The Beginning in Form

I was born on April 15, 1949 at 2:53 in the afternoon, which happened to be "Good Friday" that year. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and I've experienced much wonder through the years at the fact that I had been born on the anniversary of Jesus Christ's death on the cross and at almost 3:00 in the afternoon, the time of His bodily death. My mother's best friend had written her a note upon my birth expressing how special I was to have been born on Good Friday. In my innocence, I took that to mean that I had a special mission on Earth, so on some level, my quest for finding truth began at a very early age. I felt responsible not in an egocentric way, but rather in a very humble way. I wanted to fulfill my destiny.

I loved Jesus with all of my heart and wept every Easter time during my younger years at His crucifixion (and became ill almost every Easter weekend). I celebrated His resurrection on Easter Sunday (and although I am no longer a practicing Catholic, I still do to this day. I often felt like I knew Him personally and on some level I did and still do (I think we all have some knowledge of Him regardless of how we were brought up). This belief stayed with me all of my life and continues even now as I am writing this. Because I was born on Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified and died on the cross, I always feared that I would die when I was thirty-three years old (not that I ever thought I was Jesus or even like Him. I just loved Him and wanted to marry Him. I wanted to learn how to be just like Him). Yet, it is no accident that I met my first spiritual teacher on May 23, 1982 when I was thirty-three years old. This was the beginning of the death of the ego built image of Diane. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Unlike Jesus who died at age thirty-three, my spiritual journey began at age thirty-three. It is also important to note that my mother told me that she knew I was different from my older brother right away because I manifested from infancy a very free spirit. In fact, she had nicknamed me Bird, a name that stayed with me throughout my life. I remember her often referring to me as being flighty. I also remember her telling me that I was the one who had taught her that each one of us is different with different personalities, temperaments and gifts. Because she knew that I needed the freedom to develop my wings she did her best to provide that freedom to me as much as possible during that time.

When I was very young, I went on vacation at the beach with my parents. I remember my older brother was playing the accordion and getting a lot of attention. Suddenly I had the urge to get up and act like a conductor, leading him in his music. This action on my part garnered many laughs from the adults. I didn't want to play the music; I wanted to lead the band! I guess from at a young age I was destined to be a leader or conductor of some sort!

Fashion is my passion. My search for my true identity began in 1963, when I was in high school, and fashion played a huge part in this search. Actually, it was earlier than that. I recall that when I was in grammar school at Blessed Sacrament Grammar School I noticed the nuns' habits and the big rosary beads that hung from their waists. I particularly loved the wide cuffs at the wrist that allowed them to place their hands in them like a muff, and I thought the large rosary beads around their waist were very cool. I remember going home one day and telling my mother that I wanted to be a nun. She asked me why, and I responded that I liked their outfits. Mom told me that that was vanity and that was no reason to want to be a nun because they give up vanity when they take their vows. Another time when I saw a nun's wimple blow up in the wind and expose her bald head underneath, I was devastated. The desire to become a nun went away gradually after that. When I watched movies of the postulants scrubbing floors and waiting on the priests in the rectories, I realized that the life of a nun is not very glamorous. However, the clincher was when in the fourth grade I got slapped across the face by a nun teacher for erroneously putting my name on the wrong line on a piece of paper. My true direct experience of nuns was that nuns were mean and I didn't want to have to be mean. I still loved Jesus though and on some level I still wanted to marry Him. I also felt a strong connection to Mary Magdalene back then even though we were taught that she was a prostitute. I didn't believe that way back then, and now subscribe to what was revealed about her by Dan Brown in The daVinci Code.

Even though I was raised as a Catholic, I often questioned the teachings of the church. I remember being taught to fear God, and that if I walked into another church other than Catholic it was a mortal sin. I couldn't wrap my head around the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. How could God be love and fear at the same time? Even though I attended an all girl Catholic college, I still didn't buy the Catholic religion. Yet, I am grateful for having learned about spirituality and God from a very young age. It served as a good foundation for my life's journey back to spirit.

Growing up, I had three brothers, a father and a mother. My mom wanted me to be able to do all of the things that she was not allowed to do growing up because she was female. Both my parents are of Italian heritage. My mom's parents came from Italy when they were teenagers. (I do not remember much about my father's family.) Mom was overprotected by her father, who was very old-fashioned. When Mom was younger and living at home it became fashionable for women to wear slacks. Mom was beautiful and loved beautiful clothes. One day, she bought a pair of pants and had them lying on her bed. When her father saw them he asked, who they belonged to. When she told him they were hers and that they were the latest style in women's clothes, he ripped them apart. Pants were only to be worn by men, he decreed. Because she was also deprived of her independence she wanted to make sure that I had mine. I was able to do and have all the things she was not allowed to do and have. She told me that she wasn't even allowed to roller skate with two skates, but rather only with one skate for safety. "Always keep one foot firmly planted on the ground" was his theory, I guess.

So for quite a while I was somewhat of a tomboy even though I always knew I was a girl. I liked being a girl. It seems that my earliest recollection of wanting to be pretty centered on my need to be loved. Everyone loved my mother and she was always referred to as being beautiful. In fact, she was a dead ringer for the then popular actress Hedy Lamarr. I thought that if I was pretty and beautiful, then people would love me because everyone loved my mother.

In my early teens I discovered a love for makeup and began wearing eye makeup in high school to make me look pretty. I realize now that this was the way I began emerging into my femininity. I realized I was a girl and wanted to be recognized as a girl and I wanted to be liked and loved as Mom was.

As I was writing this, a memory from when I was around six years old has surfaced. That winter we had moved into our first and only house that my parents bought. I was playing out in the backyard wearing the same sort of green hooded snorkel jacket like my brothers wore when two girls from the house behind...