The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/19934
Keep Up Now Relationships are our greatest gift. As we struggle to understand love and the true meaning of life, our relationships come forth as abundant opportunities to evolve. Have you ever asked God, or Love, or the Universe to show you the truth? — the meaning of life? — the meaning of love? I have; many times. And just as many times I received the means to find the answer. They came in forms of relationships; to self, to people, to places and objects, each by diverse names, and causes. Nevertheless, all came bearing the same retort; “know thyself.” I was confused, at first, by the gifts being offered to me by these relationships. I was looking for love, happiness and a feeling of belonging. I kept asking for guidance, for truth, for devotion. Why were all of my relationships doomed to fail? The message became clearer with every journey. Each relationship has offered me the opportunity to take a step toward myself. The gift is in the journey. We fail to see goodness and love in ourselves and, therefore, in others. With each failed attempt to find hap- piness outside of ourselves, we learn to go inside; allowing true vision in the accept them. The only question you need to ask yourself now is this, “How long do I want to delay my happiness?” “We must not feel guilty for what we don’t see. Truly the intent is life. We take on as much as we can in the course of our evolution, so we see only that which we are ready to ac- cept.” — Rob Ludwig “Keep up with the stream of higher consciousness and stay connected to the Source.” _ Terry Ludwig Relationships are important to happiness form of love to replace our fear. We begin to know our Self as Love. Most of us do not know what love is. We try to attain love through our relationships. This is not love; but need. To truly love, we must learn to give love as an extension of who we are; without expectation. We are Love. Count your blessings and the many in- stances you have been shown love, as well as the many opportunities you have been given to “be” love by choos- ing love over fear. Gratitude is a won- derful way to cultivate love. It is important to remember this; you are exactly where you need to be at every moment. Lessons will come when you are ready to Chris Waters As a larger hairy man, I always felt out of place in the gay com- munity. I am what we call in the gay community a bear. Large and furry just like a real bear. Over the years as I found myself getting more involved in this sub culture of the gay community, I saw that the Binghamton area was lacking a real bear commu- nity. Sure there were people that went out that were considered bears, but we never congregated together. In January 2009, myself and a small group of men pondered what we should do about that. At that time we decided to form The Bears of Binghamton. We don’t consider ourselves a club but rather we are a bunch of guys throwing parties for the bear community. We plan Bear Weekends in the Binghamton area every other month. We threw our first bear party in April of 2009 with a couple hundred people attending. The weekend consists of a Friday Mixer at Squig- gys Bar, an event for the afternoon Saturday, a Saturday Night Dance Party at Merlin’s ending with brunch Sunday. We get bears, admirers and chasers from all over New York and Pennsylva- nia coming to Binghamton to congregate with people just like themselves. We have had differ- The bears are back in town ent theme parties in the past two years, including Cowbears and Indians and an Underbear Party ( Underwear party), and we celebrated our one-year anniver- sary with an Annifursary Party with special guest Dru Bruin, the current bear icon in the bear com- munity. It has been a great two years, and we can only see the parties getting better and better in 2011. We hold our next party Dec. 3-5 with our Naughty or Nice Party with Special Guest Dru Bruin returning. Check out Bears of Binghamton.com for more in- formation. The bears are back in town and are not going anywhere anytime soon. Chris Waters is 40 years old and was born and raised in the Binghamton area. He is single and is director of food service at a local nursing home. Nov. 18, 2010 O-Town Scene 35 the Diversity Scene Nov. 18-25