Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Marggie With Two Gs Fish Recipe

         Hello, Friends!  Want to make fish? Here's one of my recipes!
   
      Marggie With Two Gs Fish Recipe    Easy, not too many ingredients, pretty fast!

4 or 5 pieces of Tilapia
2 cans crab meat (drained of their water)
1 stick of butter (you won't be using it all)
1/4 cup sweet onion
1/4 cup green pepper
Paprika
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
 a little cream, or half and half
 a little dab of sugar
Cayenne Pepper to taste. (I sprinkle some all over it lightly!)
Dab of dry Parsley (optional)
Procedure:)  Chop your onions and green pepper very fine. Cook them slowly in 1/2 stick of butter.

Prepare a glass casserole dish by melting a tablespoon of butter and using it to grease the pan. Cut your Tilapia in four large pieces cutting off four small thin pieces and placing them aside.
Place your larger Tilapia slices three or four on dish. 

In your frying pan where you have "limping SOFRITO," cooking (Sofrito usually has 3 legs, onion, green pepper, and garlic.) This does not have garlic! Cook it till tender. Drain some of the butter from this "limping SOFRITO," off.  Add the drained two cans of Crab. Add a little dab of sugar to it to taste. Add the Cayenne Pepper. (Better less than too much!) You can always add more later after all is mixed and you taste it. Add about 1/4 cup of cream and the bread crumbs. Mix well. Simmer. Do not add SALT. The butter will do the trick, we're not through.  Spread this mixture of the crab over the pieces of Tilapia in casserole dish. 

Place the small pieces of the Tilapia you left on the side on top of each piece. I put a tooth pick  through this. Easier to transport after. Spread the rest of the butter melted on top of the fish. Sprinkle Paprika over it. DONE!  Bake in the oven at 350* for a half hour or until the fish is done. Flaky!  Enjoy!   Not hard to make. If your mate says, "Boy, why don't we eat this more often?" Then, you'll know you got it right!  

Tuesday, December 10, 2013




   Where The Natural Meets The Supernatural ... Beyond The Veil

                    The Other Side of Me   by Amarilys Gacio Rassler 
                                                              (Marggie)

      
  To most I'm a wife, mom, nana, writer, friend. To others I'm one who has suffered greatly at the hands of evil spirits.
       December 11, my birthday. Reflecting on my life I take the opportunity to share where I've been and where I'm going.

    Beyond The Veil   
       In 1979, I decide to give myself over to the search for the truth about the supernatural. My passion for the knowledge of what happens after death prompted my focused seeking. I plunged into occult practices and opened my mind and heart to another world. The world of the supernatural.      
     How I experienced evil spirits and how my life dove into insanity through their constant voices and apparitions and their aims to bring me to death through madness is the story I tell in Beyond The Veil. Not all symptoms that appear to be mental illness are mental illness.
     How the only thing that brought me succor was a complete turning of myself over to God and seeking His help is also in the book.
     The process of recovery was not easy. At first I became very angry with God for not taking the evil spirits away immediately. Yet, I learned there was a reason. A plan He had for me to follow. The process provided time for training. You see, He had a purpose. Not only was I to survive but later on I was to help many to do the same.
     Not long after sanity returned to me, without doctors, medications, or hospitalization but through Him, I attended church where the people heard about my story and asked me to share it with others. Thus began years of speaking in parents' groups, women's groups, church groups, college groups and even in centers for delinquent young people. Through my speaking engagements began the ministry of counseling those oppressed by evil spirits. With the need to know more began  over thirty years of reading, training and studying the process of setting people free. I interned with others who had worked at it longer than I had and were able to teach me what they had learned in the trenches.
     For many years our house became a refuge for counseling the spiritually oppressed till my mother needed more of my help.
    It was then that a pastor friend encouraged me to begin to write. "Marggie, he said, why don't you leave what you've learned with others? Imagine how God might use that to help people even after you're gone." 
    Presently, I'm still working on Beyond The Veil, a hard book to write, especially now that my mother has gone home.  I'm determined, though, to finish it. Pray for me.

