Last week in her church service (which gets broadcast around the world on the Internet) the Missus performed a new song fresh off the presses.  It has received tremendous feedback, the kind of response that makes all the blood, sweat and tears of this industry totally worth all the effort.  I’ll have to admit that we were not prepared for this response.  Who knew that this national occurrence would come?

Julia Wade (The Missus) chose the song to fit the sermon of that particular Sunday over a month ago, but it turned out to be the right panacea for the moment.  The trouble is, it is a new song that she has been working on for her new forthcoming CD, Silk Road, due to be released this coming Christmas season.  We have no single completed; we have no sheet music to sell – yet.

So we’re going to rush this one out to you ahead of its time.  We’ll release it as a single and its sheet music in the next couple of weeks.  I guess it’s just a song that demanded its own time – not on my schedule or Julia’s, but on its own schedule.   Like a baby who comes early – once it’s born, you simply have to stop all else and deal with it no matter what.

Here are only a few of the comments that we’ve received:

“We had the great good fortune to hear you perform “Even Now” in the Mother Church last Sunday.  We were traveling and just happened to be there in Boston. We both wept, it was SO gorgeous… even my husband cried — who is a Methodist!

Is there a recording of that song available?  My husband is an accomplished guitarist and he loved the guitar music so much too. Of course your singing was a gift!

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful singing with all of us.  We will never forget how special that was!” –Carolyn

“Thank you Julia and Peter for your loving support.  That new solo is so right for what we’re going through… It was as though you were singing to us!

Thank you.  And thank you, Peter.  Deepfelt message.

And we’ve already heard from family in South Africa who listened and loved the Internet relay.

Your support means so much to us.” -Love, K.

In the meantime, here’s the lyric to tide you over…

Even Now
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

Even now
The sun will rise
The morning come
The day begin
Even now
When all seems lost
And darkness falls over all
Even now
God’s watching over you
Here in the dawn’s first light

At every turn
In every need
With every breath you take

Even now
With cross to bear
He’s always there
In simple truth
Even now
With heavy heart
His love will lighten your way
Even now
He soothes the salted wound
And eases your troubled mind

At every turn
In every need
With every breath you take

God loves you
Hallelujah
God frees you
Hallelujah

Even now
With broken dreams
And weary soul
He’ll carry you
Even now
When all has failed
And mountains are in your way
Even now
He stands a sentinel
The shepherd of all you do

Your every turn
Your every prayer
And every move you make

Your every turn
Your every need
And every breath you take

God loves you
Remember these words that I sing
God loves you
God frees you
Hallelujah

Even More Inspiration

• Wonderful
• You Must Remember This!
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• My Body
• Nothing
• Spiritual Scientist

Why?  Like I said, the problem is complex.  File sharing does not help.  The fact that many now find their music free and accessible on the Internet at any time and immediately also is huge.  Sometimes I think people are just too busy to listen these days and when they can, there are a myriad free ways to do so and access what they’re looking for.

So we’re all looking at alternate ways of doing business.  At Watchfire Music we are shifting more towards being a digital sheet music company and producer of ancillary music events.  Hence the WFM Listening Room and the WFM Learning Lab.

It’s a changing time and we’re having to change with it – whether we like it or not.

These changes have required wholesale changes within the company.  Focus, leadership, staffing, direction and the day-to-day implementation of just about everything we do has come under careful scrutiny as we fight to survive in a world of evolution.

So what it has meant to me, personally, is really a doubling of the basic work ethic at a time when we were already maxed out and maxing out our wondrous staff.  On top of that, less sales equals less staff, so for many of us our work-load has doubled and tripled as staffing has diminished.  Sleep becomes a thing of the past, people are more stressed, more fearful about their jobs, and the management of company morale becomes just one more issue to contend with daily.

Fortunately, we here at WFM do this because we love it and deeply respect the endeavor of inspiring minds and hearts.  Also your daily letters and notes of gratitude and praise are always a great lift.  That’s one of the great things about show business – there’s often applause.  Sometimes the applause is enough.  Sometimes ya’ gotta eat.

