Love lies in Service

Only that which is done,

Not for fame or for name,

And

Not for appreciation or for thanks

Is Love’s Service.

IntimART

IntimART



StoreHouse of Ihoha

Now open to serve the endearing You.



(ART: The Offering by McCray)

All Aboard!

 
 

Platform for the Quest

Astrophysics would seem to be approaching the ancient view, that of the constant coming into being and disappearance into rest of numberless universes within the field of the infinite. This field is pervaded by consciousness so that, as the philosophers of all time have said, Divinity is like an infinite circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. This implies that every minuscule particle and the most gigantic conglomeration of heavenly bodies are equally permeated with a divine quality, with consciousness. From such a source comes the vitalism, the dynamic drive to growth, the constant emergence out of the unfathomable potential resources of Space, of new qualities, refinement after refinement of spirit and matter.

Here is where we must search out the reason for existence, the meaning of life and its manifold productivity. The urge is toward ever more unfoldment from some center within each entity, of the limitless latent possibilities awaiting the conditions and the opportunities for expression. There is nothing haphazard when the sequence of cause and effect is inescapable. The encouraging feature is that the growth and unfoldment of finer and yet finer faculties are constant and unending.
--I M. Oderberg, Mind and Spacetime

Affirmation

 

I affirm my independence from
superstition and ignorance.  
Divine intelligence is guiding me.  
I accept this guidance
as now flowing forth
into action through me.
Therefore
I shall do that
which I should do,
I shall know that
which I need to know,
I shall encounter those new ideas I need.
With nonresistance
and complete acceptance,
I let the inward stream of life carry me.  
Every good I have experienced is
now increased.
Every joy that has come into my life is
multiplied, and
there is a new influx of inspiration into my thought.
And so it is.

Freedom

Diva

To all Would-be Divas and Divas-in-Training

Before you jump to claim your position in the list of women who have either called themselves or been labeled by others “Diva,” let us define the title:

Diva:  (fr. Latin divus, god – fr. Italian) an operatic prima donna; the lead female performer in an operatic company described as being temperamental and conceited (Italian, “first lady”).

Now then, how many of you are left?  I thought so.  Not many when we really take the intended definition and superimpose that onto ourselves.  How many tempermental, conceited first ladies could the world take?  But there is a “lady” who has been labeled a “diva” by many people in many articles, magazines, and reports.  You and I know her as Candi Staton

The story of Candi Staton is more closely that of what one reporter called a soul survivor.  As it would appear that the hounds of hell were on Candi’s heels as she traveled through life.  But, she refused to let them catch her.  Born Canzata Maria Staton in Hanceville, Alabama, in 1943, Staton grew up helping her parents pick cotton and tending to the chickens.  

Candi sings soul, pure, clear, soul but it is her gospel numbers that are making the charts "because, really, soul music is born of gospel." And Candi Staton knows about gospel because she started singing at four years of age in the local church with her six-year-old sister and two other little girls, standing on chairs so the congregation could see them.  Her first solo was at age five.  As the years passed, Candi’s voice grew as well.  She and her sister, Maggie, attended Jewel Christian Academy in Nashville, Tennessee.  While attending, she and Maggie were asked to join another young singer, Naomi Harrison, and form the Jewel Gospel Trio.  "I was 11 or 12 when I came to the Jewel Christian Academy," Staton recalled in a 1997 interview with The Tennessean.  The Trio enjoyed relative success on the gospel circuit, touring with future gospel, r&b and soul luminaries Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers, plus recording singles such as "Jesus Is Listening" and "Too Late" for Nashboro Records.

"The crowds would get very emotional," Staton recalls.  "At the time, I didn't really know why they were crying. Once, I remember, the audience got so emotional, they started throwing their pocket books at my feet and so on, that I got really scared and ran off to my mother."

