Book 8, Part 2(5): The Conspiracy Of Silence, The Search For Truth, And The Miracle Experiment

Table Of Contents introductory/prologue/first chapter type of material. Part One

1. Author’s Note
2. Prologue  Revisiting a Troubled Past, Finding A Way To Live In The Present
3. Introduction (2) or Chapter One
4. Danny B.  And The Potential Cost Of Telling The Truth
5. Prologue:  Mythology, Religion, Liars, The Conspiracy Of Silence, And The Cloak Of Invisibility (grandma toxic, miner with canary, three stages of unfoldment
6. Prologue Alternate (see Re-imagination and Our Journey . .
7. Re-imagination and Our Journey Through Consciousness
8. Proposal #1 For Book Introduction
9. To Find Our Voice
10. Penetrating The Conspiracy Of Silence (is this Disrupting?)
11. The Conspiracy Of Silence, Voices Lost and Found

Main Body Of Work Proposed Part 2

1. Just Say No:  Approaching Trauma Consciously (done)
2. Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence (done)
3. To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now (done)
4. Stranger in a Strange Land:  Defender Dan, and Growing Up In America (done)
5. An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy
6. The Mystery Of The Path Between You and Me
7. Uncommon Knowledge Theory
9. Mankind’s Healing Potential
11. The Divine Feminine, and Finding Spiritual Balance
12. The Three Evolutionary Stages Of Being Human
13. Troubleshooting And Repairing Broken Systems
14. The Common Knowledge Game, Voodoo, Black Magic,and Culturally Normalized Trauma
15. Knowledge, Facts, Insight, and The Whim
16. Insight And Mindfulness (see #23 black dogs)
19. The Mystery Of The Path Between You and Me
21. Living Life On A Wider Frequency Of Being
22. Anger, ,Self Awareness, and Mastery
23. The Master Teacher Speaks
24. Final Thoughts on that which exists beyond all thought

1. To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now
2. The Three Evolutionary Stages Of Being (check with prologue duplication/position)
3. The Divine Feminine, and Finding Spiritual Balance (duplications!)
4. Bruce 1.0 to 2.0 ( hmm, may be covered in#12)
5. Living Life On A Wider Frequency Of Being (Lots of replications here)
6. Revisiting The Search For Truth (look at revisiting Jan 28, 1986 and see if there are any differences)
7. 1987 The Year I began To sing, and to fly
8. Steps On The New Paths Of Recovery And Rebirth (see 13-duplication?)
9. New Dance Steps On The Path To Recovery And Healing (see 12)
10. Troubleshooting And Repairing Broken Systems
11. An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy (need transition chapter in and out)
12. The Mystery Of The Path Between You and Me
13. The Common Knowledge Game, Voodoo, Black Magic
14. Knowledge, Facts, Insight, and The Whim
15. Insight And Mindfulness (see #23 black dogs)
16. Black Dogs And Black Holes (see #22-insight for overlap)
17. The Labyrinth’s Exit And New Paths Of Awakening (duplication hazard!)
18. The Labyrinth, An Exit Strategy, and a New Path Of Awakening (duplication potential)
19. Insight Into Our Exit Strategy, and Our Awakening (duplication potential)
20. Defender Dan, and Growing Up In America
21. Anosognosia
22. Just Say No:  Approaching Trauma Consciously
23. Mankind’s Healing Potential
24. The Uncommon Knowledge Theory (check for duplication within Dreams s Guides # 19)
25. Hearing Voices, Hearing Silence (lots of duplication here, be aware!)
26. Dreams As Guides In Slaying The Minotaur, And Finding An Exit Out Of The Labyrinth
27. Tentative Steps On The Newer Paths Of Recovery and Rebirth
28. New Paths Of Awakening, Final Exit From Labyrinth
29. Anger, Self Awareness, and Mastery
30. A Master Teacher Speaks
31. Experimenting With Consciousness
32. The Pearl Of Greatest Price
33. Enlightenment
34. Moon Landings (see #46, huge overlap)
35. Final Thoughts On That Which Exists Beyond All Thoughts

Proposed Outline Presentation of Problem, Personal Experience Of Problem Troubleshooting and Repair Techniques Personal Experience Of Potential Solutions Collective Capacity for Collective Solutions

Part 2

Troubleshooting And Repair

Our Ignorance And Suffering

Revisiting January 28, 1986 and the Search For Truth

Disrupting the Conspiracy Of Silence

The Common Knowledge Theory, etc.

