Wandering In The Mist

A severe lack of lack

2008-03-28T17:36:00.000-04:00

I think that when I divorced, I abandoned a role. Not only the role of "husband," and "friend," but also my job title. Along with those roles, I have walked away from all the goals and dreams expected of those roles. I have walked from a life similar to those around me into a whole new world.

Outwardly, my life is more "normal" than it was before. An oddity of my marriage was that we often lived apart, often in different states. Even when we were in the same state, we were often in different cities. I figured it out once: we were physically apart more than we were together. It was more typical that I slept in my bed alone than we shared it. Oddly, now that I'm divorced, I spend more time with my full family than I did in the years we were married. The rest of my life looks more "normal," too. For the first time in my life, I can easily pay my rent, my utilities, and my credit card bill. This, I say to myself, is what it's supposed to be like. After moving around the country for years, I have, for the first time in much more than a decade, gotten all my paperwork into one location: my taxes, my drivers' license, my car's registration, even my voter's registration is all where I live. I'm fully legal. I think the last time I could say that was 1997!

I have a new role: Just Me. Now that it's Just Me, I am at a total loss as to what Just Me wants! I stumble onto new roles, and I pause and ask, "Is this what I want, or what others have told me I want?" It's not that I will turn something down just because others think I should want it. I just want to be sure that it is Just Me who's doing the wanting!

What does Just Me want? I'm sure there's something that I'm not seeing, but I really can't guess what it is. This makes me feel even more odd and different. I may be the only person I know who isn't dreaming of something I don't have. I've been listening to The Secret on CD, and I'm all for doing the things they suggest, but have the problem of not knowing where to aim this secret power. More money? OK, why not, but I have sufficient abundance for my modest needs. A great big house or an expensive luxury car? Um, no, those are things for which Just Me has neither need nor desire. Power? What the heck would I do with power? Just Me only wants power over himself and his own life, thanks. Romance? OK, now that one gives me pause. Yes, I want the love of my life, but I'm a LOT too distrustful to invite that risk into my life.

Very curious. The thing I most want in my life is Just Me, and I've had that all along. I need a lesson in wanting and dreaming.

Latest trips through the fog

2008-03-16T21:10:00.001-04:00

It's been while since I've blogged... my apologies it you have been a reader. It's been one of those intervals of nothing happening and yet everything being different.

The lesson from my Christmas trip has stuck with me, for which I thank the Universe. The past is past. It can only cause pain to the extent that I give it life. Things have happened to challenge my learning, but I am blessed in that the lesson remains in my heart.

The greatest challenge, in retrospect, was my ex's response to my Christmas card. OK, sending a Christmas card was tempting the fates, but her response was spectacular. I had written my best wishes, and acknowledged that it was more than passing strange. Her response was that, yes, it was strange, but not as strange as sending flowers. However, she added, it would be alright for me to send flowers to her on an upcoming event in her life. My reaction was laughter, and sending her a note saying that I felt sending her flowers would be inappropriate. In the words of a friend of a friend, I thank you for the gift of closure.

Other events have further clarified my new state of mind. A female friend, towards who I had been attracted, hit the jackpot, so to speak. She's living with a man with whom she is in love. I was given another gift of closure.

In the meantime, I have seized the opportunity to take trip to Egypt early this summer. I did not seek the chance to make this trip, and I had second thoughts about it. It's an expensive trip, and I am not a wealthy person. But I discovered something a month ago: in late summer, 2006, I wrote a list of things I wanted to have happen. On that list, I found the line, "Visit Europe and Egypt." I had totally forgotten about that line. And yet, here I am. Last year, I visited Italy. This year, I visit Egypt.

It may be because of these events that my work has been far less traumatic than it was last fall. There are still tasks that I must force myself to do, and days when I struggle to face the office. Compared to last fall, though, this is a walk in the park.

I don't think I have yet seen the end of the changes happening in me. My struggle to balance Spirit and the world is eased, but still there. I still ask how I can talk about my job, when I've met Beings from the Other. I still feel their presence, but not as intensely. I still look at my work, and ask myself why I waste my time, other than for the paycheck.

If I were to win the lottery tomorrow, and if money were not an issue, what would I do? Oh, I'd do what many other shallow people would do: celebrate, buy some stupid stuff, and sleep a lot. But eventually I'd want to do something. What would it be? It would not be the things I do today; I would walk away from this job without so much as a look over my shoulder.