So we plow on.  Oh we sell recorded music, but not nearly on the level that we once expected and not nearly as much as we did just 5 years ago.

I don’t believe it’s our product.  We get letters every day from inspired buyers gushing their gratitude for our inspired words and musical notes.  I will tell you that every CD that we sell has inspired yours truly at one time or another and I keep going back to this music for more.  That’s why, as Creative Director of WFM, I picked it up in the first place.  The music is Inspirational.

So we plow on.  I know I already said that, but it’s what we do.  We come into a mountain of work each day and just plow through it.  I’m sure you do too in your endeavors.

I get asked about once a week, “How do you manage to accomplish so much?”  The answer is simple: hard work.  Hard work and a great dose of creative fulfillment.  We all get great joy out of what we do.  We work together well in a happy environment.  We feed our staff great healthy snacks all day long and keep their tummies happy.  We praise them for every little thing they do that adds to the effectiveness of WFM and we all do the grunt work.  There are no prima donnas in this company.  We all work together and get it done.

I just love our staff.  Most of us are spread around the country and work from home.  We communicate on the phone, through Google lists and email and the separation occasionally has its drawbacks, but basically works well.

Most of all, we try to run our business in a non-emotional environment of mutual support.  We work with a lot of artistic people and world belief is that these kinds of people can be highly emotional.  It comes with the territory.  But we try to diffuse that emotion early, stay away from the stress and offer a happy, quiet workplace that is conducive to concentration.

We set goals daily and expect everyone to fulfill those goals and work along side of them to make sure that it happens effectively.  Fortunately we’re still a small company and can do that.  It’s gotta be tougher as you get bigger.  I look forward to that challenge.

In short, we’re getting’ it done. We fall behind.  We catch up.  We work overtime to do so.  Just like the rest of the world.  Every day we turn out something new – something a little different.  We get off on the creativity.  Just yesterday our site manager, Craig Wagner, designed a new and innovative flyer (entitled New! New! New!).  When we first saw it, we all stopped our work and celebrated his creativity in the kitchen, ate some of my toasted, buttered, salted cashews, drank some Pepsi and then went back to work.  A happy family.

We celebrated Craig and his infinite creativity.  He was one of us — even though he was down in South Carolina.  He was Watchfire.

Today we pull off Show #4 of Series II of the WFM Listening Room – Julia Wade and Jimmy Roberts.  We’re inches away from selling out!  Bigger crowds mean more work.  But this will be a show to remember.  Jimmy’s a real pro and Julia’s debuting her new title song from her next CD, Silk Road.  It’ll be a night to remember.

‘Scuse me, I gotta get to work…

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Looking Back on 2010
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• It’s A Small World And Gettin’ Smaller n’ Smaller
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• WFM Listening Room Series II – 2

The creation of the Watchfire Music Collection – thematic compilation CDs featuring the best music of Watchfire Music artists.

Send To A Friend – Send the gift of music to a friend along with a personalized seasonal gift card.  It’s easy and quick!

Catch up on Sparks From The Fire – monthly fliers featuring the best of posts from the past month.  Easy to follow and comprehensive.

Accompaniment tracks from our DSM division for vocalists everywhere.

Solo Thoughts 2.0 — a superb resource tool for all soloists, music committees, and musicians in Christian Science Churches.

Solo Treasures – a comprehensive list of classic and out-of-print solos that may be in your church music library.

WFM Radio — choose from a growing list of 2 hour music programs featuring ?the best of our Watchfire Music artists.

The beginning of a comprehensive Choir Music catalogue from our DSM composers.

Fascinating Interviews from Julia Wade’s blog, Inspiratus, featuring many of our DSM composers.

New artists Désirée Goyette, Roger Brainard, Rod Kinny, Serah, and Charles Owens II and new CDs from Chieli Minucci, Branice Mckenzie, Julia Wade, Jenny Burton, and Brad Ross.

New Composers Andrew D. Brewis, Peter B. Allen, Désirée Goyette, Rebecca Minor, John William Gordon, and new titles from Carolyn Kardinal, Pressman and Ponzek, Peter Link, Greg Granoff, The Solo Committee, Deborah Offenhauser, and Kevin Cox among others.

