alidawriter

PRESS RELEASE SOULFIRE BOOKS 525 Dare Drive Suite 2 Charlotte NC 28206 704-606-1258 WARNING!!! THIS BOOK WILL SET YOUR SOUL ON FIRE! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Charlotte NC)(February 19 2012) Gregory S. Jones of The Paper Tiger Literary Foundation enthusiastically embraces this moment as a red-letter day in urban fiction as it signals the release of MATCHMAKER by award-winning author Gibran Tariq. MATCHMAKER, hailed as the ultimate black female empowerment novel, is also the first release from SOULFIRE BOOKS. “MATCHMAKER is not merely a book,” Mr. Jones emphatically insists. “It is an event.” Even more importantly, he declares that MATCHMAKER is the one book that every black woman in America must absolutely place on her to-do list and his message to black women everywhere is simply this: If you are alive today, don’t dare die until you have read MATCHMAKER! MATCHMAKER, the dramatic story of the first black First Lady of The United States, places black sistahood at the forefront of a compelling narrative that centers around two of the biggest urban myths today: Can black women get along, and can they effect change on a historic level? Those questions and more are confronted and addressed in this timely novel about faith and forgiveness, about struggle and compromise, about seemingly insurmountable challenges and solutions. MATCHMAKER unfolds on “the pretty wings” of Samantha Givens who establishes MatchMaker Incorporated, a secret organization of beautiful, black women intent on taking control of the country. No matter what you may think of her tactics, you will cheer Samantha on as she sets out to make The White House a sista’s house. Gibran Tariq, though thrilled by the great reviews the book has garnered from RAWSISTAZ, and Ella Curry of The Black Authors Network, which seems to suggest that the novel has pricked the social consciousness of black women, is more direct. “My goal for MATCHMAKER was to boldly challenge the current Hoochie-Mama image of black women which I see as a great collapse in black literature.” Tariq went on to explain that the dangerous destruction of the black woman’s image is a needless affront to the national character of black folk. He further proclaims. “I was not merely interested in crafting a good story. I had every intention of acquainting readers with a literary experience that would not only caress their senses, but one that would also prepare them for the seismic shift in urban literature that is about to happen under the leadership of SOULFIRE BOOKS. Available in bookstores in the spring, MATCHMAKER can now be purchased at Amazon.com in both the print and Kindle edition.

The Rape of Black America And now a word of caution for African-Americans. This is real talk. No jivin’. Over the last decades, the black community has been raped by the government in the guise of the prison/industrial complex. Young men have been snatched from black communities across the nation and fed into a prison complex that has become one of the biggest businesses in the country. And it didn’t just start. I know that many of you watch the news and witness the “prep walk” of countless black men as they are paraded across your television screen in handcuffs and subsequently into jail. The crime of the century is not the crime the brothas committed. The crime of the century is the crime the government committed to get to the point where there is almost a million black men locked up in America. Don’t get it twisted by the illusion of what you see on the news. Sure, there were crimes committed, but let’s look at something that may help you understand why. In my upcoming book, “The Unmaking of The Black Man” I trace the roots of this conspiracy back to its genesis, but for our purposes, I want to focus on what happened in the 60’s. Shortly after the Watts (LA) riots, and the long, hot summer of 1965 when a new more violent image of black males began to emerge. This was truly the first time black men took to the streets in rage and it frightened white America. Without delay, the powers that be in white America jumped to action and the move to eliminate black babies sped into high gear. It was at this moment that eugenicists ushered in the concept of IQ, which was devised solely as an ulterior motive to usher into the nation’s sterilization program. But the sterilization program was only a part of the plan. The other aspect of the campaign to make sure the black man never raised up in protest again so white America went for the jugular of black America---the children. In 1963 The Mental Retardation Facilities and Communities Health Centers Act was passed. Funded by The National Institute of Mental Health and founded by a CIA operative, Dr. Robert Felix, this program placed black schoolchildren at risk! This opened the door for “Special Education” classes. Black kids populated these classes for a reason: the government wanted to give them drugs. This was the first time psychiatrists were allowed in American schools and they happily diagnosed black kids as “emotionally disturbed” or “learning impaired”. And then fed them psychotropic drugs like they were M&Ms. But this was merely stage one. What happened next is even more shocking than