great description of his friend going to the gladiator events, intending not to watch but looking out of curiosity and becoming another bloodthirsty member of the crowd. St. Augustine's life was not that of a typical saint. After this passage: "my concubine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding," he took on another mistress and kept with him the son by the first. He refers to Epicurus, remarking that he would have believed were it not for the tenet that there is nothing after death. This metaphysical debate shows the type of thought process that Augustine had to endure to reconcile current philosophy with early Christian beliefs: " that the body of an elephant should contain more of Thee than that of a sparrow, by how much larger it is, and takes up more room." In Book 7 #7, Augustine begins contemplating the nature of evil and how it "crept" into being. Did God create it? Again, we see reason guiding his spiritual thinking. He talks about the astrologers and how he rejected them based on a story of two men born at the exact same time, one a slave and the other a prince. Despite identical stars, they led very different lives. Hee first encountered John 1:1 by acquiring it among some books recorded by the Platonists. The Platonic concept of duality is entwined through much of Augustine's thinking. He considers the passage "and the word was made flesh" and appreciates the implication. He thinks about the meaning of an "incorruptible substance" and the effect on that which it touches. Book IX, #20 relates the strength and admonishment of women Christians at the time, and how they placed value in hearing the scripture in the home as a way of controlling abusive husbands. Book IX, #33 is the moving passage about how he came to understand his mother's death and how it brought him closer to God. Book X is the single most important and profound part of the Confessions. Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the grace of baptism, in this section he admits what he then was. First, he inquires by what faculty we can know God at all, reasoning on the mystery of memory, wherein God, being made known, dwells undiscovered. Then he examines his own trials under the triple division of temptation, 'lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride.' The sins of the eyes is actually "curiosity." The sins of the flesh are all of those bodily pleasures and desires that take us away from the spiritual. Book X, #47: "Placed then amid these temptations, I strive daily against concupiscence in eating and drinking. For it is not of such nature, that I can settle on cutting it off once for all, and never touching it afterward, as I could of concubinage." Like many other great thinkers, Augustine considered the wonder of creation; in fact, just the nature of it alone to be proof of something greater than, i.e. God. There is much discussion about the nature of time, memory, the soul, and the how of God and man. In the closing books, he considers the immutable and eternal nature of God and the logical implication on creation, God's will, the past, the future, and the human frame of reference about these concepts.

[janemarieprice · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a master work of religious philosophy. This was one of the first things I read which made me understand religion in the deeper sense.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first two thirds of Confessions are largely autobiographical. There is a tendency to think of saints as having been not quite human. Readers who have that impression about Augustine will find themselves mistaken. Among his youthful indiscretions, Augustine recalls playing games with his schoolmates when they were supposed to be studying, disliking his Greek studies, and having a live-in girlfriend with whom he had a child. As a young man, Augustine raised many of the same questions about God and Christianity that are still raised today, such as the nature of God in the Old Testament and inconsistencies between science and the Bible. He describes his surroundings and his daily activities in enough detail that it provides a window into daily life in the Mediterranean world of the 4th century. After an account of his mother's death, the last third of the book shifts from autobiography to a blend of philosophy and theology. Augustine ponders the nature of memory and time, the mysteries of creation from the Genesis account, and an interpretation of the church through the lens of creation. This is heavy going. Readers more interested in history and biography than in philosophy and theology may choose to stop with chapter 9.

[george1295 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The son of a pagan father, who insisted on his education, and a Christian mother, who continued to pray for his salvation, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between the conflicting religions and philosophical world views of his time. His Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recount how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from the licentious lifestyle and vagaries of his youth, to become a staunch advocate of Christianity and one of its most influential thinkers, writers and advocates. A remarkably honest and revealing spiritual autobiography, the Confessions also address fundamental issues of Christian doctrine, and many of the prayers and meditations it includes are still an integral part of the practice of Christianity today.

[mbmackay · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Written in the 4th century by an early intellectual christian who is famous (to me anyway) for his prayer - "Lord grant me chastity, but not yet"!. The book is in the form of an autobiography, interspersed with lots and lots of beseeching of the lord. The biography is interesting, and all the beseeching has a strong echo in the formulaic rants of the TV preachers. The book ends with some ponderings - on memory, and on the creation. Augustine believes god made the world, but he has some interesting questions about exactly how this was done. I couldn't help wondering, if Augustine was alive now, when there are much better explanations, whether he wouldn't be in the Richard Dawkins' camp. Read February 2009

[elfortunawe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I began reading this once years ago, but it failed to engage me and I put it aside. When I started again I couldn't understand my previous lack of interest. The work ranges from philosophical speculation to personal memoir, and each kind has it's appeal. I was surprised by how must variety of belief and opinion late antiquity held on so many topics. Some of the debates and issues Augustine describes sound shockingly contemporary, though put in different terms. The passages covering Augustine's personal life can be poignant, especially those concerning death.

The scholarly consensus is that the Confessions was meant to be a preamble to a longer work: a detailed exegesis of the entirety of Christian scripture. The last three books cover the first chapter of Genesis, with careful attention given to an allegorical interpretation of the creation story. This is apparently as far Augustine ever got, thus adding to the long tradition of great, unfinished masterpieces.

[sedeara · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well, I'm finished with this book at last!I originally became interested in reading Confessions when I saw a special twelve years ago about the beginnings of Christianity, because I thought "Confessions" sounded like a juicy book. It's really not juicy at all, so it's a good thing I approached it interested in theology and not scandal by the time I finally got around to reading it. This time around, I mainly felt like it was important for me to read firsthand the philosophy that is so much a basis of Catholic thought.Like most books written in the middle ages, St. Augustine's would have benefited from a good editor. There were a lot of times where I felt he repeated himself, which is fine for a spiritual seeker's personal musings, but a bit annoying for an outside reader hundreds of years later. And even though he wrote his Confessions both to strengthen his understanding/relationship with God and to further the same for others, a lot of it really did feel like naval-gazing. Still, I found myself appreciating a LOT of Augustine's theology, such as his insistence that people could come to diverse interpretations of Scripture without any of them being "wrong" (take that, fundamentalists!). Indeed, Augustine's perception of Christianity seems a lot more open than the Catholic Church of today would lead you to believe, although the hierarchy HAS kept his puritan perceptions of sexuality fully intact. Thank God for that.

[femmebibliophile37 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really felt my soul physically grow as I read this book.

[steve777_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Timeless autobiography showing how the Spirit of Christ drew this Church father to Himself.

[davidpwithun_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every time I start to get a little down on St. Augustine -- what with his invention of some pretty deplorable doctrines (ie original sin) -- I need to reread his Confessions. In fact, everybody should read his Confessions. It is an absolutely beautiful book! St. Augustine pours out his soul before God and all the world -- confessing his sins and telling the story of how he came to Christ, watching for the subtle movement of the Holy Spirit in all things and seeing God's guiding hand behind every event in his life. It's not often that you get to watch a sinner become a saint (literally!) -- read it!