The Watchfire Music Listening Room – highly successful NYC concert series led by Julia Wade and featuring Watchfire Music artists and top NYC music acts working in all genres!

Organ and piano scores for your church services from WFM composers.

WFM artist participation in A Million Minutes for Peace, Jenny Burton’s moving tribute singing “The Prayer of St Francis”.

Watchfire Music’s Inspirational Music Library for Film, Television and Advertising!  Listen to samples from thousands of the best inspirational songs available for licensing.

And lastly, we’d like to thank you, our customers, for making the 4^th quarter of 2010 the best quarter in terms of sales in the history of the company.

It’s going to be a Happy New Year!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Gettin’ It Done
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• Phoenix Rising
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Love Is The Reason For Living

It’s a busy time.  Spent the weekend in the studio working on two projects.  Will spend today, the day after Valentines Day, celebrating 14 year anniversary with the Missus.  I’ll actually take the day off.

The rest of the winter months and spring are loaded with music projects for Watchfire Music – so many that I must get better organized and get my arms around them all.  Here’s a list:

• Just finished master of “Broken Feet” for Megan Neale, new super talented artist we’re developing.  At 21 she’s already getting on top of the recording process and making some fascinating headway on the road to success.  

• Pretty much finished up the track of “Woman On A Train” for artist Julia Wade’s new CD.  This one was a bear.  It took me several days to nail down the concept of the orchestration.  Such a different song for Julia and consequently a special challenge for me.  Love it though…

• Again, pretty much finished the new track for John Lennon’s classic song “Imagine” for Matthew Hoffman and his Laws 2 Live By project.  This great song is the perfect reflection of the first commandment.  We’ll do it with a gospel choir and though Lennon originally wrote it as a ballad, it works wonderfully well with its new smokin’ track.  Reminds me of “We Are The World”.

• We’re preparing “In That Great Gittin’ Up Morning” for my new CD entitled Goin’ Home. The track is finished and the choir will come into the studio later this week to lay down the vocals.  Margaret Dorn is preparing the vocal charts.  This song is a monster for the album – very complex with multi parts against parts and step-out solos.  Can’t wait to put the singers on it!

• This week will finish up redos and touch ups on “To My Father’s House” a remake of the classic gospel song made famous by The Edwin Hawkins Singers on their historic Oh Happy Day Album. Jenny Burton and Cat Russell will do the step-outs.  This song is also for the Goin’ Home CD.

• I’ll begin preparing 3 new compilation CDs this week for Watchfire Music mixing artists from the Universal Music Group catalog with our own WFM artists.  We’ll start out by doing one on peace, one on higher love and one on redemption.  These three CDs should be killers (a strange thing to say about an album on peace, but you know what I mean).

• Also will begin preparing underscoring for Jon McLaughlin’s modernization of the Ten Commandment project.  With Alfre Woodard doing the narration, this project promises to be a rich new look at some of the classic laws of life.

• Also need to comp a lovely vocal by future WFM composer, Rebecca Minor.  She was in Saturday past and recorded a demo of her new sacred solo, “Don’t Send The People Away”.  Watch for her new works coming this spring on WFM Digital Sheet Music pages.  A very real talent here.

What am I forgetting?  Several things are pending, but not yet rolling.  And several albums of songs to begin.  More on all this later.

Actually, this writing has been very good for my brain.  Here’s the organization that I was looking for.  If I need to get better organized in the near future, I can just read my own blog.

One more missive in this series – watch for Part 3 early this week.  Things To Come — as an artist.

Stay tuned!

For more inspiring music you can download
and information about Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Gettin’ It Done
• The Road To Inspiration — Peter Link and Julia Wade
• Looking Back on 2010
• Phoenix Rising
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I

Is this an announcement of what’s coming?  I’d like to think so, but I know better considering all that would have to happen to get it all done.  That’s why I’ll still consider it a wish list rather than an announcement.  But you can bet on the fact that we’ll be bustin’ our tails this next year to try to get these things done for you.