Defender Dan

Just Say No

Steps On The New Paths Of Recovery And Rebirth

Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy

Empathy.

Anger, Self Awareness

A Master Teacher Speaks

The Uncommon Knowledge Theory

The Divine Feminine

Enlightenment

Final Thoughts

(Consider placing Troubleshooting And Repairing Broken Systems, Stranger In A Strange Land:  Defender Dan, and Growing Up In America, and An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy in Part 2)

Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence

“Our lives begin to end, the moment that we become silent about things that matter” —-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Choose wisely, oh mankind, the painful secrets that we must keep, if we choose to silently suffer, we will not awaken, but instead die anxious, lonely and asleep —- Elisha Scott

A conspiracy of silence is an agreement, either formal or tacit, between two or more parties not to discuss some matter nor to reveal any information concerning it, especially in order to avoid blame, embarrassment, or other discomfort. It also points to the promises that we keep that we may have never made consciously, and which become the strongest pillars supporting the platform of our culture. There are multitudes of societal requirements that are not written down, and we all unconsciously obey these edicts, edicts which we never would have obeyed, had we been given a conscious choice. They become either the shell that we must emerge from, or remain the ball and chain attached to our spiritual ankles.

According to the famous introduction to the movie “Alien”

“IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.”

This statement, tragically, is also true on modern day planet Earth.  We are all part of an economic, social, and religious system that not only cannot or will not hear our screams, but are also the causal agents behind much of the suffering that inspires our agonized cries.  Calls to 911 or to 988 may work for some, but for most others that need help will ignore or bypass those options.  Our unwillingness to speak, or to reveal our deepest, truest self revolves around issues of compromised senses of safety and emotional security, which are exacerbated by trauma, shame, and denial, and by our often times oppressive, life devaluing surrounding culture.

I started building a narrative around my life at a fairly late age, when I was about sixty years old,  and I have developed a unique  and rarely communicated perspective. My insight is derived from my personal involvement with  toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, as well as my human capacity for healing from those wounds, and to be spiritually transformed. These issues are challenging to recognize and successfully address, due to thousands of years of cultural normalization of unacceptable attitudes and behavior, and a conspiracy of silence maintained to preserve and protect the status quo.

Personal family, and/or cultural toxicities tend to stay ignored, overlooked, or even denied by those with little time for insight, introspection, or interest in other people’s points of view on these troubling issues.  Healing is not an option for many suffering people, who, for a variety of reasons,  remain helpless, and tend to ignore personal responsibility for the healing of their problems.

We must ask difficult questions, and each of us begin the search for the truth of our existence.

• What value is there to our life and to our story, if we refuse to tell the world about it?
• What is the value of our love, if it is never shared with all others?
• What is the value of our vocal abilities, if we neglect or refuse to use them, and what is the value of our voice, if we perceive that few care to listen to us anyway?

A Master Teacher once spoke to me, and said

No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for yourself”

This book represents my personal work towards that ultimate end.

I have had a target on my back for much of my life, and I never understood why until later in adulthood.  Like most everyone else on this planet, I have been subjected to the family and cultural forces of oppression and repression and crazy making communication and behavior.  I have found that most people do NOT appreciate feedback about their errant behavior, and if I wanted to make more ‘friends” and be accepted by groups of damaged people I certainly would not offer to the world this book. I would probably have written a vacuous book about

• four minute meditations for success, or a
• three step enlightenment techniques for transcendence in your spare time.

