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MP3 Barbara J Hunt - Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented & Fabulous
1 MP3 Songs in this album (3:12) !
Related styles: SPIRITUAL: Inspirational, FOLK: like Joni
People who are interested in Joni Mitchell Sarah McLachlan Eva Cassidy should consider this download.
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BRILLIANT, GORGEOUS, TALENTED & FABULOUS
What’s curious is that it felt as though I was “told” to write this song by some inner prompting – really very little to do with me!
I had known the inspiring Marianne Williamson quote for years:
““Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won''t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It''s not just in some of us; it''s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
It’s often accredited to Nelson Mandela – the legend has it that he used it in his inaugural speech. He didn’t; in fact, it’s from Marianne Willaimson’s book, “A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles”, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).
The good thing about the Nelson Mandela legend is that the message got passed all around the world and had the potential to draw more people to Marianne’s work and the unique, foundational spiritual text she was reflecting upon: “A Course In Miracles”.
Now Marianne is regularly featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Spiritual pages of her website, currently releasing daily podcasts of a “Miracle Thought”. Marianne travels the world speaking and lecturing and continues to write inspirational books, the latest of which is: "The Age of Miracles" now out in paperback.
So my relationship with the song is that I was “told” to set this quote to music.
I used the chords from a song I had previously been working on, which was inspired by the mathematical cosmologist, Brian Swimme (who has a poet’s heart) and who was suggesting in a lecture I had been watching that the single critical factor, now, in whether or not a particular species survives is directly dependent upon its relationship with human beings. That means that the “survival of the fittest” is no longer the critical factor. This also means that as human stewards of our beautiful planet and all its flora and fauna, we have an awesome responsibility. Taking this even further and asking – what if everything had the right to be here? - the idea for the song grew into: “What if the water had a right to be clear, what if the air had a right to be pure and every living creature on the face of this Earth had the right to be here…?” But I got stuck imagining the court cases and didn’t really know how to develop it, so I had some chords “spare”..
Fortunately, Marianne’s words have a natural lyricism to them which meant that I could keep as much of the quote exactly the same as the original, and only needed to omit a couple of words to make it scan properly. I fiddled around for a while putting the chords and the words together in a way that sung fluidly and then I sewed together a little chorus and a simple refrain to give space to allow the words to settle – and it was done.
I like the fact that the song has a connection with the Planet through the chords because even though we are all “Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented and Fabulous” that doesn’t excuse us from making intelligent, conscious choices about how we live together and with all the other expressions of Life on Earth.
I think the only danger with only half-listening to the words is we could erroneously imagine that acknowledging ourselves for the wonderful, unique human beings that we are is another way of indulging our narcissistic self-infatuation. The important message is that “…we are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us….” which means that at our most brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous qualities are really qualities of the Divine made manifest through each of us. Also, our deepest selves are really just reflections of the ONE SELF and so therefore “…it’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone, everyone, everyone…” (We could even go so far as to say “everything”..!)
Letting our “own light shine” is really the light of the Authentic Self, uniquely expressed through each of us, and once we can begin to act beyond the individual needs of our own egos, we can make better choices that serve not only ourselves, but also each other; all our fellow human beings - beyond our immediate circles, areas or countries, and respect and take care of everything else that is also expressing its unique miraculous form on this incredible planet – including the water, the land and the air.
As Carl Sagan said in a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996; giving his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the famous photograph “A Pale Blue Dot” that shows the world as a tiny, tiny pale blue dot held in a shaft of sunlight suspended in the vast, dark emptiness of the universe…
“Look again at that dot. That''s here. That''s home. That''s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we''ve ever known.”
If we could just remember that the whole of evolution 14 billion years of Being has resulted in this moment, right now – this is the very edge of the “time” dimension of the universe. And we have been “given” the responsibility of free choice – so how will we choose to be????
Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented & Fabulous?
Go on…..! Shine on….!
One Love
Barbara xxx
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