     A View Into The Spirit Realm ... Stories of the Supernatural
    The above title is for yet another book on which I'm working. I want so much to share facts about the spirit realm I have learned.  This book is an anthology of fictional stories to inspire, entertain and inform ... stories of the supernatural intertwined with suspense and strong loving relationships. Stories that reflect my work of many years. It's my desire that through my writing, many, lost in spiritual oppression, learn there's a Way out ... One Who will set them free.
     After one of my talks, years ago, a man came up to me and said, "I've heard you speak twice. The first time I couldn't hear what you were saying. Just a ringing in my ears. This time I heard it all. What you describe is the hell I've been in for many years. Will you help me?"
    We worked together and The Lord set him free. The voices stopped. The nightmares disappeared and now he's helping others to be set free.
    I dedicate this blog to him and the many others who have made my life rich. They've allowed me to see the Hand of God touch them and set them free.
                                                  To Him be the glory! 
           Thank you, Lord, for another birthday, for without You I wouldn't be here.

               

Monday, December 9, 2013



Mountain Happening ...  At The Farm ... Some might see just animals and I see ...
First morning rocking on the porch ...

ANOTHER VIEW                                                      
                                                                                                   
Leaves in multi-shades of crimson dresses,
Drop in slow dance,
With open arms embracing then,
green carpet ground.

Crows chatter back and forth,
Like friends at coffee houses,
Exchanging trivia.

Roosters confused? Constantly
Crow at midday. Maybe on
Overtime shifts.

Tickle of frisky wind,
Brushes my neck,
Kisses my cheek,
And ballet dances
Away to pirouette
Near horse's mane.

AND YET,

Humans interrupt the music
Of this Nature's opus, so
A woodpecker madly
Drills away with faster beat,
Mocking  farmer who hammers
On a white picket fence.

And the prosaic sound of a truck
Drums down a hill,
While a tractor rumbles,
 Forcing wheels up a mountain.

Nearby on a hill, a horse in
Shinny black tux and white cuffs
Around his feet, conducts this
Nature's symphony with
His swaying  tail.

THEN,
The horse,
Disturbed by the homo sapiens's
Insensitivity to the flowing art around them,                                     
Shakes his mane with artful passion
And ... Snorts!


Saturday, October 26, 2013

A MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCE ... MY DAYS IN WORLD WAR II



     A Mountaintop Experience ... My Days In World War II            
        
          She handed me the manuscript in a black folder when we got to the place we stay at the Georgia mountains. The owner of the cabins said, "Will you read it? Tell me if it's worth anything?"
         The next morning I sat in the rocker of our cabin's porch, manuscript in hand. One more thing to read. I already had plans for the vacation. A couple of books my friends had written I hadn't gotten to yet and other books I brought to read about writing, plus my favorite spiritual material.
         The crisp wind tossed leaves around the trees by the cabin. A confused rooster kept crowing somewhere behind me even though it was not early morning anymore. I sipped my coffee while identifying with the tossed leaves and the confused rooster. I felt confused about what my vacation time was going to look like now that my plans seemed to be tossed around.
         I opened the manuscript and right away observed the format. Letters. Letters written by a POW, from World War II, to his family. His five year old son, his three year old daughter and his wife.
        It wasn't long before the shame gripped me. I had been handed something sacred. He had written page after page of the letters and hidden them in his back pocket. And through those letters I had been transported to his side.
        Soon I was spreading dung over fields in icy cold Germany, with flimsy wear. Then I attended the church services he held for the men, the fellow prisoners captured with him. By his side I stood, without being able to sit in train cars where the only bathroom was a bucket used by many men who stood like sardines for hours ... cars where some of the men acted like caged animals.
         When the threat of the Russians made the Germans force the prisoners to march for days, with just a piece of black bread for food, I was there. When men could not walk one more step, out of illness and exhaustion and were mercilessly shot, I heard the loud sound of their guns penetrating the mind of each man, vibrating in the core of each heart.
          Weeks and weeks without washing ... eaten up by lice. Tormenting lice all over their bodies  that kept them awake at night. Constant danger. Some going insane. Yet the man whose letters I read was a strong believer. A man of faith. He didn't waiver.
           And so I spent a large part of my vacation with a POW of World War II in Germany. What a gift! I thank his daughter for trusting me with his manuscript. Is it worth anything? Priceless! A mountaintop experience. 

   Private C.H. Pollard   was captured October 26, 1945 
      at 2:30 A.M. in Germany
     He obtained his freedom at the end of the war. 

