About Larry Craig

This is from another place, where a friend of mine was castigating republicans  (NO, I will never capitalize a political party’s name, I have little respect for those who think in two year election cycles, for those who will not support a thing, an idea, or a need because it won’t make them popular today or help them win their next election, we need statespeople, what we get are shortsighted, often meanspirited, politicians) for hypocrisies because there have been so many instances where those of, okay, this part is political, conservative persuasion are very vocal about that which they, themselves, are.  So here is that conversation, and then a little commentary.

“They stand for family values, yet cheat on their wives they stand for truth and the american way, yet they live a lie They say they are Christians, yet are about as far removed from the spirit of Jesus as one can be They say gay and bisexual people are evil,  and promote hate against people who are born gay, yet they have gay and bi feelings, not only have them ,practice them and we are supposed to think they are the moral majority, god help us if they are the more moral ones.”

And my reply:

“It isn’t quite that bad. There are SO people who are conflicted in this way. They hate what is IN them and so they do the exact wrong, thing, but the only “safe” thing they can imagine. They vilify everyone who feels the way they do. I hold religion accountable for this. It is religion that teaches that only some go to heaven. It is religion that separates us into camps of “us and them”. “WE” know the truth and the path to salvation is through our teaching alone. This is necessary to maintain their hold on their people. But a hold like that is based on fear. How long can you hold people’s attention by fear? How can you trust “love” that is based on fear? Were it not for such teachings people could jsut love whomever they love, without judgment, without conflict and without fear. It is in trying to make only one kind of love legitimate that religions do their greatest disservice to humanity. They should be teaching that love is love, and it isn’t really love if you place conditions on it, if you withdraw it when someone displeases you. That is manipulation, not love. And this world should have no place for any tradition which separtates into camps all of whom are teaching that they are right and everyone else is condemned. That whole idea, so wrongly thought out, of what religion calls the last day, when those who are “bad” are left behind and those who are “good” are taken “home”, is based on dividing us, paralyzing us, with fear. I tell you this. When we lose that fear, when we come to understand that life is not a game to be won or lost but an experience to be had, an opportunity given us by our creator. That we can’t lose this love, that, in the end, we all go home, where we are always loved and welcome, well, then we might truly begin to make this place the paradise in relativity that is designed to be. Love, of whatever persuasion, is love, and while we don’t have to experience personally all forms of that, no one MAKES us other than what we are, but when we accept all AS they are, without judgment, then our conflict over this separation, this teaching of fear, could be over. And our growing together, as one people, one world, with all manner of differences to love and celebrate can really begin. We have some maturing as a species to get that place. But I think that place is where we are going, inevitably. I see that hope in the history of humanity. There have been backward steps, this past decade is one of them, but for most of our history we have grown toward more loving acceptance of each other. That is the future I see, that is the future I want to help build.”

So, here is where I go with that.  I DO blame religion for this.  It is religion that teaches us to hate that which is different from us.  And, hate is NOT too strong a word.   Though I wish it was.   I am not talking here about nuns rapping your knuckles with a ruler for misbehaving.  I am talking about the irresolvable conflict that occurs when you are raised to believe something is horrible and then find yourself feeling that very thing.  You “know” it is wrong, yet you FEEL it, so that must mean YOU are wrong, so not only do you fight it, you become very vocal about how wrong it is.  That, my friends, is  the definition, or should be, of hypocrisy, and we do not bring that upon ourselves.  We are taught it, those of us raised in most western religious traditions are anyway.   Were it NOT for religion, we might understand that love is love, no matter how or why or when it occurs.  I recommend that anyone reading this, all of you, giggle, see the movie Gray Matters.  Though it has a sort of story-book ending, it also shows eternal truth.  We ARE what we ARE.   We don’t “choose” to be bi or gay or straight, we are born with a predilection and, I believe we do so intentionally, to have an experience, to understand an experience, to experience something that we chose to come here to experiene for our own souls growth and evolution.   I don’t think there is ”right” or “wrong” about this, there is only us, living what we came here to live.   And none of that is “bad”, it only IS.   If you must think about this in religious terms, and I get that some of you must, then think of it this way, “judge not, lest ye be judged.”

All that really means, is let other people be other people.  And let you, be you.  There is no need for hate, but there is an enormous need for tolerance.  And understanding.  People do not have to be like US to be worthy of our love.  Love does not require anything, love tolerates everything.  Love is unconditional or it is not love.  And love, in all truth, is what we came here to observe, to experience, to BE.   We come to remember the love with which we were created, unconditional, never-ending, infinite.  When we grow to a place where THAT is our truth, we have come to understand “home” and the truth of who we really are.   And then, maybe then, we will be able to recreate that here in the relative world on this beautiful blue planet we all share.  much love, :^) gene

Hell? Says who?

Today I want to talk about the idea, which is sort of New Agey, that hell does not exist, That when we are done with this life, we all go back where we came from, home, or as religions put it, heaven, nirvana, etc. Some folks of conservative bent challenge this idea, saying things like, well, then what is to stop anyone from doing whatever they want, if there is no punishment for what we do here? What prevents moral decay, moral confusion, moral anarchy?

Well, first, who said those are bad things? giggle. Second though, who prevents those things is us. It is true that we are here as individuals, but we certainly have the right, and the ability, to choose to live together in communities and to make rules that allow us to do so safely. The simple fact is that regardless what some religions, or traditions, teach about punishment in the hereafter, that really hasn’t seemed to prevent anyone from doing pretty much whatever they want anyway, has it? I mean from heads of state right on down to the guy who robs the local 7-11, or steals lunch money from his classmates. Yes, I did say guy, because, the truth of it is, women are much more law-abiding than men to begin with. Most crime, and certainly most violent crime, is committed by men. This may be by nature of size and strength to some extent, but it is more than that, not all murderer’s are 6′7″ and 250 pounds. In fact most aren’t. Perhaps it is something in the male dna, or in our socialization, or lack thereof, that creates human monsters. Maybe those human monsters are here simply to show the rest of us what we are not, by showing us what we can be at our worst.