But that is NOT me.  This book is not for people who want an easy life fix, or to stay grounded in their own unconsciousness, but instead for those who want to understand why they are not soaring upward into new dimensions of being and doing, for in the complete seeing, is the new being revealed.

My life has become a “Miracle Experiment”, in which I attempt to penetrate our cultural conspiracy of silence, the conspiracy that keeps mankind imbalanced and diseased, and prevents humanity from achieving its collective potential. Note that the title indicates that I am disrupting the conspiracy of silence rather than dispelling it, as the power of the collective experience still dominates human consciousness. My life was not lived in vain, however, for I am a part of a massive movement to heal the American soul. I will continue to write, and to speak out, until I am no more.

Over the years, I became deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and personal and social disease. Within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about self destructive addictive cycles and suicidal ideation. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being enshrined within my own heart and soul. I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed to honor and provide for my most fundamental, innermost needs of being valued for my basic essence, and to have my voice listened to by those who occupy positions of power and influence..

Virtually all of humanity has experienced oppression, repression, and personal and social disease at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this broken behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways.

I wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find any consistent interest expressed by others.  I knew that greater vistas were available for all of us, yet few had the time or energy to pursue them. I liken this process to a chick breaking out of an egg.  It will die if it does emerge from its shell, yet Mother Nature usually gives it enough energy to do so.  Like those chicks, our own faith in our spiritual connection will give us the energy to break free from our shells, yet many of us continue to die daily, at least spiritually, if not physically.  I know this tragic truth intimately, as  I am one of the multitudes who almost did not break free.  Yet break free, I ultimately did, through a rather dramatic, almost miraculous process that was mysteriously connected with my long term friend, Marty C.

Marty and I, and our wives, and one other couple shared a friendship group for twenty-five years together, and Marty and his wife Eddy also shared a book club experience with my wife Sharon and I for the last four years of his life., Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to Eddy through his silence.

My own experience of Eddy was that she was usually quite encouraging to me, and willing to listen to what I had to say initially, but if I paused, or drew a breath,  she would often fill the empty space with herself, rather than wait for me to finish whatever message I might be trying to deliver, and all further communication would end between us.  Eddy was not a bad person, or intentionally oppressive, yet her relationship with Marty exhibited how repressed people remain that way, until they break free of the shackles on their own voice box, and assert and affirm their presence in public.

Marty (center), Sharon, and I the day before Marty died, September 11, 2017

Marty was living on borrowed time, having malignant melanoma, though he was in a period of remission from 2013 through 2017.  Marty began to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. We began to discuss difficult issues we had never touched upon before.  I saw how similar Marty was to me, and that we both shared a hesitancy to speak our truth, even though we were both considered to be intelligent people.  Marty acknowledged to me that he was stuck, and hoping to have a spiritual breakthrough, yet felt helpless as to how to make it happen, short of a miracle occurring.  I still was stuck, too, yet I had hope that I might be able to marshal the necessary spiritual resources to take me to the next level.   Little did both of us know how inextricably intertwined our own life processes were about to become.

On January 11th of 2017, I had my first seizure. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process. It was then that I became aware of a black mass, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the life energy field of my body since my only other experience of it in July of 1987. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. The next month, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at a mutual friend’s home. I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and some friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as death, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing seemed to have any impact on the dark mass. I knew that some sort of spiritual death was coming my way, and I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor, though I did tell my family physician that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my disabled father to see her on January 17th of 2017.

On March 5, 2017 our friend Marty also suffered a seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University). Marty had been in a four-year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, a8th golf ball sized tumor in his left brain hemisphere, and it would need to be surgically removed.  Sharon and I visited with Marty in the hospital.  Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own. I told Marty that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could see in my own energy field. I hoped that Marty’s mass did not indicate a death for him. Yet, this was to begin the era of death terrors for my dear friend, and I was to experience my own peculiar version of the terror, as well.

That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had an episode of anxiety of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved.

Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted that my breathing became shallow, she offered me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a panic attack. Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became dizzy. I continued feeling physically subdued, and the anxiety reaction continued with my body/mind. I then began losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during my trip through the underworld.

The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I characterized this present event to my wife Sharon as losing my mind.

I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. I tried to go about my normal activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others. Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of my self, and of Marty.

I continued to listen to the  spiritual wisdom tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. Jack Boland was one of my favorites from the 1980’s.  He was a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated on the tape that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress . Those who understand this statement

UNDERSTAND.

And here I thought that I had already performed that process! How wrong that I was.

After yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me . My life’s message was bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to pour through me. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon.

“Sharon, please share my message, since I don’t have the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand!”.

Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice, and my occasional connections with THE MYSTERY, for most of that time.

“Your message is your own, and it must be spoken through you, or it will never be delivered!”

Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life… I had the perception that people experienced me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own loving, but diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, and sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures (with a few notable exceptions), and I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.

This loving act on her part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of my ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message.

A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”.

All of a sudden I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop writing until fifteen pages of a story were written by me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, perhaps because part of me perceived that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me… It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story that I have ever written.

The dark mass in my field of body energy disappeared, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor was surgically removed.

To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am often compelled to write, and to share with, the One who listens.

The process of writing this book has been a great challenge for me.   I am learning about writing, while also learning a lot about myself and my world through this process. What I have learned is that much of my early life can be characterized by the hypnotism or mesmerizing of me through all traumatic influences that I experienced.  Trauma’s most damaging impact upon a human being is its capacity to attenuate, or even block, normal emotional expression and interchange with others,  It stifles my willingness to communicate with others. And, this unexpressed energy is stored within the body and mind, creating black holes of negative influence, sucking away opportunities for healthy bodily function, and happy human interchange.

The investigation of personal trauma, my response to it, and my search for truth is an exercise in compassion, understanding, and healing, and need not be maudlin in nature., My intention for this writing was not to bring harm to myself, or to just indict the world and dismiss it in anger and resentment, but rather to bring a message about the suffering that the world so casually creates, and then denies its own culpability.  I want to give voice to the millions who have already died, went insane, or have been imprisoned because of our shared disease of the spirit, and the collective conspiracy of silence around society’s and religion’s responsibility for it.  My hope is to give a voice to the suffering of our world, while pointing in the direction towards where our healing might be found.

In July of 2021, after I finished the underworld chapter of 1986-1987, I took a long drive in my sports car.  Typically, I find great joy and happiness through such a drive, but this time there was no such release.  As I slowed down and began to end the drive about an hour from home, a dove changed direction, and flew to my car, and led me for about 20 seconds, until I stopped the car.  I wondered what this experience meant..  I then remembered that In spiritual circles, the dove leading me meant that my guiding spirit was still with me, forever leading me back onto the paths of peace and healing. I cried for two minutes. And, with the tears, I found forgiveness and compassion for myself.

What greater gift to self can there be?

This book may not be for the healthy, wealthy, and wise among us.  It is designed, however, for those seeking to create their own unique bridge to our healing potential.

The search for truth continues.

May you find what you are looking for.

There are times shells, or walls, are necessary, but more often we can rote the ourselves by being who we are.  Neither hiding nor revealing ourselves will prevent our share of pain, but in being who we are, we get to be part of the Universal stream, not just a nut in a shell waiting to fall.–Mark Nepo

We must speak truth to power, or lose our breath, and become oppressed and overcome by it.

We don’t have to die to find our final freedom.

True freedom is the path, and the goal, of all healthy life experience, and the only reason that I am still here.. . .

The world, if it could muster a collective opinion, would probably prefer that I just have a joint and/or a few drinks, or await an imaginary empyrean realm after death, and just move on with the daily drudgery of existence..

Such is the way of our traumatized, disillusioned world.

Yet, we have other choices.

We can be healed.