Though Staton was performing gospel music, its reported that she was not treated with much "Christian charity" within the music industry, rarely being paid for her performances and often having to rely on the compassion of more senior members of the traveling ensemble to get by.  When Staton turned 17, she left show business for a relationship with Lou Rawls; but the relationship did not last long and Staton soon married another man and had three more children.  But this relationship too ended when Staton could take no more of her spouse's violence.  Having witnessed the rise of her fellow gospel circuit performers, Candi (who had been out of the music scene for some seven years) decided to return performing at local clubs.  It was at one such performance that Staton met soulster Clarence Carter who she later married and later obtained a contract with Fame Records.  
Staton described her third husband, Jimmy, in an interview in 1999 as "a pimp and a hustler.  It was the worst mistake I ever made in my whole life…he was a big cocaine user and carried a gun. I was often frightened that he would kill me."  Though Staton's career was riding high, her troubled love life and a growing dependency on alcohol threatened to ruin everything.  "Alcohol became my husband, my lover, my kids, my comforter, my god.  I worshipped alcohol.  I couldn't get up in the morning with out a drink," she admitted in her interview with The Tennessean.  
A fourth marriage—this time to Diana Ross’ drummer, John Susswell—seemed to be the straw that would break the camel's back.  Himself, a serious cocaine user, it seemed unlikely that Susswell would be able to provide the stability that Staton so badly needed in her life.  The two, however, were able to turn their lives around, abandoning their respective addictions, and re-dedicating their lives to their religion.  The pair became pastors at an Atlanta Church and, to reflect her recent lifestyle change, Staton stopped singing "secular" music in 1982.
Having come full circle, Staton threw herself into gospel music and managed to rekindle the magic she'd created as a young gospel sensation.  "I've always liked to be real," Staton explained to Jet magazine in 1997.  "When I was singing the blues, I had the blues.  I was for real.  I was living it.  When I got saved, I changed my lyrics.  I grew up in the church and returned to my roots.”  In 1986, she began hosting a cable program called Say Yes! which focused on ministering to at-risk youth.  "What I'm trying to do is offer inspiration message music because we've let rap go too far with its message," Staton explained in The Atlanta Journal, "we need songs like 'respect yourself' out there, for the children."
In 1991, however, Staton was thrust back into the international spotlight as a remix of a bootleg recording she'd done five years earlier ("you got the love") found its way to the dance floor.  Interest in Candi’s  "secular" music was re-ignited by the single and a biography of her life entitled This is My Story was published in 1994.  
In 1997, "You Got the Love" was remixed, again—this time by the source—and made its way to #1 on British dance and pop charts.  In response to the positive reception her club hits were garnering, Staton released her first non-gospel album in 17 years in 1999.  Entitled Outside In, the album —which billboard magazine proclaimed, "brightly shines the spotlight on one of club land’s most soulful singers"—is both radio and club friendly yet without breaking her commitment to herself to only record music with a positive message.  Former label, Warner Brothers, is reported to also have capitalized on Staton's recent boon, with the release of a compilation of many of her long out-of-print classic recordings.
Having suffered through trials and tribulations rivaled only, perhaps, by those of Tina Turner, and Etta James, Staton has recreated herself as often as needs be, each time successfully overcoming new challenges and winning legions of new fans.  With a voice that spans genres from soul to dance to gospel, Candi Staton is truly one of music's most lasting treasures.  She sums up her philosophy on life by saying, "I had a praying mother. She instilled strength in me. If you fall, get up, brush yourself off and keep moving.  Don't wallow.  You have to get up and sometimes go against the wind. You can't always go with the flow and succeed…you have to swim upstream."

With the year’s end in sight and the holidays fast approaching, stories like this – about real people -- keep me pushing on through disappointments and on pass what appear to be failures.  Because overcoming these "soul surviving" struggles does not a ‘Diva’ make.  That level of intense pressure creates Diamonds.  Greatness is recognized after victory discovers that she can rise up from under the pressure of defeat.  If we strive to be something more than a survivor – let not the goal of that striving be temperamental conceit.  But like Ms. Staton, living her soul's desire emiting a persistent light that refuses to be extinguished.

On Soul-Patrol.com, I found the title for Ms. Staton which bears more honor: Queen of Southern Soul. Candi, Blessings on your life and your work.  You are loved.



(Photo: Photographer Not known)