Michael Jackson’s musings

Michael Jackson would have turned 60 this year. For MJ fanatics comme moi, Aug. 29, Michael’s birthday, could very well be a holiday. If MJ weren’t born, where would pop music be?

As a birthday tribute to the King of Pop, allow me to share some of his reflections from the book he wrote, “Dancing the Dream,” published by Doubleday in 1992.

Reissued by Transworld a month after MJ’s death in 2009, it contains MJ’s poems, musings, and over a hundred awesome photographs of the music superstar.

I have read the book over and over again. MJ’s writings gain more meaning each time I reread it.

Among all the books written about the artist, “Dancing the Dream” stands out because it reveals Michael’s inner workings. The rare book will make fans fully grasp the mystery, magic and madness that is Michael Jackson.

Here are some MJ quotes from his book:

A star can never die. It just turns into a smile and melts back into the cosmic music, the dance of life.

People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It’s like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in the river has its song, so I stay in the moment and listen. What I hear is never the same, and the beat of my heart holds it all together. When you join the flow, the music is inside and outside, and both are the same. As long as I can listen to the moment, I’ll always have music.

Love is a funny thing to describe. It’s easy to feel, and yet, slippery to talk about. It’s like a bar of soap in the bathtub—you have it in your hand until you hold on too tight. Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, caressingly. Let it fly when it wants. Sometimes, the heart is so heavy that we turn away from it and forget that its throbbing is the wisest message of life, a wordless message that says, “Live, be, move, rejoice—you are alive!” Without the heart’s wise rhythm, we could not exist.

In accepting yourself completely, trust becomes complete. There’s no longer any separation between people, because there is no longer any separation inside. In the space where fear used to live, love is allowed to grow.

When I step out onstage in front of thousands of people, I don’t feel that I’m being brave. It can take much more courage to express true feelings to one person. In spite of the risks, the courage to be honest and intimate opens the way to self-discovery. It offers what we all want, the promise of love.

For me, the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep, soft silence. The infinity of God’s creation embraces me.

When you get right down to it, survival means seeing things the way they really are and responding. It means being open. And that’s what innocence is. It’s simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and committed to one narrow point of view. If you’re locked into a pattern of thinking and responding, your creativity gets blocked. You miss the freshness and magic of the moment. Learn to be innocent again.

You can pray to the angels, and they will listen. But the best way to call them, I am told, is to laugh. Angels respond to delight, because that is what they’re made of. In fact, when people’s minds are clouded by anger or hatred, no angel can reach them.