Friday, October 11, 2013

MUSING AROUND ... AH, MUSE!



   MUSING AROUND ... AH, MUSE!

      
AH, MUSE!                                     Poem by Marggie Rassler        

Calling to my little Muse,

Please inspire me to good use.

What? I hear her magic word,

Vow that art, shall be transferred?

"Yes, bethink a potent start,

Really prompt get to their heart.

 

Form those characters to breathe strong,

Let them weep ... then sing a song!

 

Cut out long and sleepy clauses,

Who needs yawns as reader pauses.

 

Move your narrative along,

Pages flipping with that prong.

 

Do away with passive verb,

Make your scenes alive, disturb!

 

And at end of every chapter,

Drop those hooks, that'll make you captor.

 

But, why has Thou, furrowed brow?

Not enough to work with now?"

 

Holy Cow, Muse please say CIAO!

Writer's block has hit me ... POW!


  Writer friend, can you relate? 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

WHEN ... I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA?




  WHEN ... I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA?         by Amarilys G. Rassler
                                                                                      (Marggie)


        
 WHEN… I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA?            ( Poem can be a song, to the tune of,

                                                                                      Deep In The Heart Of Texas)    

                                                     When nature gloats,                                                   

                                                      In autumn’s coats,

                                                                                                       


                                                       And scarecrows wink,
                                                                                                

                                                      As birds’ plans sink!

 

                                                              Ooooooo!

                                                I  WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA!

 

                                                       When sorghum cooks,

                                                         Around the bend,

 

                                                        And apple-fritters,

                                                       Temptations send!

                                                                                                                     

                                                             Ooooooo!

                                                I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA!

                                                     When the air is crisp,


                                                    And the winds us frisk,

 

                                                  When leaves come down,                                                            



                                                           And pumpkins frown!

 

                                                                    Ooooooo!

                                                    I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA!

                                                             When the fair is there,
 
 
With the vendors’ wares,
 
 
 

And the big crowds stay,

To hear fiddlers play!

 

Ooooooo!

I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA!

 

When the corn is picked,

And the hay is rolled,  

 

When we hold our breath,

Beauty to behold!

 

Ooooooo!

I WANT TO BE IN GEORGIA!  

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

MY LIFE ... LIKE A PLATANO!





   

              My life ... like a Platano!                           by A.G.R.        


 Platano a Puñetazo, Tostones, Fried Green Platains, different names for different folks.

      To make them I have to cut them into quarter-inch sections, peel them, fry them once and them my husband smashes them flat. After, transported again to the frying pan, I fry them till crisp. Once cooked I salt them. 

      YUMMMM!    

 

    Today I studied the process. Some people see a platano frying and that's what it is,

just a platano. But not me. Not today.

     My life like a platano.


      When I've been green, lacking wisdom many times, I've had to be peeled of my ignorance, smashed into shape and fried to a crisp by the harshness of the consequences produced by my mistakes.

       Sometimes after, I've felt the sprinkling of some salt upon me, by an Invisible Hand that, in mercy, allows me to be used in some way to warn a fellow traveler on this earth before he, too,  

goes through the platano process.
                       
 

    Tell me, next time you make this dish will you see more than a platano?

    Thanks for visiting my blog.
    Tomorrow I'm making
     spaghetti squash.
    
    I wonder what I'll see then!
                                                                                    
     
     
     

Sunday, September 22, 2013

THE MESSAGE IN THE LEAVES




         
   The Message In The Leaves          (in memory of grandpa)

    By  Amarilys G. Rassler                  Dec. 1920- Oct. 2007

                                                          

 

The leaves, the leaves they speak to me,

Of changes that are bound to be.

The happy orange colors shout,

Enjoying winter’s waiting pout.

 

The autumn foliage reigns today,

In robes of golden-red array,

As crowns of amethyst drown their jade,

The cheerful leaves don’t plan to fade.

 

The leaves, the leaves they hum a tune,

A sacred message in their croon,

Of glorying in each moment’s feast,

Of   “carpe diem” in their midst.

 

The leaves, the leaves, they speak to me,

Of present fall I now have reached.

I must not sleep in sweet denial,

For winter awaits, the impatient child.

 

The message of the leaves is strong,

Come help me then, to sing their song.