mis-diagnosing healthy, black kids. What came next was the “Violence Initiative”, but more about that in another episode. Guess what happened to the unlucky children in the Special Ed classes who were tricked into taking unneeded, mind-altering drugs? These drugs were known to cause violent, irrational behavior so the government knew that within a decade or so, they could hunt down these same kids because they were violent and irrational! A great number of these children, once grown, had earned a referral into a mental health facility. Statistics proved that those patients, committed crimes, at twice the rate of the general population. So what you have are “made” criminals, invented by the government. A report by The African-American Coalition for Justice in Social Policy indicated that NIMH’s work was a direct cause of the sky-rocketing violence in the ‘hood. Jim Brewer of the Coalition went on to explain that most of the violence in black communities over the last four decades has been the results of experiments in the form of drug therapy and psychological school programs. He went on to say that these programs have ravaged inner cities and manufactured criminals out of young people…” But it didn’t stop there. In 1976, when I was in federal prison, I was labeled as homicidal and quite naturally referred to the psychologist’s office. As luck would have it, both the white psychologist and I shared the same last name, (this was before I changed my name) and we had this running joke about how we could be related as his family may have owned my family during slavery. This alleged “kinship” made him sympathetic and instead of introducing me to drugs, he put me down with yoga and meditation. One day, he called me to his office, gave me some classified document to read,andlocked me in his office so I could read the paper. It was a government paper about the “rising fear of the black man and what to do about it.” To be brief, what the paper stated was that the best thing for black males was prison. The paper said that by the year 2000 (remember this was 1976) that they intended to have a vast majority of black youth confined. There’s more. They wanted to destroy black America. They also declared that in an effort to weaken the bond between sistas and brothas that they would open the doors of corporate America to black women while keeping black men shut out of employment. They felt the economic disparity in black households would doom black love. They figured that more sistas would marry white men. Was the mission a success? Sistas are in corporate America like never before and brothas are in prison like never before. Still not convinced. Ever heard of the “Kash 4 Kids” program. A few years ago, judges in Pennsylvania were busted for taking money from prison contractors in exchange for juveniles to fill the prisons that were being built. A lot of innocent juveniles got set up. Now, that they had all these brothas locked up, the emphasis became on how to further benefit from them. The saga expanded. Prisons became the hottest commodity on the stock market as every corporation wanted to establish a presence inside a prison. Did you know that IBM, Revlon, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, as well as Victoria’s Secret have plants inside of prison? Now, with these billion dollar companies in on the act, the push to put even more people in prison sky-rocketed. It is these companies that control a lot of prison policy. Check this out. When I was In the federal pen In Atlanta, there had been a gang war. The warden placed the prison on lockdown for everyone’s safety. After a few days, one of the corporate sponsors called the warden and told him that he had a million dollar contract and that they wanted their products done. The next day, we were off lock-down! Damn, what the warden thought. Damn, everyone's safety. There was work to be done in the factory. If this interests you, read my new novel, When I Say Jump, to find out more about the government’s effort to imprison black men. It is a fictionalized account (or is it) of how every major hospital in the country participates in a government-sponsored lottery where one out of every four black male babies called “puppets” are placed in this lotto where there are selected by government agents who use mental conditioning to get them ready for prison by the age of sixteen. The book by Gibran Tariq can be found on Amazon.com. http://bit.ly/whenisayjump