Not only did humanity make it to the moon (why do moon landing deniers even exist?), each of us also has the potential to reach God, Truth, Love, Compassion, Healing, and Light, after we leave the launchpads of our own lives. My goal in life was certainly not to become a diseased human being, attempt recovery from that disease, write a book about the process, and, establish myself as an authority on subject matter that makes me irrelevant to all who have no interest in healing or in my journey.  Life is more about building a better state of consciousness, with enhancing the life-affirming qualities, and the cultivation of greater insight, than the books that get written, and the foes that get smitten.

Literally, the words of my story are the vapor trails of my journey through the space and time, and no one should set out as a goal to just chase my trails, or anyone else’s, for that matter.  We are all capable of making our own unique paths on our journey to the higher dimensions of our life experience and its supporting consciousness, and we can develop the willingness to share those inspired words with others… Through our resonance with the wise ones of our age, and of all ages, we may yet drum up sufficient support for a healing change in collective and individual consciousness, before our planet fails, and our civilization collapses upon itself.

This book is written by a man who never had anything to say, or a desire to say it, until nearly dying in 1986.. It only took another thirty five years to finally put life experiences to words, after more brushes with DEATH.. Death is the final and greatest frontier, and motivator for the procrastinator.. Early death threatens everybody, including our planet Earth.  It will be noted that on several occasions in this book, I will be speaking up for Mother Earth, as her voice has been drowned out by the American Capitalist concerns coupled with the pseudo-Christian religious beliefs and malpractice that dominates our time..

What is your choice?

I have been criticized, especially by my own self-talk, yet I still find a way to thrive, in spite of the ill informed opinions and ignorance of others, and my conditioned reluctance to speak my truth..

Speak our truth, and hold our self, and others, accountable. How else do we find the potential for healing?

Climate change causes our world to burn

Gun fire and murder makes our stomachs churn,

billionaires rape our civilization while they over zealously earn

Lonely, grieving hearts can only ache and yearn

And, our world continues to fail to learn

.

The deadly Conspiracy Of Silence continues, are you part of it?

Develop a healing message,

Walk the talk,

.

Share the journey with others.

Prepare for the indifference, and to be ignored by many friends and family members, blog subscribers, and Facebook friends.

Prepare to share love with the multitudes of fellow travelers on this lifelong journey.

Sometimes, the salvation of this planet, and our self, demands that we speak our truth, act upon it with others, and, finally, grow into the somebody that we were destined to become.

Are we ready to be liberated from our pasts, and claim our spiritual inheritance?

I am!!!

Speak not of evil, see no evil, hear no evil, HEAL NO EVIL

To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now

“The past is not real, it is only a collection of related assumptions”—-Elisha Scott We are about to take a creative, whirlwind tour through history, dating back to , perhaps, a million years ago or more.  The last thing I want to do is to create “alternative facts” and implant false memories that were never real, just like the ignorant biblical scholars,  malicious fake news generators and conspiracy theorists of today attempt to do.  The best way to get to new answers to old questions, is to discard the old questions, and ask new questions.

So, here we go!

• What was our mental atmosphere like back then, when mankind was first becoming conscious?
• With humanity’s dark history, the survival of the fittest evolutionary imperative, and the fear of dangerous animals (which includes human strangers not of one’s tribe and not prone to collaborative behavior) what can we speculate about the original nature of that consciousness?
• Based upon our present understanding, could one surmise that trauma and suffering has-been with mankind from the beginning?
• Is the Garden of Eden story, and many other myths and legends from other cultures, merely stories created by ancient peoples seeking the same answers?

The previous questions are riddled with assumptions, and the answers that we might supply to questions of this nature are subject to both speculation and revisionist history.  We must apply the tools of historical, anthropological, sociological, psychological, mythological,  cinematic, mystical/spiritual analysis and discernment in any endeavor of this nature.  I will only touch upon the highlights of this epoch of mankind, and you should not believe me, any more than you might believe the scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and biblical writers who have already undertaken their own studies and vain attempts at understanding.