I would become a healer. I don't mean an MD; I have no interest in becoming an MD, even if I could get into medical school - which is doubtful. I don't consider what MDs do as healing. Healing is something deeper. Even if the disease isn't cured, healing can occur.

There are times when it is destructive to isolate a person from the pain which they have made in their lives. It is there for a reason. In my case, it was to spur me to my lessons. I could have clocked the pain with antidepressants, but if I had, I'd never have learned what I needed to. The point of life isn't to avoid pain, but to learn. Sometimes, the two work together.

A New Year

2008-01-17T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is a good year, I can feel it. Or perhaps it's a good year, because I declare it. In the first few days of this month, I felt it, I declared it, and it is happening. I don't know how much I believe the whole idea of intention driving your reality, but I've seen it enough that I cannot dismiss it out of hand. Wanting, though, is not the same thing as intention. Wanting is another way to play victim. Intention is declaring that which you want as yours.

So, what's making it a good year so far? Little things, really, are the difference. I had an interesting exchange of emails with my ex. They were neither good nor bad, really, just a repeat of things already said. Somehow, though, this was different. It was closure. A friend once told the story of the final straw between her and on organization, for which she said, "Thank you for the gift of closure." These emails were that for me. Unlike other exchanges, I didn't get angry this time. I reacted, yes, but the feelings were so fleeting that I was both surprised and relieved. So thank you, the woman to whom I was so deeply connected, for the gift of closure.

Associated with this are the feelings remaining from the Christmas visit to my brother's home. I got a lot from my short time there. I realized that I am released from the landscape of my childhood. Talking to my brother, I realized that he was totally unaware of the abuse that my sister and I went through at the hands of another. I came to understand that he could not understand the impact that those events had upon us if he doesn't know, and that I had no desire to educate him. I listened to Dwayne Dyer on the drive, and he gave me a gift when he pointed out the only power my memories have is the power I give them. Now, I had to recognize them in order to take the power back that I had given them, but after that I claim the power back.

One consequence of the closer with my ex and claiming my power back is that I have started feeling Future. I can't explain how I was feeling other than to say that I realized that I had no future. When people asked where I'd be in a year or what I wanted to be doing, I had no answer. With the release, I feel future again. As for what I'll be doing, I don't have a very specific answer yet, but I can tell you that I'll be doing it for someone I have neglected for far too long: me.

What has this to do with Spirit? Everything! With the change has come much more balance. I am taking better care of me, which is somehow making me more interested in participating with the rest of the world, including the world of work. I am also doing Reiki more, and doing more reading about Reiki. For me, being trained in Reiki (or anything else) is just the start. Being attuned as a Master was a milestone, but it is a milestone along a long road.

With the new Future, a lot of ideas are entering my mind, but they are ideas I cannot immediately act upon. My mission for the next few months is to manifest the long ideas, and to find short-term ideas that I can act upon now. It begins by taking Reiki out on the road. I've only given anyone Reiki in situations where it was either a group (God love Reikishares!) or spontaneous. I'm now planning to do it. My first outing is a friend in need. Being able to give Reiki to a friend is a wonderful feeling, a type of gift unlike any other.

Family and Christmas

2007-12-28T00:16:00.000-05:00

Amidst all the searching and struggling I've been doing of late has come the Christmas Holidays. I have a love-hate relationship with the holidays. I love my siblings (my parents have passed), yet it is sometimes difficult to be with them. They are largely unaware the interests and experiences I recount in these posts, and I have not found a way to discuss it with them. This leaves a hole in our relationship, I admit, but I find the hole much easier to endure than I could possibly handle the slightest look of disappointment from them. My siblings are the salt-of-the-Earth type, and successful at their careers. How does one talk about Reiki energy with them? I have not yet discovered the words. Still, the love is there. It isn't hidden, if you speak the family's language.

So it is with some nervousness that I make the trip home. It has always been worth the day of travel each way, and I have always made the return trip happier than I was. This trip was no different in that regard, but the trip was different. After a day or two getting reacquinted, I took stock of the changes to my brother's home. I remember when he bought it, and helped with the earliest changes. He is a farmer, and by "home," I mean anything and everything in the farmyard, and it has changed beyond recognition. Nearly all the old wood buildings are gone, either by gravity or by design, replaced by much more useful buildings of steel and fiberglass. He has successfully transformed a neglected, obsolete operation into a modern, efficient one. At the same time, my memories are gone. It is almost as if part of my life has been removed.