How about some good news! Every since the arrival of African-Americans in this country, the church has long been the bedrock of our survival, the foundation of our hopes, and the source of our inspiration. That much everyone knows to be true, but if you are like most people, you are well on your way to becoming a "spiritual millionaire" as you have (hopefully been racking up bonus points by practicing what you (or your ministers) preach, but after a lifetime of these earnings, you may not have ended up with anything in terms of physical rewards. Basically, since hardly anyone teaches us how to nourish our temples, we practice haphazard, hit-or-miss, trial-and-error mis-education procedures that we have inherited from parents, school, and yes, church. Because we don't get blessed with any meaningful formal education about nutrition and health, our eating habits and food choices are more times than not derived from the culinary "School Of Hard Knocks. And the attendant results are not pretty because death is not a passing grade. To be honest, so many African-Americans who seemed so naturally good at "eating" have died as a direct consequence of our symptomatic "hand-to-mouth dietary ventures (or should I say misadventures.) In the African-American community, eating has become one of our greatest disappointments. We invest tremendous energy in our financial strategies and we leave no stone unturned when in search of rules or advice to make our relationships work, but we lose very little sleep at night over how what we eat qualifies us for a host of life-threatening and debilitating diseases. Essentially, we are eroding our health. Do you find it odd that you read the label of products and can parrot every ingredient contained in that particular food brand and then have no idea as to what that food item can do to your body? Why is this? It's because we are the foolish prisoners of our palettes. We listen to our tongues. We invest such culinary stock in what great pleasure we derive from our tongues that we pay scant heed to the potential damage that could be wreaked on our bodies. We are such suckers for our tongues that we suffer proudly when our tummies ache due to some gastronomical violation. But wait a minute. There's something else you need to know. The fork and spoon are deadlier than the crack pipe! How hypocritical is it of us to rant and rail about the street corner drug-dealers and then don't do or say a mumbling word about the street corner grocery store that deals in death. How big is the difference of a death whether it is by an ingestion of cocaine or a digestion of unhealthy food? It's still a demise that's advoidable. If there is, at all, a difference, it lies in the fact that the dope fiend knows almost to a certainty what it is he is ingesting into his system whereas the food fiend has no clue. These days, cocaine and heroin have a lot less harmful preservatives and additives than the wares sold in the food store. We will eagerly go out of our way or readily take the long way home simply to avoid taking our children past the corner where drugs are sold and then think nothing of walking into a corner store and buying that same child a sugar-loaded soft drink that is almost as big a detriment as a joint of marijuana. Isn't it laughably ironic that safe-sex programs are spreading across the country and not safe-food programs? What does it say about African-Americans as a collective when we employ "procreation as recreation" and we eat to die. It says we enjoy flirting with death.

SNAPSHOTS, the new book by Gibran Tariq is not merely a book of 365 affirmations. It is a provocative day-to-day adventure, a daily event that will transform you. It is a cover-to-cover inspirational guide for African-Americans who aspire to understand themselves and the world in which they live. This book will set your soul on fire. It is a key that you can use to unlock the start of each morning and then provide you with a passport into the mystery of tomorrow. The book can be found on Amazon.com in both the print and Kindle editions. Below are the SNAPSHOTS from the first of the year and the one from yesterday.. January 1 Don’t believe the hype! There are only 7 days a year. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It’s just that they come at U 358 more times in a bewildering array of brilliant disguises. –ali- Until you have made a happy landing at that place called YOU, there is no need to even consider making resolutions since you will merely be addressing “adopted theories” or “misplaced notions” about the true nature of your being when your real worth and value lie buried deep beneath the legacy of lies perpetuated upon you by your parents, spouses, bosses and your own foolish imitations of those you idolize! Without knowledge of self, your resolutions only support your bold willingness to promote and impose behavior on yourself that may not even be conducive to your personal well-being. You don’t know who you are, so how can you choose wisely? Without intimate knowledge of your real needs, you will tend to choose what speaks loudest or sparkles brightest because when you possess no sense of loyalty to yourself, then it is easy to be attracted to sentiments and mindsets that were not fashioned or forged in the depths of your own being. There must exist a continuing sense of loyalty to yourself that affords you the warrant to believe you are worth further development and that your trust in yourself is all the license you need to begin the search for yourself. Next you must strip yourself of all the pretenses you may have acquired of wanting to be exactly like someone else, and then you must crush all the remnants of the person you were molded to be by others. Then you with what’s left. That’s the framework that leads to YOU. HAPPY LANDING! February 13 The funny thing about love is that you earn from it just what you have leaned from it. -Ali- When love is new, your emotions are like school children on a trip to the zoo. Everything