Morality, well, that is trickier because there are various moral standards in place, not only in communities, but in cultures and countries too. I said the other day that the only rule we have ever needed is the Golden Rule, modified slightly, to “do unto others as they would have you do unto them”. The original version is good too, but I think allowing others to choose how they wish to be treated is more respectful than insisting they allow you to treat them as you wish to be treated. It is okay for us to be different. What point to come here to have the same experience? We come as individuals to have individual experiences. And so we do.

I think we have to “lose” our sense of “right and wrong” in order to create our sense of “right and wrong”. We define ourselves in the way we do this, in the way we determine, for ourselves, what is right and what is wrong for ourselves. This gets a little more complicated, but not all that much when we move from recognizing what we do and do not want to do in our lives. Those who say we are not to judge each other are, for instance, right AND wrong. Right in that it is never appropriate to interfere in anothers choices, wrong in that we have every right to care about what those choices might be. Choices that affect no one but oneself, are best left to oneself. Choices that affect others, may still be made with impunity, in so far as they do no harm to others. On my main site, I talked a lot about my youngest son’s suicide, 10 years ago, at the age of 21. I’ll use that as an example of what I mean. I hate what he did, that is my judgment, I was not nearly done knowing him, not nearly done having him in my life. Had I the chance, I would have done virtually anything to prevent what he did, the choice he made. But, in the same breath, I believe he had an absolute right to make that choice. I have a right to disagree with it and to judge it immature, irresponsible, impulsive and wrong. But I only get to MAKE choices for myself, no one else. Even when I disagree with their choice. This does not mean I would sit idly by and watch one person do harm to another or take no action to prevent a tragedy I saw coming. It is in what I decide is right and wrong that I define who I am. We come here to do that very thing, define ourselves in relation to the world around us. We do that by deciding what we, individually, and collectively, determine are actions that are permissible within our communities and actions which are not.

Those who would argue that without hell, without fear of eternal punishment, this world would be in anarchy, fail to see that human actions are governed by humans. Hell isn’t a place WE send anyone. It is my specific guidance from within, my Jenna, that no such place exists. CWG is quite clear on this too. God, in Book 1 on page 41, says in response to Neale’s question, “But if there is no hell, does that mean, I do what I what I want, act as I wish, commit any act, without fear of retribution.” And, God responds, “Is it FEAR you need in order to be, do, have what is intrinsically right? Must you be “threatened” in order to “be good”? And what is being good? Who gets to have the final say about that? Who sets the guidelines? Who makes the rules? ” I am in that camp too.

But before I go further, I want to talk about Hell itself, how it came to be? A group of men, convened in Nicea, to among other things, decide what went into our bible. They, and they alone, decided what was good for the “people” to know. What parts of what writings would become what we now call the bible, in its many incarnations and interpretations. Hell. Outside of Jerusalem was a massive garbage dump named Gehenna. The name itself translated into Greek, is Hell, it (Hinnom gulch), metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld of punishment in the afterlife – from Wikipedia. It was a smoldering fire that never went out and became what is what we now call hell. It was an epithet, to tell someone to go to Gehenna, in our terms, go to hell. And it became what the Christian bible describes as the destination of those who defy God’s will, given to us by those men who decided what got into the bible itself. There is a marvelous book, Who Wrote the New Testament, the Making of the Christian Myth, by a professor of theology at Claremont College, Burton Mack, which describes well how it was put together, and why.

Now, can we create the experience of hell on earth? Oh certainly this happens whenever we separate ourselves from our highest ideal of ourselves. We can live a life bereft of love, bereft of compassion and understanding and in so doing remove ourselves so far from the truth of who we really are, that we experience depression, despair and fear as our daily companions. But those, too, ARE choices we are allowed to make. Do other people have the right then to judge a person in that condition as in need of help and offer that help? Of course, if you see something terrible, be motivated by your own truth, your own highest idea of yourself and do what you feel is “right” for you, intercede, or not. Choice IS what life in the relative universe for humans is all about. There is no situation in which choice is not present, not until we’ve drawn our final breath. There is always an alternative, often more than one, whether we choose to see it or not. Brandon made what I believe a terrible, irreversible choice and I would have done virtually anything to prevent it, but I acknowledge his right to make it. That he was not in his “right” mind is an obvious thing to me. But I would not undo what his choosing – such is what is part of my “complicated bereavement” issue which I describe in “I hope you’ll dance”. As I insist on the right to make my own choices, my own decisions about what I believe, about what I call right and wrong, so then must I allow others the same rights I claim for my own. That isn’t spiritual anarchy, that is spiritual freedom. We can talk about why God would create such a system another time. Because there is reason behind that too. much love, :^) gene

Faith – The nature of

Faith is tough for us human types. It is hard to believe in something we can’t touch, taste or take for a walk. We SAY we believe, but it seems that for most of us we only think we do, until a crisis of one sort or another enters our path, then we get desperate, plead, beg, bargain, but still we don’t really believe in the promises of God. Not the ones we may have been raised with nor those we have come to conclusions on our own about. Or sure, we attribute the random event, a spontaneous healing maybe, to a “miracle”. But that is only because we can’t explain it and we don’t understand it. That may be our ignorance, or our youth as a species more than specific divine intervention in a particular situation. We’ll talk more about that as we get more into the books. For now, I’m going to stay in the general category with all this, I will probably set one up specifically for CWG when I turn my attention more specifically to Books 1 and 2, maybe. We’ll see. I used to hate when my dad said that, it always really meant, “no”, lol, but in this case it really does mean, I’m not sure yet. I’m still getting used to WordPress, those of you who have been here before will also notice a new look, I found out abuot themes, giggle. And I like this one for now – the list of posts on the side, primarily, in reverse chronological order, if I figure out how to date them, I will, else, the first is the last. I think that might be a biblical saying too, giggle.