Embrace this instant, Oh, joy prolong,

But at our winter, leave work for Him, all done!    

                                 

                                                                            

 

“He has made everything beautiful in His time, He also set eternity in the

  Hearts of men;”                           Ecclesiastes 3:11

 

“…no man knows when his hour will come…”

                                                      Ecclesiastes 9:12

 

“I have brought You  glory on earth by completing the work, You gave me to do.”                                                John 17:4

Friday, September 6, 2013

CUBAN-AMERICAN WAR DANCE ON THE HYPHEN



       Another Side Of AMARILYS GACIO RASSLER / Out with the fangs!

         "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights

                   of all who are destitute."  Proverbs 31:8  (NIV)
    
                                       CUBAN-AMERICAN WAR DANCE ON THE HYPHEN

           Fumes rise through every inch of my Cuban-American body and I war dance on my hyphen after sitting on a major sandspur today and not being able to pull it out. The sandspur being  the new  La Gaceta article where the editor, Patrick Manteiga, continues to deceive people with his encouragements for better relationships with Cuba and his lies about Cuba being so much better today.

           "Our first trip with the Alliance ... opened our eyes to the many falsehoods that had been propagated in our opinion of Cuba due to the one-sided propaganda in this country." These are Patrick Mantega's words from his As We Heard It, column in this week's La Gaceta, his trilingual newspaper here in Tampa.  

           Manteiga is part of this Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation who is planning to meet in a private cocktail party this weekend  to reunite those who have gone to Cuba. Former Tampa Mayor, Dick Greco, was one of these persons who went to Cuba in 2002.  Albert A. Fox, Jr., is another leader in this open door policy for Cuba, the voice that speaks of Castro not being such a bad guy. I've heard Mr. Fox speak  in front of an audience of mostly American citizens at a meeting in a cafe here in Tampa, of the many trips he's made to Cuba and the embraces he received from Fidel Castro.

            Both Manteiga and Fox, have the same opinion from the speeches I've heard them give. They share of their visits with Castro and feasting at his banquets. According to them, Castro is not the devil people say he is and Cubans in exile are still emotionally handicapped. They need to get over it.  Cuba has changed. American tourism should be opened. Consider  the financial gain for the U.S., Tampa  especially, and Cuba, they say.


WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?   I speak with those coming from Cuba continuously  and conditions there are still horrible.  A man who visited with me recently, who went back to Cuba after a short stay to see his family here, had to take his father to chemo therapy in Cuba on a bicycle because he couldn't afford a car and he's a psychologist ... a  psychologist who gets paid $20 a month.

   Gruesome stories came out of him and his wife, one after another. The shortage of food, the rundown buildings, the medical help for the Cubans in Cuba that lacks cleanliness and medications, the  recent fears of diseases ...  and you even have to bring your own water and linen for your bed in the hospital.

 WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

    They speak of safety but ANYONE can get arrested. In Cuba there's no guarantee of justice. Look how they placed that poor Jewish fellow in prison for bringing in cellular phones and computer to his family. If they need to make an example out of you, you're gone. AND, what U.S. government can save you? The fellow is serving 20 years in prison and has lost 100 lbs.


 WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

  You can't say what you believe. There're still ears on walls and you might be the next one to be made an example of even as an innocent tourist. You might be the one they choose to try  to make some exchange with for their own gain.  AMERICANS BEWARE!

WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

 PATRICK MANTEIGA AND ALBERT FOX, JR.,:  Are Castro and his government really good?  Have things really changed?  THE DEAD CRY OUT FROM UNDER THE WATERS OF CUBA TO KEY WEST ... LIBERTAD, LIBERTAD!

     

               

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

C.S. LEWIS ... WHAT INTRIGUES ME




                                           ATHEIST ONCE?  WHY?

                          My Intrigue With C.S. Lewis 
                                         
                                         
        
   Militant atheist turned believer, author with stellar imagination, creator of books that delight young and adult, deep insights into the spirit realm hidden in his subtext; all of this draws me like a magnet again and again to his writings and the life experiences and people that molded him.  

                                                       

                                                               C.S. Lewis as a boy
   Did you know?

   1. C.S. Lewis lost his mother to cancer three months prior to his tenth birthday. (I came to the United States as a ten year old.)