beckons, glowing with sunshine, pulsing with joy. This is a . It can be savored, pored over, luxuriated in, and devoured without guilt. Once it’s gone these moments cannot be salvaged. They were merely attention-getting sensory modifiers whetting your appetite for more, but the rest comes with strings attached. You have to work for them. After all of nature’s preliminary reports are in, alerting you to the mother lode of good feelings still available, you now are required to plumb the depths of another person’s soul to extract them. It is not impossible work if you are perceptive. A lingering touch, a whispered sigh, a wistful glance are all sign posts that point the way. The love is there.Waiting. Get it. To purchase SNAPSHOTS, click on the link below http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076RB6S0

CHAPTER ONE “FLAVA” In life there are those who are convinced they know about dreams and these so-called gurus will eagerly attempt to persuade you to be more aggressive when in pursuit of the dream that you feel will propel you into greatness or immortality, yet they never encourage you to be careful. Sadly, some dreams have an expiration date. I know this statement may make skeptics cringe as they feel that their alleged genius is being insulted, but for the black woman in America, there is one nightmare that has sustained the dreams of countless sistas who have found out, in the end, that the dream was impossible to attain. I suppose you want to know what that impossible dream is. Well, let’s cut right to the chase. I bet you think it’s a diet fad or better yet, a remedy to find Mr. Right, right? Well, it’s neither although black women have spent uncountable sleepless nights dreaming of how bright the future would be if they could solve the mystery of either. But this is a little deeper than sistas wasting valuable sleep time pondering how the universe would treat them if they could either maintain perfect weight or find the mythical Mr. Right. What is this dream, you still ask? Well, sistas, frankly speaking, it is the dream to produce wealth with your bodies. The good news is that it is not foolish to dream or to have goals. The bad news is that most black women who have tried to breathe life into this dream have found that after a lifetime of endless pursuit of this dream, they have ended up with nothing. As so many black women have learned, a big butt will not put them on the fast track to becoming financially secure because of all the life skills required to being economically independent, shaking your ass is not the most critical one! In today’s School Of Hard Knocks, young black girls have absorbed the diva attitude presented by the video vixens of BET or those scantily clad sistas captured on the pages of black magazines such as SMOOTH and KING. Since there are no instruction manual on how to operate their bodies, these sistas learn what to do with their physical assets through trial and error, and though most of what they perceive will be taken out of context, they piece together a “booty” agenda that will represent what they feel about their bodies for the rest of their lives. But did this all start with BET? No. BET merely enhanced and gave a national platform to a phenomenon that had began to take shape long before. Long before women adopted the concept, men viewed women’s bodies as a practical, no-nonsense way to riches and were not shy or ashamed to show women how to promote this ultimate, get-rich quick scheme of shaking their asses for pay. In the 70’s, the “show it if you got it” trend exploded in the black community and for the first time, sistas were willing to strut their physical assets in public. The mini-skirt and hot pants became the rage and black female skin was on display like never before in our collective history. This almost naked way of dressing may have become just another fad until men began to dream of how to tap into this vast world of exposed, black female flesh. Before the preachers, teachers, Mamas, and others concerned about this apparent lapse in the morals of black women could react, black radio stepped in to compound the problem. Taking advertising dollars from night clubs, black radio personalities enticed sistas to come out to night clubs to participate in hot legs, big butt, and wet t-shirts contests where the winner would win money. To sistas, this blatant exploitation was like getting money for nothing and who can resist the lure of free money? In the black community as elsewhere, some people are naturally good at managing misfortune. What I mean by this is that since there could only be one winner in the big butt, hot legs, or big breast contest, what happened to the losers? If twenty-five girls participated, that meant there were twenty-four losers. Have you ever wondered what happened to them? The same thing happened to them that happens with any loser who doesn’t develop a winning strategy---they inherit self-esteem problems and the classic unspoken rule of low self-esteem is that it makes you vulnerable to the plots and plans of anyone shrewd enough to prey on your weakness. And no other segment of black America is more willing to take advantage of susceptible women than the pimps and playas in the hood. In