For me, when I talk or write about faith with people, I often use the parable Jesus told of the mustard seed, I like the version in, Luke 17:6 best, but then Luke is really the only gospel I like much at all – and I read the neatest thing a long time, ago, a fairly convincing argument that Luke was written by a woman, which would, for me, explain the softer tone it takes – which I like. Anyway, that mustard seed needn’t do anything but be what it is, be blown where it will be the wind, and on landing, take root and grow. That we can do much the same doesn’t require a lot of effort on our part, lol. But faith isn’t as easy as it sounds. God, through Neale (soon I am going to stop saying the through Neale part, giggle) in CWG talks about this in Book 1 on page 12, “…Faith. If you have but the faith of a mustard seed, you shall move mountains.” Well, I haven’t been able to move even that dratted newest anthill I’ve been watching grow on the lawn, so I’m a little skeptical about the human application of this principle, but I believe a day is coming when we’ll understand this in a new way, faith, I mean.

Still, today, I got a neat story in my email that illustrates this same principle from another perspective.

The Fern and the Bamboo

One day I decided to quit….I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality…I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.

“God”, I said. “Can you give me one good reason not to quit?” His answer surprised me…

“Look around”, He said. “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?”

“Yes”, I replied.

“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo”.

He said, “In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant. But just six months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.”

He said to me, “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. Don’t compare yourself to others.”

He said, “The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern, yet they both make the forest beautiful.” “Your time will come,” God said to me. “You will rise high!”

“How high should I rise?” I asked.

“How high will the bamboo rise?” He asked in return.

“As high as it can?” I questioned.

“Yes.” He said, “Give back the glory by rising as high as you can.”

I left the forest and brought back this story. I hope these words can help you see that God will never give up on you…….

Never regret a day in your life.
Good days give you Happiness.
Bad days give you Experiences.
Both are essential to life.
Keep going….
Happiness keeps you Sweet,
Trials keep you Strong,
Sorrows keep you Human,
Failures keep you Humble
Success keeps you Glowing,
But only God keeps you Going !
Have a great day! The Sun is shining !!

God is so big He can cover the whole world with His love and so small He can curl up inside your heart.

Now then, between those two stories, how is it possible that we can lose faith? Yet, we do, we walk around as if there will be no tomorrow. Maybe sentience is the problem, it is easier to have the faith of a mustard seed or a bamboo seed if you don’t have to think about it. Trust me, I have my moments of doubt, more than I’d like, my moments in the dark, a lot of what was in the post about dancing is dark, indeed.  But when I start to lose it, I have jenna, she shows me those damn lights and I just can’t deny them, they happened, and those memories make me believe again.  She’s tricky like that.  Thank gawd.  Cuz, I’m not nearly as strong as I wish I were.  We humans doubt, it is our nature, so the way I like to think of it is that faith is really about hope, and hope is what we all need most to make it through our lives, just a small bit of hope for a better day so again I come back to Sarah McLachlan song to close this post from Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, her song, Hold On (which is really an incredible love story) “…So now you’re sleeping peaceful, and I lie awake and pray, that you’ll be strong tomorrow, and will see another day, and we will praise it, and love the light that brings a smile across your face.” I wish the same for all of you, another day worthy of praise – and the faith of the mustard seed, the bamboo see, and our creator. much love, :^) gene

I hope you’ll dance.

As I’ve mentioned, often, as I wake, or during the day, I have a song sung gently to me. They always have some meaning for me, and if I’m not quick enough to get the point, I have it handed to me, giggle. So today, as I had been thinking about what is, what isn’t and what is yet to be, primarily because last night I saw a guy with whom I’ve been working for the past couple months on an issue that has “afflicted” me since a year after my son’s death, she started singing to me “I hope you dance”, a song I know but haven’t heard in a LONG time, we’ll come back to the song, promise. I want to talk first about the guy I mentioned just up above who I’ve been seeing about a sleep issue. I talked about this a little on the main site but I want to touch on it here in more detail tonight. The issue, I lost the ability to sleep about a year after Brandon died, around the time I first joined the Spiritweb CWG list. I could still fall asleep as always, and this has been one of the real boons in my life, virtually as soon as my head hit the pillow I’d be asleep – that was especially helpful during my boot camp days in the army when we had lights out at 10 and were roused at 3:30, giggle. We’d get an hour for lunch, eat as fast as possible, then sack out on the crushed rock in front of our barracks, using our steel pot helmets for pillows, and get a quick 30 minutes sleep. I never wasted a second thinking, just fell into sweet slumber instantly. That part has continued all my life, until this past January, and I’ll be back to that in a bit. What happened a year after Brandon died was that I’d fall asleep as always, but begin waking after 3 hours or so, and would find it impossible to get back to sleep. I used that early morning time in the early years to write to the CWG list, emails, read, all sorts of things. Over time this became annoying. Yes, that is understatement. :^).

So this past winter, in early January, I decided I would “do” something about this, even if that meant taking a pill of some sort. Maybe I was influenced by those incessant ads for sleep aids, those ads made it look like once you took one you had better be near a bed because you were about to keel over and be out for 7 blissful hours. So I saw a doctor, who referred me to a sleep specialist. I filled out a little form about the problem – it had this whole list of things, designed to tell them if sleep apnea or leg twitches or anything like that might be the issue. I didn’t have ANY of those symptoms, never wake snorting or anything and though I have lived with snorers all my life (my dad was part train I swear, my son’s mom had allergies, and both my boys, asthma) no one has ever told me that I did. Talk. THAT I did in my sleep and people all over have told me about that, including guys whose sleep I disturbed while in the service, lol. A real chatty cathy when I sleep, or was, don’t know anymore, Cisco never says anything and its been just he and I for 10 1/2 years now. HE snores. And yelps, and twitches, giggle. I don’t. I have a huge queen size bed and when I change the sheets, the other half of it looks like it was freshly made, so I knew it wasn’t thrashing around. I am a side sleeper, but apparently I switch sides delicately enough to not disturb my invisible partner’s side of the bed, lol.