First, our new major effort of expansion will be an entirely new division of Watchfire Music entitled “My Father’s House” – a spiritual community for youth of all ages to visit, meet, discuss, workshop, interact with, and explore.  Watchfire Music is partnering with youth leader and visionary, Matthew Hoffman of Tampa, Florida in this dramatic build-out of the site.  The first focus will be Hoffman’s modernization of the Ten Commandments, a musical trans-denominational interpretation on CD entitled “Laws 2 Live By”.

Coming soon, finally, will be WFM Radio – a 24/7 internet radio station where you can choose your programming by genre, listen to the songs of all of Watchfire’s nearly 100 artists and take the radio with you when you leave the site and surf the web.

We have been hard at work cataloging the Watchfire Music Library for Film and TV, a massive library for musical supervisors who are looking for Inspirational music to license for their projects.  This will be both innovative and time saving in its approach to the previously laborious process of licensing music for film and TV, cutting down the search and negotiation process from literally months to a matter of a few hours.

We will continue with our Watchfire Music Collection monthly offering of thematic compilation CDs.  Our November Thanksgiving and December Christmas “Ode To Joy” CDs were our best selling CDs of both months and we have also decided to offer hard goods purchases as well going forward to those who prefer to hold the CDs in their hot little hands.  Look for our January offering, “New Beginnings”, a fresh approach to the new year from the best of our instrumental piano artists.

In Digital Sheet Music, we will add Choir Music.  This promises to be a major best seller for us based upon the great success of Digital Sheet Music for soloists all over the world.  We already have accrued over a thousand choir music titles and will be adding this division in the early spring.

Also slated in the first half of the year is a terrific new search engine concept based on our best selling “Solo Thoughts” – entitled “Sacred Song Search”. It is a super search and discover resource tool for all denominations looking for the perfect solo or choral piece to match up with a particular sermon or holiday event.

Our new Send To A Friend feature will be further developed to include Gift Certificates and hard good deliveries.  This will round out your ability to use Watchfire Music as a primary source for music giving.

We have learned from you that you like to come to Watchfire and watch our collection of Inspirational videos and so we will continue to add the best Inspirational videos on the web to our collection and further organize the collection for your ease of use and exploration.

There are a raft of those “little things” you have asked for and we will supply.  Things like bundled downloads of CDs so you don’t have to download one song at a time anymore.  Exit opinion polls so that you can tell us of your experience on the site and help us better understand your needs.  An increased clarity and simplicity of intuitiveness throughout the site that will make your shopping and exploring experience more fun and graceful.

And we’ll add an “If you liked _______, then you’re sure to like ________” feature that will simplify your search throughout the site to the whims of your musical taste.

All this and more to make Watchfire Music your trusted destination for Inspirational music.

Then there’s all the stuff that I can’t yet tell you…  Then there’s all the stuff that we haven’t thought of yet…

But most importantly, there’s the stuff that you want to see that will make your experience with us to be the best on the web.  We’re listening!  Please take a moment to write in.  It’s an interactive new medium, so please interact.  Without your feedback, we’re just shootin’ in the dark.  We need you to communicate.  The more you do, the more we will respond.

It’s going to be a terrific new year – we can feel it in our bones.  Thanks for being a part of the journey.

Even More Inspiration

• Gettin’ It Done
• Looking Back on 2010
• Things To Come – Part 2
• New Beginnings
• The Ira Awards Part 1
• Gift From Mom

Ira Gershwin

In the music industry, when the royalty split is determined for songwriters, the industry standard for royalties is that the composer gets 50% and the lyricist gets the other 50%.  Each contributor to the song shares equally.  But when it comes to publicity, notoriety, and public appreciation, that’s where the equality stops.  The composer always gets the lion’s share of the attention.

And so to right this inequality, to re-balance the appreciation for these underappreciated wordsmiths, I’ve decided to create just what this world needs most – another awards show – The Ira Awards, presented by Watchfire Music.  Also I’ve decided to name it after the most underappreciated lyricist of them all – Ira Gershwin.