We only need to look within ourselves, and to our pasts, to see how uncertain our memories are, and extrapolate that to our human history, which is also plagued by short term, medium term, and long term memory loss. We can see how impossible it is to accurately recall and recreate memories from times long past, especially of the times when we were babies or children, though the recollections of others, coupled with insight can help in this daunting journey of discovery.  Yet, as the evolution of our biological being can be witnessed through observing the stages of the development of the human embryo through its birth, so might we be able to observe the historical, evolutionary unfoldment of humanity, replicated in a compressed form through our own unfoldment, from a non-verbal state as a newborn baby into the consciousness of a personal sense of self, to see if a parallel understanding may be derived. Without a recorded history, and supersubstantial archeological records, a careless investigation and exploration can become yet another Rorschach test for all inquisitors, and we will only mostly confirm what we already think that we know.  We can attempt to create our best representation for what we think their truths might have been in the earliest iterations of mankind, the times that existed before there were verbal accounts being passed down through the generations.

Even though our present history has only about 5000 years of written records, some cultures have historical narratives that appear to have been passed down for at least 30,000 years.  The aborigines of Australia claim a 60,000 year narrative, while Central and South American indigenous peoples and their shamans also claim lineages of tens of thousands of years. Western European civilization appears to be an outgrowth of the migration of African tribal members at least 13000-30000 years ago.  Cave drawings in Spain and France show sophisticated art capabilities, and, apparently, versions of animal and spirit worship.

Many ancient cultures created sculpted objects resembling the human penis, and the pregnant woman, so the need for fertility and the reverence for all associated body parts appears to be a fundamental need for our race. Other caves have been found showing even earlier creative endeavors. in a remarkable recent, though questionable discovery,  a cave was discovered that is purported to possess chiseled storage cubicles dating back one million years ago, according to carbon dating.  The human race has a long history, indeed, though finding a physical, or even spiritual, starting point is probably impossible.

The earliest human creatures spoke primarily with gestures, grunts, and body language, with their evolving vocal chords eventually joining in the conversation  at some unknown point in the distant past. They eventually standardized certain verbal sounds, sounds that became words that were supposed to represent that which they were seeing, doing, using, or eating.  Eventually mankind made the quantum leap to symbolic writing, where animal and plant forms once used to symbolically  represent life were replaced by crude symbols, which eventually evolved into hieroglyphics, and then cuneiform alphabets. It must have seemed like magic to the first humans who realized, and then taught others, that their thoughts could be approximated and shared through words, and then an ever evolving symbolic representation.

It appears that the creation, or formation of a new world had been made possible through words and concepts that were arising in the evolving consciousness.  Formerly, there were mainly biological systems with limited freedom of choice responding to environmental influences, with a more instinctual response to meeting the needs of the body, and of whatever family or community that existed.  We could call that world the “real world”, as it dealt with the harsh realities of a world not yet under the subjugation of the human mind.  With the advent of symbolic representation of the real world, a concurrent, though alternate “reality” was created which only existed in the minds of those entertaining those new concepts and symbols.  To the point that this alternate reality created within the mind, both individually and culturally, matched up with the conditions of the real world, one could say that becoming verbally conscious was an amazing evolutionary leap for humanity.

They now lived in two intimately related and interdependent worlds, that of their biology, and that of their minds. Once symbology is introduced into the human mind, absolutely remarkable, if not miraculous, phenomenon start appearing.  Consciousness expressing through symbology appears to have a self-organizing principle innate to it, and as it weighs and measures and assigns names to the objects of its awareness, a personal sense of being is also introduced into the biological system entertaining the symbology.  Thus, the “word” or the act of first recognizing that a verbal sound or a specific set of symbols can represent an environmental influence is the initial generative force behind the creation, or the awakening of the personal sense of self.