Since I didn’t appear to have any of the classic issues, my sleep doctor started me on Ambien, which worked like a charm for almost a whole week. The first night WAS 7 blissful hours, but each night got successively shorter. So after two weeks when I was back completely to my usual pattern, awake after a couple hours. So he switched to me Ambien CR, a little stronger, and time-released. That worked for at least five hours the first night, but then started working backwards, as did the weaker version. So, we moved on to Lunesta, which not only didn’t work at all but took away my ability to fall asleep as well. I’d lie there for 2 to 3 hours before finally drifting off, then start waking after two hours. It was SO weird, I’d be tired all day, but as 7 in the evening approached, I’d feel myself starting to wake, and by 10 I’d feel as awake as if I’d just drunk a pot of coffee, or slept 12 hours, EVERY night. So – he decided, okay, we’d better rule out other issues and asked me to a sleep study. I agreed, I knew they’d find nothing there but what the hey, all I wanted was to be able to sleep again and was just willing to follow protocol (for the one of the few times in my life, giggle). Went to that, took my usual pills, turned out the lights at 10, took nearly three hours to drift off, and got kicked out at 3AM. :^). They said you need 5 hours of REM sleep for the study to be valid and what I had managed were 3 20 minute dozes and there wasn’t enough time left to do the whole thing. They could see I was exhausted, red eyes, al that, but sleep just would not come. They did prepare a report though, which persuaded my doctor that whatever was causing my sleeplessness, it wasn’t apnea or leg twitches. So he suggested a different class of drugs, the first he suggested, jenna said say no, so I did, then he suggested another, and she said say no, so I did. I don’t remember what their names were and have no real idea why she had me decline, she just says “i knew what you needed, honey”. Then he told me about another process, non-chemical, called cognitive behavioral therapy, which was being newly offered through my hmo by a psychologist who had spent the past 20 years practicing at Rochester Mayo (which many of you will recognize as quite a famous place) and who was establishing a practice here in the metro, in fact was seeing patients at the sleep lab I’d gone to which is in my suburb, so convenient, and Jenna said, say yes. So I did. He said that the results drugs produce are 50-50 and that this man’s results were that good or better. He also suggested another drug, and this time, jenna said, say yes. So I did. I’m not going to name that here, not sure why, but I’m not, but I follow instructions, lol, some of the time anyway.

But here’s what I want to say about that. The first night I took it, and I did this on a different schedule than the directions, Jenna told me how she wanted me to do this, and I followed her advice, I was leery and stayed up pretty late, I HATE lying in bed tossing and turning and since I’d been doing that for months at that point, I stayed up til I felt a yawn. Went to bed and fell right asleep, woke two hours later, but the first thing I noticed then was the silence, I was quiet within, and got right back to sleep, woke several more times but it was still silent within. Not great rest but a lot better than what I had been getting. It was a couple more weeks before I finally heard from the psychological sleep doctor. I’d been able to fall asleep and get, like 5 hours, interrupted, but sleep. So I sort of figured that would be waste of time, his and mine, and told him so, but he thought it worth getting together at least once anyway, and Jenna said please, so I set up an evening appt with him for the next week. I really expected that to be a 20 minute, hi, how are you, sorry I wasted your time, thing. But it wasn’t. It was anything but. He asked questions. I answered them. And in a half hour, he thought he had a diagnosis, but wanted to continue talking. We sat there for better than two hours together. I used up half his flipping box of Kleenex. The first question he asked me was when the problem started and I told him it was about a year after my son’s suicide. He asked about that. It turned out that I was a lot more raw inside than I thought. I mean I THOUGHT I had that all handled.

Yes, the early years were hard, every holiday, every family anything, all of that was hard as hell, no matter what we did or where we were, there was an empty seat at the table. It took a long time for that to start to fade, it never WILL fade completely, but with time it gets bearable. Or so I hear. It was the 10th anniversary this past February and I had started thinking about that in the late fall. Just, you know, thinking about how those years had gone so fast, how old Cisco was getting, how long it had been. I thought about putting something in the paper on the anniversary, to let him know I’d kept my promise all these years, the one I made at his service, to think of him every single day the rest of my life. I have done. I don’t mean sadly, because there are so many wonderful memories, and, in truth, I wondered if I’d keep that promise, if time wouldn’t sometime make me forget him for a day, but it never has. I don’t cry about it, I think good thoughts, but I do still think about him, miss him. That sort of void just isn’t one you fill.

Over the winter, another series of odd events happened, every two or three weeks, something I had dealt with in years past, and had healed, recurred. The symptoms, and pain, of these things, an esophogeal ulcer, which is a whole ‘nother story I will tell one day, a torn rotator cuff, a knee that I’d had surgically repaired a couple years before, and other things, came back. So I’d see a doctor, always a different one with hmo’s, have tests run, mri’s, endoscopy’s, and nothing turned up any physical reason for any of the symptoms, I was having. Well, once I started the new drug, those disappeared too, all of them, that was the silence I heard that first night, the burning in my chest was just gone. As we talked, this new sleep doctor and I, apparently I said some code words, lol, that led him to what he thought was the issue. Oh, there is a piece, I haven’t told you. Brandon’s room was next to mine, it is a sort of V arrangement, his door on the left, mine on the right. Well, I haven’t been in that room but, less than six times, in the 10 1/2 years since he shot himself in there. It was essentially just the way he left it. Over time I didn’t even see the door, it was really a wall to me, it didn’t bother me, I COULD go in, I just didn’t. In the early years, though, I’d stand in front of that door, and I could FEEL what he was feeling in those last moments, the fear, the sadness too, but the overwhelming desperation he felt just reverberated through me, and I just didn’t go in there, I couldn’t. Well, it turns out that is a symptom too, lol. Whoda thunk that? Okay, I knew that was some sort of pathology but it didn’t “hurt” me, after some years, I DID go in there, and it was okay, I mean not pleasant, but I didn’t like pass out or anything. So I just left it alone. My oldest son gave me, maybe a year after, a $50 card to Home Depot, to get some stuff to repair the hole in the carpet where the biological cleaner people had cut out the stain, and the wall where the police had opened it to retrieve the bullet, but I never did anything with that. It still sits on a counter downstairs. We actually scheduled a weekend to do that once, but I backed out, I wasn’t ready. I’ve never been since either. It isn’t like this is all I think about, I don’t mean to imply that, I live a regular life, pretty much, like everyone else. I just have this room that isn’t really part of my house.