the 70’s,the pimps and playas would flock to these nightclubs where these contests were taking place and were there to “console” the losers, the girls whose butt, legs, or breasts were not quite big enough or good enough. He would gladly introduce her to “options”. But let’s not give the 70’s a bad rap for the invention of this revolutionary notion that there was money in showing the world what your had inherited from your Mama because it goes back a lot further than that. Have you ever heard of The Hottentot Venus? Saartjie Baartman, known to the world as the Hottentot Venus, was a black teenaged sista from South Africa. In 1810, white men stumbled upon her on a visit to the Motherland and what they saw rocked their world. Never before had they seen a woman with such physical assets and they were amazed. They begged the 19 year old sista to go with them to Europe. They promised to make her rich. They promised her fame. And all she had to do was to let men “see her naked” Such an offer of fame and fortune was too much for the sista to resist and soon she was whisked off to France where she soon became the rage of Europe. White men had never beheld such bodily splendor and the sista’s fame increased as she traveled throughout Europe to display her voluptuous body. But she died penniless! Rather than fame and fortune, she discovered alcoholism and prostitution. When Saartie died, broke and alone, in Paris, the French continued to get rich from her. How? They cut out her private parts and stored them in a museum for display. After over one hundred years, in 1994, the French government finally returned the remains of Sis. Baartman to South Africa where she was given a proper burial. This was perhaps the first case of a sista who sought to build wealth from her body. It didn’t work then. It won’t work now.

The Impact of Street Lit Throughout the history of American literature, the world of the arts has never attempted to hide the fact that Street Lit is viewed as the ‘ugly duckling’ in the fabled halls of writing. In fact, this much maligned observation, has ultimately, in certain circles, tended to damage the reputation of this genre. The most vocal critics of Street Lit have teasingly termed such writings as ‘literary disasters’. They malign the literary accountability of such work and swiftly point out that Street Lit with its violent sensationalism and subjective attachment to criminal activity has ultimately started a regressive literary atmosphere where the implied emphasis revol This “pointing-of-the-fingers” at Street Lit as a major contributor to high-risk educational behavior with a higher-than-expected literary mortality rate must be understood within the higher literary process at work. Knocked around the universe of urban lit as a cultural step-child whose primary function in society is to produce thugs and video vixens, Street Lit, despite these vicious attacks is not dead yet. And there is a good reason for its survival. Literary fiction, and other mainstream genres as well, pat themselves on the back for inventing, producing, and providing the world with characters who are the movers and shakers of literate America. Yet, when you strip away the achievements of these literary gladiators what you will find is that they have destroyed the very fabric and soul of American literature. Strip off the garb of this type of so-called quality literature and you will come face-to-face with the naked truth: the emotional detachment wrought by such writing is the leading proponent of the literary decay in writing. It is this type of writing that allowed for the hardening of man’s literary artery. This is not to say that Street Lit heals. What this genre does offer is a transformative experience that directs a reader’s mind towards a pleasure that literary fiction snatched away. How can dead writings reward mankind? Street Lit is important is that it does more than restore the magic to the ABCs with its poor grammar and shoddy editing. It opens up new vistas that deepen our understanding and appreciation for what individual men have wrought with the God-given gift of writing. Street Lit celebrates. It is a celebration which is symbolized not by going within and knowing thyself, but in the going-out-and-the-getting-of-material-things. Literary fiction grants mankind the luxury to know himself and to ponder the puzzle of his place in the universe and to be at peace with it. Street Lit shows man the universe so that he can master it. If Street Lit is important, it is important because it is not an literary weapon that writers employ to transform themselves into surrogate-heroes because, in so many cases, Street Lit is an urban gimmick that manipulates its authors into selling their very souls. No, it doesn’t permit its characters to smell the roses or to luxuriate in the setting or rising of the sun. When characters participate in this kind of esteemed literary behavior, they will indeed act upon the edict of doing no harm to eitherneighbor or community. This is not hardly so in Street Lit, but if urban lit is to survive as a genre, then Street Lit must be { better written} promoted on a grander scale. Ignore Street Lit and watch the decline of urban lit continue unabated.