With time in my family comes time for conversation. After catching up on the actions of the friends who I barely remember and events of the local world, we talk about what really matters: each other. It is a family tradition that these talks take place at the last possible moments, as if we delay it until there is no choice lest the chance be lost. In these talks, we learn more about our lives and histories than we'd ever imagined. Being the youngest, I always hope to learn about the spaces where my mind has build blinds, but the reverse is usually the case. I'm mystified by this, because my siblings were there and older, more mature, and presumably would have more accurate memories.

Enough years have passed since my youth that the next generation (my neices) are all in their 20s. One is pregnant, another engaged, and even the youngest is well into her college education. They are a startling group in their intelligence, and yet are each so very different in their personalities. My favorite is the one who has faced far more challenges than the others. As is often the case, the one who has taken the most hard knocks is the deepest. I am biased, of couse, but that is largely because she has given me the most heartfelt love, in a language that none in the family but she and I speak.

I am truly blessed by this family. I so want to tell them of my life now, and yet do not know how. I realize, though, that the conversation must come soon. The struggles about my career over the last year are clearly leading me away from it. I don't pretend to know what's coming in 2008, and I have proven my ability to predict my own future has been proven to be absolutely horrible. Yet, this cannot continue. I am good at parts of my job; other parts tear at my soul. I am paid well for it, but the price isn't worth the cost. This must change, which promises to make me even more nervous on next year's Christmas trip.

PS: I didn't tell them of the woman with them. She asked me not to. She was enjoying the holiday, as she loves having family around, even if it isn't her family.

Seeking balance

2007-11-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

As I've said, I've been struggling. I realized that I'm seeking a balance between the mundane world in which I must walk, and the Spirit which keeps me alive. The past few months have been hard, very hard. It hasn't helped that the people around me have been having their problems as well. One friend is in a bizarre relationship situation, another has been going through her own spiritual struggle, one has financial problems well beyond my experience, and yet another has been going through physical problems. None of these are my problems, really, but all of them have affected me.

I've been called (accused of being) a chameleon, taking on the characters of my surroundings. I wish I had a convincing argument of how that's not true. In my self-charitable moments, I like to think of it as being sensitive. OK, maybe more delusional rather than charitable. But it is true that I have always had the role of being the not-a-problem person, of being the one you could always count on to be able to take care of themselves. That was one of my most important roles as a child, and the one which garnered me the most praise. Never mind accomplishments, and I had more than my fair share, I was just supposed to be the one that needed no attention. There were plenty of times when I needed a lot of attention, though. When I tell people of the events of my childhood, their reactions range from shock to disbelief to pity. (Hold the pity, thank you.) But somehow, I survived without becoming a sociopath or criminal. Not all can say that. Anyway, the not-a-problem person doesn't do that kind of thing.

When I stumbled upon Other, I was so excited. One reason is that I wasn't being forgotten, after all. There is a reality outside this reality in which I matter. It was like coming home, only better, since I really have no home to which I can return. It was the unasked for hug, the smile when you walk in a room, the sense that I was truly welcome. This reality, on the other hand, has no such welcome for me. At best, I am a resource for a floor to sleep on, a washing machine, a small loan, or a high-speed Internet connection. I provide resources because I care, yes, but also because without the resource, I expect that I'd never see these people. I get hugs when I hug someone else. I get smiles when I listen to their stories. A cynical person would say I'm being used, and that I'm a doormat. I'm just trying to survive.

I still don't like this reality, but I have to live in it. My love of the Other reality is like a drug, providing me with feelings that I do not get from this reality. A starving man eats what's before him, and doesn't fuss about it. In the morning I awake in this reality and have to go to work. If I could walk on the Other side and still live in this one, I would. Instead, I need to find a way to hold that inside me while still functioning in this mess you people all seem to enjoy. Guys, you're nuts.

My balance at the moment is weighted towards this reality, and not feeling. As I'm wandering through this mist, my feet are on solid ground. At the same time, I know that the Other side is right over… there.