Apparently that isn’t quite right. What my new sleep doctor told me was that he thought I had what he called complicated bereavement, which runs in cycles, he said 1, 5 and 10 year cycles typically, and most often comes up when the death was violent, unexpected, a child, something out of the “ordinary” course of life events. Which this certainly was. He said that typically the sleep problem I have begins a year or so after the event, so is hard to connect TO the event. He said that the drugs I had started with were exactly the wrong kind for this issue, they have mild anti-depressive properties, which actually worsen symptoms when complicated bereavement is the issue. The newest one I was on was rarely used for sleep disorders and is primarily an anti-anxiety medication. That was the silence I heard, the anxiety within was stilled by that drug. And hasn’t come back. :^). Still don’t sleep though. But I do fall asleep right away, I wake after a 3 hours or so but can get back to restless sleep readily. Oh, one other thing that helped him with his diagnosis, during the summer of 1998 when so many absolutely astounding things were happening as detailed on the main site, I was having these really enormous panic attacks, along with the awakening symptoms, probably caused BY them, so I saw a psychiatrist at my hmo about those. His approach was a book, a wonderful book, that so clearly explained them to me, that they stopped. But he thought, given the circumstances, that I had more than anxiety going on and wanted me to try an anti-depressant too, so prescribed zoloft, told me to take a half pill with a full meal for two days, then a pill a day. I took the first 1/2 pill with a big lunch and threw up for 36 hours straight. Never took another and never went back to see THAT guy, I decided if I was depressed, I could deal with that a lot easier than that damn drug. As it turns out, people with complicated bereavement will often become violently ill when treated with an anti-depressant. The ambien and lunesta were too mild to do anything but mess my sleep up even more, but the zoloft was strong enough to do what it did. So this isn’t like a new development. My sleep doctor tells me that what happened when I started seeing that door as a wall was that I arrested, in a way, and only partially, the grieving process. And that arrested process is why I stopped sleeping. He told me that first night that he could help with that. So we’ll see, we’re working on it. He doesn’t know about Jenna. I’m not going there with any western medicine practitioner, not just yet. Jen says we will eventually, but not yet. What she says we are doing is that she is teaching my body how to do what that little pill does, on its own. And what we are doing with my sleep doctor is learning a LOT more about how complicated the human emotional system is and how interconnected our physical and etheric structures are. She says THAT is why she led me through this circuitous route to the perfect person to teach me this. In truth, it is as CWG puts it re-membering, not learning, but whatever one calls it, I am seeing things in a different way through our conversations. Health is about wholeness. Not just physically, but emotional and spiritual wholeness as well. I am remembering how to connect these things through this process. Some day she says that will be important for me. So, I trust her, and am doing this with him now.

After last night, I was a little on edge. I’ve done some things he suggested, and they’ve left me a little raw. One of my “homework” assignments from a month ago was to go in that room, at least twice between our bi-weekly visits, and just sit in there, talk to the air, he said, if you feel like it, talk to Brandon, or just sit. Well, what I did first was clean the room. As much as I could, like I said it was all as he’d left it, sheets in a jumble on the bed, some clothes piled on those, stuff in the closet, his dresser – I swear the kid had some sort of penny fetish, he must have had three hundred of them scattered in, on and around the dresser. And hangers, there were a hundred of them. And outfits I had no idea he had. I took all that stuff out of the room, threw it all away. Cleaned out the dresser of everything, threw all that away. It was just a little weird picking up socks he’d “just” taken off 10 years ago. But it was “work” I was doing, it wasn’t emotional, not really. Then, the day before I was to see my doctor again, I went back in and sat on the edge of the bed, I did talk to the air some, not angry, I’ve never been angry with him about this, but questions, you know? All his life I’d worked things through with him, he was such an emotional kid. But he never gave me the chance to do that this time. I feel incomplete in a way. Culpable, yes, that too, I sort of feel that had I the chance I could have talked him through that too, but he didn’t give me that chance. And so I am left with this “undone” feeling. Cisco heard me talking, I guess, and after a bit, I saw just his nose sticking through the door, so I told him to come in, and he did, lay down beside me and we looked at that hole in the carpet together and talked some. Yeah, some tears too.

I planned to get rid of the bed and dresser too, redo the carpet, all that. But I haven’t. I mean at first I intended to call the garbage guys the next day and make arrangements to have them take that stuff away. But I haven’t. So we talked about that a little last night. I told him I thought that I liked that stuff still in there. That I didn’t like the idea of the room being just empty, it feels sort of like, that would be a hole, a vaccuum, and there’s already this hole in me, and that if the room were empty, something just wouldn’t balance. I know that sounds odd, but its true, and he got it. I don’t know, for one thing, what to do with the room. I don’t want it to be a bedroom anymore. I’m not making it into a den or anything. I am never going to just go sit in there. I need to figure out something to do with it and I just haven’t yet. Until I do, I think I want the bed and dresser to stay. I think I need to sit on that thing some more. And process. Gawd, you’d think after 10 1/2 years the processing would be done, but it isn’t. And until it is, I won’t sleep. He thinks everything else is going well, that what I’ve done is fine, but he says that the sleep part is usually the last part to get “right”. Isn’t it just amazing how complicated we really are? Wouldn’t you think the rigors of just living day to day would be enough for us? Why do we have to have this whole other piece that we can’t see, can’t touch, can’t really understand, but that can affect us in every way possible. And it occurs to me, that what I am learning here, remembering, is that we really do need each other, it is through relationship with each other that we heal. Whatever ails us.