THE ARGUMENT MUST BE MADE: STREET LIT VERSUS TRADITIONAL URBAN LIT No matter what your reading pursuit or literary background, it will pretty much be agreed upon that one of literature’s first edict to writers was to entertain. This edict appears in all fictional literature and carries the almost explicit verdict of literary law, but no sooner than urban readers began that quest, they divided the realm of literary pursuits into two contrasting genres: Tradition urban lit and the more liberal street lit. Oddly enough, it was this fictional duality that set African-American readers upon their first literary turning point, and what evolved would forever alter the definition of what great reading was as well as how the experience was to be pursued. On the one hand, traditional urban lit sought to stimulate the senses of black readers by allowing characters to be the objects of their own individual growth and development, whereas street lit treated characters as the subject of an environment where educational growth and development was stunted. This was serious business indeed. If, in our literary evolution, entertainment was the first serious connection between writer and reader, then great writing would be the unimpeachable evidence that we, as a collective of readers and writers, could produce a viable literary heritage . If it was the power to entertain that would ultimately keep us from degenerating to the level of an illiterate nation, then the power of great writing is what would separate us from being masters of our blossoming literary heritage or becoming slaves of it. Both side of the coin, the traditionalists as well street lit artists have both sought to reform black readers via their senses. However both set forth the pretext that their way was not simply the right way, but the only way. What has ensued is the eternal question of black lit. What genre of writing satisfies our quest for reading entertainment best? For me, I do not wholly believe that a reader’s fundamental literary outlook is changed because he/she gets entertained. What this does is basically to usher in the “sexual might makes right” syndrome which is part and parcel of a lot of traditional urban novels. In my mind, there remains some doubt, as to whether these “sexually proficient men and women” of traditional urban lit are heirs of anything entertaining other than the sexual “one-upmanship” that prevails in the work of the urban romance elite. No matter wherein one reads inside the realm of traditional urban lit, what you will find in the wake of such reading is a paint-by-number deadening of the soul where readers are literary voyeurs into the sexual antics of black America. Are male-bashing sistas any more entertaining than gun-toting thugs? Street lit, on the other hand, is the extreme province of a cold-eyed pessimism where the tenets of dead, black men (i.e. Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines) are upheld in this “cult of personality” genre. I further contend that street lit, while propelled by innovative thought, is intellectually self-destructive. Sadly, both genres have, at times, been an offensive policy against our inner nature. During the First Renaissance, the writings were designed for the sole purpose of self-preservation. The spirit of the work from that era was to educate, to foster cooperation rather than competition which is a basic need of an oppressed people. Street lit induces men to stare into the prism of the environment and then to draw up a blueprint to destroy the neighborhood. The work from the Harlem Renaissance forced readers to stare into the heavens and see that the stars spelled their names. The enduring novels of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Chester Himes, Zora Neale Hurston served to strengthen the core communication between reader and writer. In conclusion, I argue most vehemently that we deserve a literary heritage that is life-affirming, works with intellectual import which is much better than the predatory writings of street lit or the gratuitous sensuality of urban romance. What both genres have done to such an amazing extent is that they have acted as an advertisement for our flawed existence, boldly giving a platform for the literary justification and legitimacy of bad writing on the one hand and sexual pandering on the other. What a sad pretext on which to sustain a literary heritage. And while great writing that both entertains and educates may not wholly satisfy our “off-the-chain” appetite for pillage and plunder or sexual mischief, it will make grant