The voice that spoke

2007-09-29T14:47:00.000-04:00

When I received my Reiki Master’s attunement, I reacted strongly. That’s not surprising. People react in many different ways, some mild, some strong. The Master who attuned me tells me that when it was done, I looked at her and said, “You broke me,” fell to the floor and cried. I don’t remember it that way. I remember saying “I’m OK,” and crying. It may be a simple matter of being misunderstood. I don’t think so. I think I intended my voice to say one thing, but instead it spoke Truth. It was my voice, driven by my lungs and issued by my vocal cords, but it came from somewhere else. That kind of thing happens with attunements.

I have gotten to the point where my stomach clenches and aches when I walk into my job. I feel it when I even think about the work. Why would I be getting sick over it now? I’ve had the job for years, and never felt this way. The job has changed, but I have changed more. The job has gotten smaller, and I have grown in new directions. That world is now alien to me; the one who broke could work in that world. The one I have become cannot.

The broken one is the person I had been. The act of being attuned to the level of Reiki Master was a conscious, public pursuit of change. At that moment, my prayer of changing and growing had been answered. There are consequences to every action, and the consequence of becoming a new person is that I cannot live the old person’s life.

The first thing I must do is bury the broken one.

Struggling here

2007-09-18T09:59:00.000-04:00

I had a horrible realization this past week. I don’t know that it’s actually relevant, but I don’t know that it isn’t. In any case, this is what’s on my mind: I lost my future.

I know exactly where I lost it. Like many who are on this path, I didn’t go with conscious intention. I was kicked onto it by events in my personal life. I made huge changes in my day-to-day life so that I might be with the woman I loved. I left my job, left my home, and moved halfway across the country to live with her. Within two weeks of the move, the relationship ended, and it ended ugly. The details aren’t important, but I had closed out one life for a new one, only to find the new one did not exist. I’d made a new future for myself, only to see it killed.

I was very lucky in landing on my feet, financially, and I made these incredible discoveries about things I hadn’t thought were possible. I discovered a new continent, and that’s wonderful. The question is, how do I get up in the morning and live in this new world? And I have no idea.

A friend is going through something that is vaguely similar. She’s in love with a man with whom she cannot have a real relationship. She sees him, talks to him, even gets a little more intimate with him – but she just can’t have a future with him. It’s temporary for reasons she can’t control. There is no future in it.

The similarity is that it is temporary. It’s hard to enjoy things that are so clearly going to be gone in the near future. It’s hard to justify buying a couch, because in the background is the awareness that I’ll have to move it soon. Buying clothes is a problem, because I don’t know what I’ll be wearing for work in a year. Will the clothes I buy because I love them be anything I can wear in my next job? Will the couch I love fit in my next home? If I feed my interest in bicycling or hiking or driving, will I have to give it up because the next town I live in isn’t bicycle- or hiking- or driving-friendly?

I’ve learned from harsh experience that things I love can be taken from me. There is only one cure for this that I know of: hope. What do I dare hope for?

Looking for the path

2007-09-09T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'm struggling more than usual to find the path in this mist.
In this world in which I work, I have time demands that extend beyond 8-to-5. (I know they say "9-to-5," but I've never seen that job.) Aside from the day I work until almost 8 pm, I need to work evenings and weekends to get everything ready for the coming week. I've had 8-to-5 in the past, and it wasn't wonderful. But the extra hours I need to put in for my current job is exhausting.

Worse than that, it takes time away from this quest. I am sitting here on a Sunday morning, taking a break from doing things I absolutely, positively must get done today. I don't really want to. I want to be learning something, and something about Other is better than anything about anything else. The other edge of this sword is that my job also allows me to pry some time free during the week. If I can only get my conscience to shut up, and not feel guilty for taking time off for me, I can do the learning I really want to do during the week. Well, I can as long as it doesn't interfere with those times when other people expect/demand I be physically present.

Which brings me to those other people. Most of the people with whom I work feel that they are very open-minded, and they are about a lot of things. When it comes to spirituality, they would tell you that they thing religions other than theirs are interesting and wonderful, in their own way. But the key word here is religions: they are far less tolerant of other spiritual views than they are of other religious views. As long as you go to a church, or temple, or mosque, or anyplace, they're cool with it. But if you don't, well, that's a different matter.