And that is where the song re-enters the story. The one jen has been singing to me today. Here that is, as sung by LeeAnn Womack:

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they’re worth taking
Lovin’ might be a mistake
But it’s worth making
Don’t let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider
Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)

I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
Dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
I hope you dance
(Where those years have gone)

(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone) “

Those are the questions, I’ve been asking myself most of my life, and the answer she tells me is that I need to be willing to dance. That is what this website and blog are about. I’m remembering how to dance. I wonder where THAT will lead, giggle. jenna says, amazing places, my love. And her, not so much me, but her, I trust. So anyone reading this, if ever we meet, even if only out here in the ether, I hope our souls will dance together. Faith, well, we’re going to talk about that too, not in the traditional sense or the religious sense, but in terms of faith in the essence, the truth of who we really are? Oh, yes, that we’ll talk about. I, she, we, have some things to say about that. On another day. See you back here, I hope, much love, :^) gene

The Last Mimzy

I don’t rent many movies, most genre’s that at one time appealed to me, do no longer.  What I mean by that, is over the years I have lost interest in many things that at one time I had a lot of interest in.  I think of that as growth, change certainly, but growth as well.  For instance, I used to enjoy thriller-type movies, we all love, or many of us do given the success of such movies, the sensation of being safely scared out of our wits as with the “Jason” or “Michael Meyer” type movies.  Actually I lost interest in those a long time ago, but I used to enjoy action movies too of the “Arnold” variety, the summer of 1997 found me unable to be in the presence of all that killing, the only one of that genre that I can still stomach, even enjoy, is the original Highlander – I so love the soundtrack, Queen, Freddy Mercury’s heavenly voice, and the ultimate outcome which though arrived at violently, is ultimately about hope.

So, you can understand, that what is available now that I can enjoy is a rather limited selection.  I have some favorites but they all tend to be now movies that demonstrate something good, even wonderful about us, we spirits here having this human experience.  I just love the American President, Contact, Regarding Henry, the Kid with Bruce Willis in an interesting role, a handful of others, all movies that I find hope in, that I find what I consider to be the best part of us in.  So, though there aren’t really all that many movies, I do find interest in these days, still sometimes, Jenna will take me to Hollywood Video and lead me through the place, I’ll look at lots of things, most of which I have no interest whatsoever in, but what will eventually happen is I’ll find myself standing in front of something which does, that she wants me to see.  For instance, City of Angels, lol, which they have but one copy of and which is not new, but which she actually had me ask for by name a few months ago and which she has since asked me to watch once again – that is the movie in which I first heard Sarah McLachlan, by the way.  I’ve come to some very out of the way movies this way as I am wandering and she just sort of stops me, or I stop somehow, right in front of what she wants me to say – not at all unlike the way Book 1 came to me. 

This past week, I was up that way on another errand and she asked me to go in, so I did, this guidance works in what I’m sure some will think an odd way, she doesn’t tell me WHAT to do, but urges me toward something she wants me to do, or see.  We do have very specific conversations, long ones sometimes, about a lot of things, but when it comes to choices, those are always mine and mine alone.  Again, because this is my experience not hers, and there are no scripts.  Free will here really does mean exactly that.  So as I wandered the store, looking at the new things, nothing really struck my eye, until I came to the Last Mimzy, a kids movie really, or so I thought upon first glance.  But she said, THIS, is what I’d like you to see, gene.  So I picked it up.  It is a sci-fi movie, really, and though I love sci-fi, I don’t watch a lot of those movies, because, well, again, they are too violent for my taste. 

I want to tell a little story here about how that came to be.  I think it was a gradual sort of weaning process that began in me long before Brandon died.  I used to be just a voracious reader, we are talking many books a week growing, mostly mysteries as those were what my mother, the only other reader in my family, liked.  I found a couple people at my work who shared that interest and we began exchanging Robert Ludlum and Dick Francis books, but sometime 15 years or so ago, my taste just began to change, I was troubled by the violence in fiction, I think I started to see our “fantasies” as affecting our lives.  I know there are no studies that prove television, or movie, violence begets physical violence, but I think the more one sees that, the more  one becomes inured to other people’s suffering, the more one comes to believe that the end justifies the means.  And I don’t.  Believe that.  This was, of course, Jenna’s gentle influence in me that caused this gradual turn away from that genre of print and screen media.  It is a rare show I will watch that has much violence in it.  For instance, in its first season, I really liked Criminal Minds, because of the thoughtful, insightful way they were able to characterize human behavior, but they had to come up with a new serial killer, ever more horrible, every single week to keep the show going.  And that is NOT what our world is, it is NOT what our country is.  There are people here who do evil things, yes, (don’t worry we’ll talk about judging another time, what that means for us as human beings I mean) but we do not have new serial killers every week.  They are, blessedly, rare, few and far between.  So Criminal Minds lost me.  I could not live with the horrors they dreamt up no matter how brilliantly acted and presented they were. 

 

When the movie part of this first became obvious to me was the summer after Brandon died.  I tried to go see a new “Arnold” movie, xxxxx, and I found myself so overcome by the violence in it, that I left after less than 15 minutes, I was literally panic-stricken by it, I felt like I could die right there in the theater and I just couldn’t stay.  I thought maybe it was ALL movies, but it wasn’t, Contact came out that summer and I made my oldest, my remaining, son, go with me – just in case.  But it was wondrous, not horrifying – I was already a Carl Sagan fan and had read his only novel, but still, I wasn’t sure if it was movies, the crowd, or the dark, or the genre that had terrified me so.  I learned watching Contact that it wasn’t the theater, the crowd, it was the violence.   The next summer, on the CWG list, people were extolling the virtues of Saving Private Ryan, what great lessons it taught.  My question to the group was, given its subject matter, was, was it bloody and violent?  Yes, was the answer, but the overarching lesson was not.  I knew I could not see it, so I listened to the discussion and said that if I ever did see it, it would have to be when it came out on video, so I could watch it on a small screen, in a place where I could shut it off for periods and watch it in chunks if I needed too.  I have seen it now.  About a year ago.  And, yes, the idea that drove it was a noble one, and I was able to deal with the violence of it – I’m stronger now than I was back then, but I am as horrified by movie violence as ever.  Even more so by the real violence taking place all over our world, but so graphically depicted in what happens in the middle east every day.  There is no greater blasphemy, in my opinion, than killing in the name of God.