Over the next couple of nights I’ll be giving out Iras to many of the world’s greatest lyricists and discussing why we’ve voted for them.  Our panel of judges (consisting of me, myself and I) have been collecting and reviewing examples of the world’s greatest lyrics for the past 30 years now and the ballots are now tabulated, the voting is in and it’s time to give out them golden statues.

To right our first wrong, let’s first establish the derivation of our title.  Ira Gershwin wrote lyrics for his much more famous brother, George for many years.  When people say, “Ah, that’s a Gershwin song” let’s face it, they’re not thinking “Gershwin Brothers”, they’re thinking “George”.  How did Ira get left out?  I have no idea.  It’s an injustice that I hope to resolve.

The man who only lives for making money

Lives a life that isn’t necessarily sunny;

Likewise the man who works for fame –

There’s no guarantee that time won’t erase his name

The fact is

The only work that really brings enjoyment

Is the kind that is for girl and boy meant.

Fall in love — you won’t regret it.

That’s the best work of all — if you can get it.

Holding hands at midnight

‘Neath a starry sky…

Oh that is nice work if you can get it.

And you can get it — if you try.

Strolling with the one girl

Sighing sigh after sigh…

Oh nice work if you can get it.

And you can get it — if you try.

Just imagine someone

Waiting at the cottage door.

Where two hearts become one…

Who could ask for anything more?

Loving one who loves you,

And then taking that vow…

Nice work if you can get it,

And if you get it –

Won’t you tell me how?

Lyrics: Ira Gershwin

In my classes on lyric writing I always lead off with this: “A poem doth not a lyric make.”  I always get the same reaction,  “Wha?”

What it means is this.  The major difference between poems and lyrics is that with a poem, the reader can stop in time and investigate a turn of phrase or a deeper thought.  With lyrics, there ain’t no stoppin’.  The music prohibits that.  So lyrics have to be simpler, more straightforward.  There can be poetry in a lyric, but it can’t be so dense that the listener cannot follow.

In the above lyric, Ira gets my award for best simple story telling done economically.  Here’s another of his gems.

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you

Embrace me, you irreplaceable you

Just one look at you my heart grew tipsy in me

You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me

I love all the many charms about you

Above all I want my arms about

Don’t be a naughty baby…

Come to papa come to papa do

My sweet embraceable you…

Again, Lyrics: Ira Gershwin.  Google just about any George Gershwin song and often it gives George the lyric credit and leaves poor Ira out, but the fact is that Ira wrote the lyrics and George, the music.

Paul Simon, another great lyricist from another age tells a good story as well.  He certainly is poetic and his lyrics more obtuse, but in the following lyric Paul gets my vote for painting a picture that sets a mood and tells a story that has so many blanks that we, the listeners, get to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations.  Call it, the award for gorgeous impressionism.

Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together

I’ve got some real estate here in my bag

So we bought a pack of cigarettes, and Mrs. Wagner pies

And we walked off to look for America

Cathy, I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburg

Michigan seems like a dream to me now

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw

And I’ve come to look for America

Laughin’ on the bus, playing games with the faces

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy

I said be careful, his bowtie is really a camera

Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat

We smoked the last one an hour ago

So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine

And the moon rose over an open field

Cathy, I’m lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping

I’m empty and I’m aching and I don’t know why

Countin’ the cars on the New Jersey turnpike

They’ve all come to look for America, all come to look for America

Now here’s another guy who is among my top 5 favorite lyricists.  Alan Lerner was one of the few lyricists who were probably better known than his composer, Fritz Lowe.  Alan wrote Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, Camelot and a few others of similar magnitude.  Here’s one of my favorite Lerner lyrics.  From Brigadoon.

This is hard to say, but as I wandered through the lea,

I felt for just a fleeting moment that I suddenly was free of being lonely.

Then I closed my eyes and saw the very reason why.

I saw a man with his head bowed low.

His heart had no place to go.

I looked and I thought to myself with a sigh:

There but for you go I.

I saw a man walking by the sea,

Alone with the tide was he.

I looked and I thought as I watched him go by:

There but for you go I.

Lonely men around me, trying not to cry,

Till the day you found me, there among them was I.