There is a group where I work that puts up fliers every week, on non-Christian spirituality. The fliers don't stay posted for long. I've taken to photocopying the flier when I first see it, and replacing them when I see one's been taken down. This week, I reposted it in one spot every three hours. I once thought that there was someone on the cleaning crew that comes in at night who took them down. I have reasons to believe it's one of my professional colleagues. Like I said, they're open-minded, as long as it's a religion that has a church.

All of this makes going to work less than delightful. When I walk through the doors at work, I hide my Other. Every now and again, I'm tricked into letting a little peek through, and I worry that I've just made a fatal mistake. And for better or worse, sometimes the Other sneaks in: someone without a body standing in the back of the room; a voice without a speaker; or a sudden knowing of something that I cannot possibly know. I like to think that I always greet such visits with a smile, but I sometimes react with "not now, not now!"

Not so ugly, after all

2007-08-31T11:40:00.000-04:00

I am enjoying work again. It's been years since I could say that, and it's quite a relief. But what does work have to do with a spiritual quest? Nothing and everything, of course.

I grew up in a household where my father's work was our life. He was a farmer. Everything around us was his job. The farm was our home, our grocery store, and our playground. Since plants grow in the summer, "vacation" depended on how they were doing. Our last family vacation of more than one day was when I was in second grade - and that was two days. Farmers have a very special kind of life. The work is absurdly long, and the pay per hour is absurdly low. The risks are enormous - in what other job are you guaranteed to lose your home if you lose your job? Financial dangers aren't the only kind you face, either. We buried neighbors who'd not been careful enough for just a few seconds. What sane person would ever want to be a farmer?

My father had no choice, really. Oh, he could have taken other jobs. He was a successful small business owner, after all. Add to that his skills of operating heavy equipment, construction, and mechanics, and you've got an employable person. His choices were not limited by talent or personality, but by his Spirit. He came to life when farming. Other work would have fed his bank account better, but at the cost of his Soul, or chi. He'd have been a walking corpse, just like so other many people we meet every day. I understand why my father went to work every day at 4:30 AM (so early that not even the sun was up), and seldom stopped before 8 PM. He realized that he'd die in a 9-to-5 job as surely as if he'd been submerged at the bottom of Lake Superior. When you think of something being in a person's soul, you're thinking of him and farming. Dad said "No."

I once had a better-paying job than I do now. It payed well, but sapped the soul from me. I now understand why people have heart attacks on Monday mornings. At its lowest, my current job was beginning to feel like that one, which was a very bad thing. Now, however, I'm beginning to feel work feeding me again.

This scares me. "We make ourselves small and call it comfort." I am still learning the Other. I do not want the comfort of a pleasing job and decent salary to draw me away from it. Balance is such a tricky thing when you're still learning to walk, be it in one world or between two worlds.

Reality rears its ugly head

2007-08-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

All of these experiences are mind-boggling. Life, however, requires things like working, buying food at the grocery store, and paying the rent (or mortgage, if you are so lucky). This means I must devote less time to Spirit and more time on the mundane.

I’m back at work. I have rebelled against work for the last year or so, to the point of hating it. I know it’s not the job. I would dislike any job just as much, and know that there are others I’ve had that I’d hate even more. Now I find that my mind is slipping into work. I’m finding it easy, too, thinking about tasks and deadlines and obligations. The tasks keep my hands busy and my mind from working on Other things, which is something that I find more comfortable. Growing is never comfortable, though, and I am dying to grow out of this phase of life.

A friend says “The unseen world presses hard against this one.” (paraphrased) I can feel and sometimes see those without physical form, watching from the back of the room. I feel their amusement as I struggle to fit in and play the same game as the physical ones around me. My colleagues literally don’t see things that I take as significant. All the time, I wonder whether I’ve lost my mind or gained it.

This is a challenge. How do I carry on in this world, after I’ve experienced Other? Sometimes I’d love to go back to a time when I knew none of this, to a more naïve time. I call it my “Irish phase”, as a member of the O’Blivious family. Sometimes, it seems that was better. It wasn’t. How can being ignorant be better than knowing something so incredible?

Say a prayer for me.

New Orleans

2007-08-11T12:58:00.000-04:00

We were to meet a woman who claimed to be many things. It turns out that she’s being modest. I was afraid that she claimed too many things, and was a fake, a charlatan. Thank goodness that I decided to go, because if I had not, my colleague may have backed out for the same reason. I was wrong, so very wrong.