Back to science fiction.  :^).  I said I loved it, but that isn’t completely true, I really have only read two authors, and all of their work, I own, most I have read so many times, I could write them from memory, lol.  I don’t agree with all of what they wrote, by any means, but there is so much eternal truth in their work, and so much good, that for the most part, I can excuse any excesses I found.  And I really only found those in Robert Heinlein’s work, he has SO much right, so beautifully, but I cannot abide the way he has characters treat each, beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land, a wonderful book in many ways, his characters, grew ever more rude personally, sort of in the way people who know each other well are teasingly insulting to each other?  I can’t stand that.  It is passive-aggressive cruelty in my opinion.  We ought be more loving to those closest to us than to anyone else, in my judgment, not less.  A cruel comment is a cruel comment no matter how much you love the person to whom it is made.  Those of you who have been to my main site, know this is what brought on, or accelerated my awakening, interpersonal communication of less than a polite nature.   I have bought, read, and thrown away one of Robert’s books at least three times over this issue.  His early work was directed toward teens and young adults, I still have those and I love them, this issue was there too just not to the degree that it appeared later.  I just find that unfortunate, because he was SO far ahead of his time in SO many other ways.  The other sci-fi author I read, though I came to him as an adult, was Isaac Asimov, I have nothing to criticize about him.  I loved everything he wrote, I think it was prescient and compelling.  And coming. 

So, the last Mimzy, we come full circle, though a “young” movie, Jenna wanted me to see it.   When she does this, wants me to see something in particular, whenever we get to that point in the movie, or book for that matter, she tells me clearly, THIS is what I brought you here to see, gene.  And in this case, though the whole movie is wonderful, what she wanted me to see was at the very end.  A little speech that, really, ends the movie.  I paused and copied down what was said.  “But Emma’s tears were the instruction’s for an awakening.  Our precious quality of humanity had been turned off.  And it spread like wild flowers.  People shed their protective suits and over time humanity blossomed again.”. 

In my opinion, humanity has YET to blossom.  We have NEVER been all that we can be on this planet.  THAT is what I think is coming, an age, not an era, but an age, where we will become a true civilization, one people – one world.  Where will be able to lay down our weapons and build a little bit of heaven right here on this beautiful blue oasis of love given us by our Creator for this very purpose.  That humanity is due for an awakening to the truth of ourselves, to remember who we really are, and to begin to live THAT experience here on Earth.  And then, we may take ourselves to the stars, where experience of all manner can be had, where what has happened here may well be forgotten, until sometime in the millennia to come, Emma’s tears are remembered and humanity blossoms again wherever it has taken root.  It requires will and strength and sometimes violence to gain a foothold on a planet, to become the dominant species on a planet, and in that doing, the truth of us can be lost as we become immersed in the experience of simply living.  Robert talks about this beautifully in one of his very best books, Time Enough For Love (the story of darling dora), but the experience of forgetting who we are only to eventually re-member, is how we ourselves evolve, from creatures, back into the love we are.  The last Mimzy is worth seeing, dear ones.  much love, :^) gene

So why do we come here then?

This will be a lot shorter than I thought. :^). Actually, I wrote it, all of it, to its conclusion. And then did something and lost it. It alleged that it saved itself at 7:39. But if it did, I can’t find where that might be. And that’s the last time I write one in the Opera browser window, giggle, Firefox does not allow that to happen, it remembers and can always take you back to the place you were before, which is just one more reason to use it.

I want to talk about a question I am sometimes asked, by people to whom I have recommended the books, Conversations With God, Books 1 and 2. Well-meaning people, none of whom have any idea about the experiences, I have had, the lights, I mean. While I’ve posted those, as I explain on my main site, people to whom I have talked about them ARE familiar with CWG, which books, I am normally here, just going to call Book 1 or Book 2, for simplicity’s sake.

This, question, though, is both difficult and easy to answer. When talking to anyone who has read the books, and maybe had a chance to talk about them, or think about them, the concept isn’t unthinkable. It DOES seem a bit convenient to me, and jenna, tells me there is more to it than is in the books, so okay, maybe, just maybe convenient is good. Maybe convenient is the point. So I’m going to just say a bit about this tonight and then go into some detail tomorrow night.

Why we come here is at its heart about relationship. Not just human to human, giggle, or to pet, or to anything else, but to ourselves as much as anything. So I answer the question, for now, with another question. If you are in a place of perfect love, if you know nothing but that, if that really is all there is there, how do you know that? How do you know what perfect love is like if you have never had the experience of love which is not perfect? How could you possibly know?

The thing about what I felt in the presence of those lights, particularly the two light globes, is unlike ANYTHING I’ve ever felt here. It was the most glorious, wondrous, safest, complete feeling of love I’ve ever experienced. NOTHING here, no matter the moment, and I do know what love can be here and what that feels like – this experience pales, is nothing, compared to what I felt in those few seconds. But if I had not come here, if I didn’t know what this world feels like to be part of, to be in, if I had never left that perfect place, how could I know how perfect that really was? I am certain I would FEEL wonderful there, but I have to ask, how would I know that? It is like seeing through the eyes of a child. A child walking on grass for the first time. A child seeing a cow or a horse or anything at all, for the first time. The wonder, the BIG eyes, the desire to touch, the desire to cling. THAT is why we come here. I think it helps us, gives us the ability, to know just how special home is. Whether you define home as heaven, or nirvana, or Sirius, matters not in the slightest to me. What does is, that you could not possibly know that, without having had this experience here. That’s why we come here.

That’s why God created the relative universe. Tomorrow I’ll talk about that a bit. The difference between the triune truth of home and the duality of the relative universe. Duality, to me, means a continuum, a thing marks the beginning of a continuum of relationship, there is a line between these two things, at the other end of that line of is opposite, between the gradients between the two opposites. Hot – cold. Love – Fear. Here – there. Like that.