   2. His father never recovered from her death. He and his brother, Warren, for many years felt estranged from their father.

   3. He was convinced, as a child, because of his mother's death, that the God he encountered in church and in the Bible she gave him was, if not cruel, a vague abstraction.

   4. A few years later, with the influence of a spiritually unorthodox boarding school house matron, C.S. Lewis forsook Christianity and became an avowed atheist.  

3. Digory, the boy in C.S. Lewis's, The Magician's Nephew, had a mother who was seriously ill. (Did the author write himself into that story?)

 

    So after such information, what captivates me most about Lewis? The amount of pain experienced as a child from the separation from his mother and then his father. As many of you know, I was an Operacion Pedro Pan child. I know of that parent/child separation.

    What else fascinates me about this author? The people that came later into his life. They made such a difference.

    Who were they? The people that made the difference?  

     And how did that difference contribute to his classic writings?
         (To be continued.)
 
                      
                   Jack Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis (CS) Lewis
 
             

 My research and study of this author's life has been ongoing for years.

     Credit, in preparation for this material, goes to: 

       Narnia Beckons, by Ted Baehr and James Baehr.  

       Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

       The Narnian, The Life And Imagination Of C.S. Lewis,

        by Alan Jacobs

                 Picture Credits -  C.S. Lewis as a boy,

                                                Image on line, 

                                                 C.S. Lewis Centenary Group

                                                 C. S. Lewis as an adult,

                                                   Wikipedia

Saturday, August 17, 2013

After Loss ... The Journey


       After Loss ... The Journey
     
            
  Grief ... My Journey        By Marggie Rassler


           
               For those who have not read my other writings on grief, I'm processing the grief of the sudden loss of my mother. With each day I sense a difference, more steps forward less steps backward. Thank you, to those who pray for me. 
       What am I learning?
      Grief seems more of a teaching journey this time. I'm relearning some lessons and digesting new ones.
I've found out that there're variables that make grief different on this ocassion. With me being older, grief  brings closer the day of my own final goodbyes. There's even more of a need to leave things here

on earth done ... whatever I feel I've been call to do. Life has become even a more precious treasure, family and friends of the utmost importance, while the emotions that arise through triggers at times seem unbearable.

      Here's my latest finding about grief. Again, I hope it helps someone. That really matters to me.


                
Grief ... My Journey     by Marggie Rassler

Grief has rabies.

He growls and sinks fangs

into hearts. Unexpectedly.

His ambush rapes composure.

After, Reasoning rushes to help

And stands you back up while

Grief cowers, crawling into

His subterranean home,

awaiting that trigger,

which summons him,

to his next assignment.

So Grief labors sharpening

His weapons of torture,

Incognizant that each

of his assaults wrestled

by Time and Faith,

do shrink him ... some.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

GRIEF ... MY JOURNEY



     
          Grief ... My Journey      by Marggie Rassler

           This is a continuation of processing grief ... the grief of
dealing with my mother's recent death. At first I didn't want to let go, even of the memories of the night she died. She experienced cardiac arrest.

I felt that if I let go of those memories she would slip away from me. The acute sense of her fading from my life and memory became very painful. So I made myself relive it again and again. That, holding on to sadness, is depicted in my previous poem. After I was willing to let her go and worked at letting the memories normally drift  away, in came other companions of grief. Those brought in  thoughts of when will the next shoe drop? Who's next? Sudden death smacked me with the sober realization ... life is fragile. 

   I took out some of my books that deal with grief. I was glad to see what I experienced and I am experiencing is normal.
   
    Remember the stages of grief I mentioned before? I think some of those stages run through this poem.
    It's surprising to me when I check the statistics of who reads my humble blog, the diversity of countries that read it. Friend, whoever you are, if you're going through grief you're not alone. Again, I hope and pray this helps in some way.

           
        Grief .. My Journey    by Marggie Rassler



        
Grief has pals.

Along with him

come Doubt and Fear.

Doubt trickles in,

softly playing

notes of tearful harp,

lulling me,

into the selfish arms

of sirens of Despair.

 

Fear sings grey tunes

of futures without suns,

And paints portraits

of empty vases of flowers.

He wraps his arm around

Doubt and laughs while I,

Stare at the final numbers

inscribed on tombstone.

 

Grief....