us the literary concessions we will need as a transport to carry into the next era of our writings. There is nothing illusory about the plight of black folk in America, and sure literature is an escape, However, we must baptize our writings with the literary blood of all the great authors of our past and deal realistically with what is going on in our communities. Books must be a mirror into our souls as a people. What we read must be as real as the colors of the rainbow, or the alternation of day and night. It is the only way to go if we are to avoid intellectual Armageddon. One final word. No other writers in the history of literature have used their talents in such a derogatory fashion. Look where you choose on the literary horizon and what you will find is that writers from other races have brandished their pens as a literary weapon to uplift the spirit of their people. It was Voltaire, a French writer, who paved the way for the French Revolution with his writings. Even in this country, it was the pen of the writers who first impressed upon the masses that they deserved change. Where do we go from here?

SNAPSHOTS, the new book by Gibran Tariq is not merely a book of 365 affirmations. It is a provocative day-to-day adventure, a daily event that will transform you. It is a cover-to-cover inspirational guide for African-Americans who aspire to understand themselves and the world in which they live. This book will set your soul on fire. It is a key that you can use to unlock the start of each morning and then provide you with a passport into the mystery of tomorrow. The book can be found on Amazon.com in both the print and Kindle editions. Below are the SNAPSHOTS from the first of the year and the one from yesterday.. January 1 Don’t believe the hype! There are only 7 days a year. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It’s just that they come at U 358 more times in a bewildering array of brilliant disguises. –ali- Until you have made a happy landing at that place called YOU, there is no need to even consider making resolutions since you will merely be addressing “adopted theories” or “misplaced notions” about the true nature of your being when your real worth and value lie buried deep beneath the legacy of lies perpetuated upon you by your parents, spouses, bosses and your own foolish imitations of those you idolize! Without knowledge of self, your resolutions only support your bold willingness to promote and impose behavior on yourself that may not even be conducive to your personal well-being. You don’t know who you are, so how can you choose wisely? Without intimate knowledge of your real needs, you will tend to choose what speaks loudest or sparkles brightest because when you possess no sense of loyalty to yourself, then it is easy to be attracted to sentiments and mindsets that were not fashioned or forged in the depths of your own being. There must exist a continuing sense of loyalty to yourself that affords you the warrant to believe you are worth further development and that your trust in yourself is all the license you need to begin the search for yourself. Next you must strip yourself of all the pretenses you may have acquired of wanting to be exactly like someone else, and then you must crush all the remnants of the person you were molded to be by others. Then you work with what’s left. That’s the framework that leads to YOU. HAPPY LANDING! February 13 The funny thing about love is that you earn from it just what you have leaned from it. -Ali- When love is new, your emotions are like school children on a trip to the zoo. Everything beckons, glowing with sunshine, pulsing with joy. This is a freebie. It can be savored, pored over, luxuriated in, and devoured without guilt. Once it’s gone these moments cannot be salvaged. They were merely attention-getting sensory modifiers whetting your appetite for more, but the rest comes with strings attached. You have to work for them. After all of nature’s preliminary reports are in, alerting you to the mother lode of good feelings still available, you now are required to plumb the depths of another person’s soul to extract them. It is not impossible work if you are perceptive. A lingering touch, a whispered sigh, a wistful glance are all sign posts that point the way. The love is there.Waiting. Get it. To purchase SNAPSHOTS,click on the link below http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076RB6S0

I am a new author and I just became aware of this offer so I wonder if this wonderful offer still exists or has the time limit for it expired?