So what happened? For me, I was pointed to an event of my life, one of those turning points that you wish had never happened. It was the most humiliating time of my life, and I owe at least part of it to Mike, Evil Mike. Well, it seemed that way at the time, but he was no more or less evil than any other 11-year-old boy. I remember it all amazingly well, considering it happened 40 years ago. I was assaulted physically and emotionally and spiritually, and left to deal with it on my own. No one, absolutely no one, ever, ever, raised a finger to help me through it. It is impossible, impossible, that everyone in my daily life did not know it was happening. Family and teachers had to know. And my classmates and friends, well, they were the ones doing it.

Not that any of this was said with the Woman Who Is Many Things. She just pointed to this most painful time of my life and said, “Whoa, you got poison there.” That and drained what felt like gallons of toxin from my right side. But I physically felt different the next day, and the next, and the next.

My colleague’s experience was very different and very profound, she tells me. That is her story, and I am not the one to share it, but it confirmed my sense that the Woman Who Is Many Things is a very powerful person. My colleague and I had gone our different ways for a few hours while she went to deal with some of what the Woman Who Is Many Things had told her. For one or two hours, my world was literally rocking. I began to worry that I was coming down with something, but somehow it wasn’t like that. It was when my colleague and I caught up with each other that I started figuring some things out. My world was rocking, and she was rocking it… or so say I.
Perhaps the most magical moment of the trip was witnessing something. My colleague needed some Mississippi River water, the blood of the Mother of Waters. (I know many have called the Mississippi River male, the Father of Waters, but they’re wrong. If a river can have gender, the Mississippi is female.) While my friend was filling the bottle, there was a presence on the water. One does not treat such a presence lightly. But this presence wasn’t threatening. It was watching, expectantly and with more than a little joy. It was glad she was filling the bottle.

Bottle filled, we’re heading home. I’m a very lucky man. Nope, I have no idea what the outcome of the filling of the bottle will be, but it’s going to be significant in at least one person’s life.

Oh, yeah, one more thing: “You’re a healer,” the Woman Who Is Many Things told me. She said it as if it were the weather, as though she were saying the sun was shining and doesn’t everyone see that? It got funnier – she suggested I learn Reiki. Maybe, just maybe, I’m on the right track after all.

Welcome to reality

2007-07-23T08:44:00.000-04:00

I wrote of meeting Emily in my first entry in this blog. That’s nice, you say, another strange story, another wonderful bit of fantasy. But this is my point: it is not fantasy. That isn’t the only time something like that has happened, and been confirmed “independently.” I met Emily again, you see. With the same friend, I felt someone playing with my hair. A forelock was flipped down onto my forehead, and I smiled and said, “Yes, Emily, I know you’re there.” The laughed and said, “I was wondering when you were going to say ‘hi” to her!”

Another time, months later: a group meditation. I really got into it, much more than I usually do. I had the mental image of a red leather-bound box with brass fittings. I don’t usually think of boxes and particularly not of antique ones, but it came to me unbidden. I was surprised about it enough that I asked if anyone there had such a box that was important to them. A woman to my side said, incredulously, “A box?” For a change, I didn’t shy away, as was my habit. “Yes,” I said, “a red box.” “A red box,” she replied, her words dripping with disbelief. “With brass fittings, like an pirate’s treasure chest.” Now she was staring at me, and the tone of her voice felt acid. “And how big is this box?” she asked. I explained that I really didn’t know, but it seemed to be the size that a person could carry easily, and that it was tipped over, spilling its contents. I wasn’t comfortable with her tone, and felt like she was calling me a nut case. It surprised me, then, when the same woman said, “That box is in the trunk of my car, and you’ve described it to a tee.”

This is not the kind of thing I expect in my reality. I struggled with it, and struggle with it today. It has brought to mind other unexplainable things, times long ago when I knew things that I could not possibly know. As a child, I “knew” that my grandmother was going to marry again in her 60s, and who she’d marry. I told my brother and sister, who told me I was nuts, and yet it happened.

