PERFECTION
POSTED BY BEVERLEE, Saturday, November 07, 2009
This video brought me wave after wave of goosebumps and tears streaming down my face. Perfection and beauty are my gods...and this performance exquisitely combined the two. In addition, I've always adored Ravel's "Boléro" and I have made a few interesting moves of my own to its sensuous cadences! (I hope you have , too?) Perhaps it is those memories that brought tears to my eyes as I watched and listened to this video. This link may interest you with regard to Boléro.
One of my greatest regrets at this late stage in my life's story is that, although I very early on wished to, I did not have the opportunity to develop a musical talent of my own; however, I do, perhaps for that very reason, cherish my intense enjoyment of the magical musical gifts of others.
RANDOM THOUGHTS ON LOVE, MARRIAGE AND KARMA
POSTED BY BEVERLEE, Friday, November 06, 2009
I have discussed previously the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt citing the difficulties symbolized by their respective Book of Destiny Birth Cards I’ve recently finished reading “Eleanor and Franklin" by Joseph P. Lash and “No Ordinary Time” their biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Both biographers portray the Roosevelt marriage as extremely complicated. Although their marriage started out with such high expectations by both of them, there were tortuous ups and downs all along the way.
Reading about their marriage reminded me of a movie I saw when I was in college: “The Four Poster”, starring Rex Harrison and his wife Lilli Palmer. Adapted from the prize-winning Broadway play that featured two people and a four-poster bed, in which the couple enacts their marriage, from its first day until he dies, some time after she has died. It is the story of a "love" that endured wars, an "other" woman, and the death of their favorite son. My husband (my fiancé at the time) and I, while students at Kansas University, went into Lawrence to see this movie one Saturday night. I vividly remember being so profoundly affected and upset by this love story that I cried…no, actually sobbed, all the way back to campus on the bus!
The movie eerily parallels the real life love story of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. And, much like Eleanor, I was so idealistic about marriage, so full of illusions about what marriage was like, that I was heart-broken by the “reality”—the ups and downs, the struggles interspersed with the joy of marriage as portrayed in the movie. And yet, just as in the Roosevelts’ marriage, my own marriage of over 55 years has enjoyed both blissful moments as well as having survived times of great pain and despair.
While I am far from being in full agreement with everything she believed in and stood for, I nevertheless have great admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt because she rose above her innate shyness to perform feats of accomplishment for the under-privileged of our country—feats unparalleled by any other First Lady. And frankly, I think her accomplishments exceeded those of her husband.
So I thought it would be interesting to look at Eleanor Roosevelt’s Vedic Chart to see what it has to say about her. Truth to tell, I was amazed by how accurately this ancient astrological art portrays her personality and her life’s accomplish-ments. Based on her Western Horoscope, with her Mercury—thinking and communicating abilities, conjunct Uranus—the revolutionary breakthrough planet, I already knew that she was a person of extremely great intelligence, a factor which helped her guide her husband, who was blessed with charisma…to legislate some of her revolutionary concepts into reality. And this is precisely what her Vedic Chart confirms about her contribution to society and her destiny. It even details the struggle she had with depression throughout her life.
I enjoy reading about the Roosevelts even though their liberal Democrat political persuasion was the exact opposite of my own conservative Republican turn of mind. Perhaps it's because I grew up in Duchess County, New York, where FDR was born, lived and is buried. So every time I read about his ritual of beginning his various political campaigns in front of the Nelson House in Poughkeepsie, I smile, because during World War II my mother, Ferne Andrews, was a commentator at radio station WKIP, situated directly behind the Nelson House. Many's the time I have walked past that building to visit my mother at the radio studio. In fact, she once interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt there. Here is a picture of my mother with Mrs. Roosevelt and her associates. My mother is the lady with glasses standing behind Mrs. Roosevelt.