I saw a man who had never known a love that was all his own.

I thought as I thanked all the stars in the sky:

There, but for you, go I.

Beautifully crafted, intelligently written, simple, and yet deep.  Kudos goes to Fritz Lowe also for a gorgeous melody.

But for me the all-time love song lyric, the winner of this lifetime’s Ira award, has to go to Alan Lerner for our next winner.

If ever I would leave you

It wouldn’t be in summer.

Seeing you in summer I never would go.

Your hair streaked with sunlight,

Your lips red as flame,

Your face with a luster

That puts gold to shame!

But if I’d ever leave you,

It couldn’t be in autumn.

How I’d leave in autumn I never will know.

I’ve seen how you sparkle

When fall nips the air.

I know you in autumn

And I must be there.

And could I leave you

Running merrily through the snow?

Or on a wintry evening

When you catch the fire’s glow?

If ever I would leave you,

How could it be in springtime?

Knowing how in spring I’m bewitched by you so?

Oh, no! Not in spring-time!

Summer, winter or fall!

No, never could I leave you at all!

Stay tuned for the next couple of nights as we romp through the great lyrics of the American songbook.  If you’re a bit of a lyricist, you won’t want to miss this.  If you’re just a person who loves a great song, you’re in for a treat.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Grieving In Silence
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Gettin’ It Done
• The Road To Inspiration — Peter Link and Julia Wade
• The Ira Awards Part 5

At a young age I was taught the art of healing by my mother. She taught me to use basically four steps. The first was a protective or preventative measure and 2-4 were the steps I should take if I were to fail to practice the first.

Because of step one I rarely get sick or have physical problems. If I, for whatever reason, get lazy, forgetful, confused or even afraid, and have to move to steps 2-4, I at least have a plan to follow. When I’m smart or prescient enough to follow that plan to a ‘T’, I have always been a successful healer.

What proof do I have of this? I’ve never taken any medicine, I’ve only had one short visit with a doctor in my life, I’ve never felt the need to carry medical insurance and never been admitted to a hospital.

This, by the way, does not make me special. It is not really what some would deem as a ‘gift’, it’s really just normal practice. If your mom taught you to look both ways before crossing the street, you got a gift from mom. I got many gifts from my mom. Healing was one of them. Besides the fact that she gave birth to me, it was probably the best one.

Step 1: Nip the negative thought in the bud.
I was taught to be alert to my thinking because all, and I mean all, disease, accident, injury, negativity is a result or the effect of negative thought. “As a man thinketh, so is he.” I was taught this as a little child and I have never questioned it. I see it as an absolute truth. So when the suggestion of anything negative comes along in my life, if I am alert and aware, I heal the result of the negative thought, the disease, accident, injury, or negativity, by first eliminating the mental cause. Eliminate the cause and there can be no effect.

I try to nip the negative thought in the bud before the negative thought begins its bloom.  This is the best time to heal because it’s the easiest time to heal. First of all, there’s rarely as much fear to deal with because the problem in question is not yet full-blown. Also one’s state of consciousness is in a much better frame of mind to deal with the negative when the negativity is yet a bud.

Example: Newspaper Headline! Flu Epidemic Coming! I was taught to stop and deal with this the moment the idea comes. You see it in the paper; you stop and deal with it.  Someone tells you at school; you stop and deal with it. You overhear it in a crowd; you stop and deal with it. You handle it then and there, immediately, because that’s when it’s easiest.  It’s not always convenient, but it is, in the long run, a powerful method in the prevention of disease, accident, injury and life’s negativity.

World thought or fear creates epidemic, not germs. Handle the thought and you handle the flu. Heal the thought and you heal the flu. Handle the fear and you have a good chance to heal. Don’t handle the fear and you have an up-hill battle all the way.

So what is the process of dealing with it? How do you nip the negative thought in the bud?  First simply stop. Stop the negative thought from going any further. Don’t permit it to get planted in consciousness. Do not allow it to take root. Don’t water it. Don’t cultivate it.  Don’t harvest it. Pull it out immediately by it’s roots and throw it away or better yet, destroy it.