A decade ago, I saw an old friend walking towards me, some 30 meters away, and knew that she was pregnant. “Where did THAT idea come from?” I thought, “It’s just my imagination” The thought wouldn’t go away. When she reached me and said hello, I had to ask. This is not the kind of question one asks a woman, particularly in the professional setting in which we saw each other. When I asked, her eyes reflected shock, amusement, and a little fear. She was, but that she and her doctor were the only people who knew. She hadn’t even told her husband yet.

Make an outlandish claim, one for which there is no scientific basis, and pull out the quote from Shakespeare: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet, Act I, scene v) I have often felt that this was a line too easily used by all manner of fakers and charlatans. I find it passing strange that I am now placed in this position. These things raise a lot of questions for me. A LOT of questions. I want to be able to explain them away. That’s my job, in a way, to find perfectly rational explanations for mysterious things. I work in reality. How can I make my experiences agree with reality? Have I lost my mind? My conclusion is simple, and obvious, and therefore suspect. This IS reality. Reality is more complicated than I realized.

“Lighten up, dude…”

2007-07-17T16:06:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm pumped. Kinda sorta. I just returned from my first trip ever outside the USA. I traveled to Italy - Tuscany and Rome, to be precise. And Heaven knows, we’re supposed to be precise.
I traveled with people who are also on their spiritual quests, though I quickly learned that my path is different from theirs. I may have been the only one there with friends who don’t have bodies. I almost envy them. I took the opportunity to work with one of the trip leaders, who is becoming a teacher and friend. She accepted my friends without batting an eye, which is more easily than I did. She encouraged me to try to be open as we toured several sacred sites…- and I did my best.

The first and best experience was at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi. Even if you’re not Roman Catholic, and I can no longer claim to be, you must know about St. Francis. The legends abound, and besides, I was middle-named after an uncle who was named after someone else in the family, who, after you go through enough links, was named after St. Francis. If we cut out the middlemen, the link is there.

I was overwhelmed at the tomb of the saint, and I was not the only one. I was enveloped in an incredibly strong spirit of gratitude, and longed, truly ached, to give something in appreciation. I went through my inventory of talents and skills, even those which I haven’t been eager to develop, offering each to the spirit of the place. Anything, I prayed, anything at all.

I got my answer. Fellow travelers probably already know that the spirits (or God, if you prefer) have a very strange sense of humor. The message I received to my offer was... "laughter." That’s it, that’s all he wanted. My laughter.

So what do you think? I take it as one of two things: 1) My laughter is actually something worth giving, or 2) “Lighten up, dude.”

Take the world as a starting point

2007-07-17T15:41:00.000-04:00

[This was originally posted in June… but I somehow lost access to my infant blog…]

As a scientist, I had always taken the world as reality. If it cannot be measured and somehow verified by others, then it was purely the product of my imagination. It had no reality. Then the oddest thing happened…

I can’t claim it was out of the blue, nor that I did’t ask for it. Nor did I really go looking for it. I can blame it on my ex-wife. After all, it was my ex who introduced me to the witch. How was I to know that she really is a witch, and not just a Wiccan? The woman to whom I was introduced is one of the most amazing people I have ever met, and I've met Nobel Laureates, artists, multi-millionaires, and at least one murderer. No, the woman sees things that eyes cannot see, hears things that ears cannot hear, and carries it all off with a smile and laugh.

It was through the witch that I met Emily. In a room lit only by candles, with the witch leading me through a guided meditation, Emily entered. The witch saw her first, but she always sees those around us without bodies. But after a moment, I saw Emily, too. And after a few minutes, Emily touched me. Right there, on my right hip. And I knew what she meant to tell me. I still don’t know if I believe what she said, but that’s beside the point.

Emily wasn't the only one there that day. There were others. All imagination, right? I expected that 10 minutes outside the room and I'd understand that it was all in my mind. But before I left, the witch went to the corner of the room and spoke of another of the visitors. I realized, though, why she was standing where she was: it was where the visitor had stood. I said as much, and the witch smiled her “There may be some hope for you, yet” smile. She said how she had seen him dressed. I said, yes, and added detail. She said, yes, and added more detail. After a half dozen rounds like this, I stopped dead and said, “Holy s***, this was real.”

So my problem became, “Which reality?” There’s more than one, I now know. I now walk in two worlds, and struggle to stay in either one. The day may come when I have to choose: physical reality, or Other? The witch says, no, but I will never be in only one world again. I can live with that. I think. I hope. Time will tell, I suppose.