So until tomorrow evening, blessed be, and much love, :^) gene

I always thought:

That this first post was going to start with a quotation from Book 1. But I have been trying to start it for two weeks now and “she” just wouldn’t let me. If you are here, you know “she” is Jenna. I KNEW this was supposed to go “live” with the website but I just had NO words. Which, since most of you got here from the website, know is not really an issue with me. :^).

But tonight she told me what she wanted me to start with. She decided she had to get clear with me about what this first post should say. I can be a pretty stubborn guy. In my own way, yes, but still sometimes I just don’t listen. So tonight, on my way home from work, I drove in though I really had no reason to, well, other than that she asked me to this morning so that we could talk. The day, all the things that happen, life, you know? Interferes with us sometimes. I normally bus, I have a flipping bus card from my work that pays for it, but for almost a year now, she has had me driving in 3 or more times a week, because in that half hour, she has me all to herself, I’m not distracted by the things going on around me, or television, or what I should be doing at home, I’m all hers. I’ve had a host of physical issues that have kept me from walking, my running days are over – knee issue, and so our “alone” time has been affected. All relationships require one on one time. Even ours.

So – this isn’t going to start with CWG at all. Though that will still be the focus of many, if not most, posts. This one starts with Sarah McLachlan. Jen has had me listening to two of her cd’s, over and over, for three months. Surfacing and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I mean, over and over. I have listened to virtually nothing else. I have copies for the car and copies for up here, in my loft. I love her voice, I love who she is, I love that she does all her own writing and arranging but that is not how I found her. City of Angels, her “shortened” rendition of Possession, captivated me years ago. And Jenna had me rent that about three months ago. I’ll do a post about that later, how she directs me around Hollywood video, every once in a while, and shows me what she wants me to watch. It is weird, but amusing, and true. So – again, what is the point, gene? Well, I love every song on both cd’s, I sometimes skip Adia, not sure why, but everything else on both cd’s just thrills my soul. I will probably talk about why, with each song, here eventually. Why not? I mean, who else is listening? giggle. I do that a lot too, and it looks goofy, I know, but its true nonetheless. When you see that word, giggle, I AM doing that.

So the song I am going to write about first, well, surprised me, because I love them all, Possession was my favorite (and at the end of the cd, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, which is the name of the last song, if you just let it run, you’ll hear some very odd, music, and then tacked on is a piano version of Possession, SO different from the song that opens the cd, but so beautiful in its own right. My second favorite song on that cd, is Mary, I just love it, I GET it, and I love it. But that isn’t the one either, she wanted a song from Surfacing. Which is what this website, it turns out, is about. I am surfacing. I talked about the searching I’ve done on the main site and that I am no longer, what I am doing by putting up this site, and this blog, IS surfacing. I’m not entirely sure why, but she says it is true, and, in truth, she has told me about this but I’m not really free to share that yet, so I do know why. And, I know that as Book 1 says, there is no such thing as a coincidence in this world, nothing happens without reason. That’s not quite exact and I’ll talk about that more later, but it applies for the moment. So stopping my search, and, surfacing me is what this is really about. And so tonight, on the way home, like I said, NO coincidences, as I turned on the cd player in my car, the song that was up, was Witness. And she had me play it again and again and again. Until I got her point. giggle.

How, I could be so blind to it, I don’t know. I’m not a slow learner. But she can be so frustrating sometimes, I guess that is the nature of what she does, but it sure annoys me. I am a “get to the freaking point” guy, in a lot of ways. As much as I appreciate gentleness, I still get frustrated when I KNOW someone wants to tell me something and they are wandering around it, all over the map, but never getting to the POINT. I bet you feel the same way, giggle. As much as it annoys me, I am as guilty of it. Dependant on circumstances, of course. It is VERY hard for me to deliver bad news, I search for ways to soften it, and I do wander then, and I am easily distracted, giggle, I mean I am enormously curious, so I will wander in conversation too, all over the map, but I always come back to, draw the conversation back to, the point. Or she does. It doesn’t really matter which. And, in truth, it is both. So now here is the point and I’m going to quote Sarah’s song to make it, she sings: “Make me a witness, take me out, out of darkness, out of doubt, I won’t weigh you down with good intentions, won’t make fire out of clay, or other inventions. Will we burn in heaven, like we do down here? Will the change come while we’re waiting? Everyone is waiting, and when we’re done soul searching, as we carried the weight, and died for the cause. Is misery made beautiful, right before our eyes? Will mercy be revealed, or blind us where we stand? Will we burn in heaven, like we do down here, will the change come while we’re waiting? Everyone is waiting.”

Now some of that sounds a little scary, but it isn’t. And it is eternal truth. The reason I have been so pushed, urged, and pushed some more, to put up this site, to begin this conversation, is the reason I was born, the reason I am here, the reason I have had the experiences I have had, the reason behind the lights. I am a witness. I KNOW we are more than we think we are. I KNOW it. There is no other way to explain the inexplicable. In my searching, I didn’t limit myself to esoteric sites, I searched the available literature on illusions, psychosis, schizophrenia too. I wanted to find out WHY I saw such odd things, separated by so much time. It isn’t like I see visions every day. Three times in almost 58 years. I mean, MY question is, excuse the language, WTF, is THAT all about? WHY? And the answer is in that song. To be a witness. To tell you all that this is NOT all there is. When we die, we don’t go poof and are gone. We go home. To a place where that incredible feeling of love and peace, balance, that I felt in those moments with the lights, is ALL there is. THAT is the truth. That is OUR truth. And, the reason, I have had these three inexplicable light experiences. So that I could be made a witness. Fear is not our truth, it is part of our experience here. LOVE is our “end”, and it isn’t an end at all, but our beginning, our forever.

So the next question becomes then why are we here? What could possibly cause us to leave a place like THAT to come here to do THIS? And, that, dear ones, is where CWG enters the picture. That is where I’ll pick this up, not tonight, probably not tomorrow, but Sunday, appropriately Sunday. much love, :^) gene