A flu epidemic is coming? No!  It is not! I am not at the result of an epidemic of negative thought. I refuse. I throw this thought out of my consciousness. I will not buy into this. I am mightier than this notion because I am a child of God, I was made and remain a reflection of God’s image and likeness, and I am the perfect idea of a perfect God. I live in perfection.

The above paragraph is an example of all you need to do. It does not need to be such an inconvenience to your life. It only takes a moment, but you need to do it with full commitment and mighty determination to get your consciousness above the erroneous thought. Once you do with full force, simply move on in life.

My track coach in school once said a wonderfully wise thing to us. He said, “Boys, a healing is no further away than your next thought.” Well, I had heard this numerous times and took it in yet again, but then he followed with the real punch line. He went on to say, “But remember it’s the next thought and then the thought after that and then the next thought after that and then the next thought after that and then…”

That’s when I got it. You can’t take your thought up and then let it immediately drop back to some fear or negativity; you have to maintain the highest concepts in consciousness in order to truly heal and be healed. You can’t say, “…and I am the perfect idea of a perfect God” and then one thought later think, “and I hope I don’t get the flu”. You were supposed to have dropped that thought, that likelihood, altogether.

This is why it is so important that once you 1. Stop, 2. Rid yourself of the negative thought and 3. Replace the thought with a powerful truth, that you then simply move on.  Do not doubt your process, do not question it, do not succumb to the temptation of negativity – just move on with your new replacement positivism intact.

This is preventative. At an early age I was taught this method of protection. It became my habit and it has saved me from countless days in bed, probably saved me a small fortune in Kleenex, not to mention doctor bills, medicine and hospitalization.

Have I been perfect in my practice? Unfortunately not. Sometimes the moments are too subtle for my state of awareness, sometimes I get duped into the ‘inconvenience’ of the moment and sometimes I’m just a dullard mentally and just don’t pick it up in time. When these moments happen, often the disease, accident, injury, or negativity do gain a root system in my consciousness and I have to move to steps 2-4.

The best gift Mom ever gave me was step one because it was preventative. The second best gift was steps 2-4.  These would be the steps that would save me when I blew the first step. These are the steps that we shall discuss in part 2.  Stay tuned…

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.

Even More Inspiration

• Light At The End Of The Tunnel
• Even Now
• Hitting The Wall
• What Is Stress?
• Breaking The Logjam
• Thinking And Creativity

iced tea

Some things in life are so simple that, yes, they are inspired.  I found one years ago that gets me through the summer.  I like iced tea with lots of lemon to balance the sweet.  Here’s a recipe for a no-cal drink that’s super easy to make without the no-cal taste and totally refreshing.

I use Crystal Light Natural Lemon Iced Tea and Crystal Light Natural Lemonade – you know, the kind that comes in those little 2” plastic canisters.  If ya’ don’t have a butler, just rip the top off one of each yourself, pour them both into a 1 gallon jug and add water.  Stir and serve with ice and a tall glass.

You don’t even have to cut up those messy lemons – the lemony flavor being just right from the lemonade.  I’ve heard this called an Arnold Palmer, but to me it’s just a Half n’ Half – half iced tea and half lemonade.  Now I didn’t say it was an original, but I do feel that I’ve refined the process down to its basic simplicity.

And people just love it.  They’re always saying, “Well, Pete, I think I’ll have a little more of that iced tea.”

Another plus: That jug can sit in the back of the fridge while you’re away for that 2 week vacation and taste exactly the same when you return as when you first made it.  It doesn’t spoil or get stale or go flat.  It just sits there and quietly whispers, “Drink me, drink me.”

You can also, of course, use any of the powdered iced tea/lemonade brands; they all work – just do it half n’ half.  I just prefer the Crystal Light brand cause it’s the simplest and it don’t make ya’ fat.

Also great for the kids as a replacement for those sugary colas that make ‘em go zoomin’ to the moon.

Oh yes, it’s also very inexpensive.  What’s to lose?  It’s an inspired drink guaranteed to cool you down and make you feel a bit patriotic.  It’s as American as iced tea and lemonade.

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