I began this chapter with a question about when mankind first became “conscious”, and the story of Helen Keller is a remarkable account of that very universal process happening to a handicapped individual.  Helen Keller gives an outstanding narrative of the beginning of her own sense of self, a new self which seemed to arise out of her more instinctual, or even chaotic biological response to life.  Once she recognized that the letters W A T E R represented the substance that she washed with, and drank, her own unique sense of being herself also arose..Literally, understanding the word and its symbolism opened the miraculous door to her self, and  both phenomenon seem to have arisen concurrently.  Helen Keller’s new sense of self arose out of a life-giving and sustaining symbol, and she grew into a creative, profound, and spiritually wise human being, beloved by all who knew her.  Literally the word “water” became flesh to her, covering her biological skeleton with the flesh of a life imbued with the meaning of words.

So far, neuroscientists have found no images, videos, or sound bites in our brains. There are only patterns of synapses firing.  Everything our senses see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is converted into these patterns. This is the one and only way we know the world. The sight, warmth, and flavor of our favorite foods all exist for us only as synapses firing in specific patterns. Even the obsession for chocolate bars is just a pattern.  Our brains process all sensory data in the same way, whether it comes from our eyes, ears, mouth, fingers, or nose, or even ares not under public scutiny. Any pattern in the world that our senses can sense gets mapped by our synapses in pretty much the same way.

Helen Keller’s , and our own, experience happened because our brains own activity became another source of sensory input. This one seemingly small change would allow our brains to become aware of their own processes, and themselves. To become conscious. And it would allow us–for the first time in history–to develop a sense of self.  And this is a direct result of the profound mystery of the development of the word that is first recognized within an individual self, and then shared with others.

How do our brain do this, or is this a manifestation of something beyond the brain? Brains can process electromagnetic light waves, auditory sound waves, and molecules of aroma, but how, exactly, does it process the Word?  Is just the sound of the word sufficient?  As we now know, just the sound of the word IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR THE CREATION OF THIS INTERIOR INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING. Something now is playing the keys of our brains interior synapses, and the music we hear is the melody of OUR SELF.  Are our neural patterns actually creating our sense of self?  Ha, the mystery remains, as well as our sense of self..

Once humans evolved consciousness, our internal sensations, emotions, and thoughts went online and became available to make us aware of who we are. Our internally observed neural activity told us:

• what we like, and don’t like
• who we love, and don’t love
• how things make us feel, or how there is only numbness where feelings should be
• what we think, and what we think about what we think
• how, and maybe why, we behave the sometimes odd ways that we do
• what we want, and how far beyond our moral boundaries we’ve increasingly gone to get it

Because this inward directed, self-sensing part of our brain can itself be seen as an input, we can be aware of ourselves being aware of ourselves.

The experience of having conscious awareness happens on levels beyond the physical plane, without typical sensorial awareness. It can feel so extraordinary and exalted that it seems like it must be the result of something more than just brain chemistry, perhaps even a manifestation of something of an otherworldly, or even divine, nature. Our nervous systems are a vast universe of sensations, feelings, and thoughts. Conscious awareness has added a window to this interior dimension where the immeasurable and the unknowable may be accessed, caressed, or manhandled, by our sense of self.

Consciousness has completely changed the nature of our experience, as well as the state of nature across the entire planet. There are real mysteries here, what exactly is, or isn’t consciousness, and what does it feel like to have it. Speculation continues in earnest about whether consciousness is a fundamental quality of all of the Universe, or just a peculiarity of biological systems. And, the question remains to be answered if artificial intelligence will have a Helen Keller W A T E R realization, and thus  create its own unique sense of self with its understanding of words, and potentially concepts.

It can be argued that once the mind of man finally became conscious of its own individual self, and then that others also might also have a self, it opened the doors to a collective mind that entertained and hosted the symbolic representations of all of the other individual life forms, human or animal, that it was witnessing, as well as it itself. It also opened Pandora’s Box, or the doors to all manners of mistaken judgement of others, and of self, revealing the hypnotic windows to illusion and fantasy, and that aspect of the unfoldment of consciousness remains not only a historical fact , but a present reality.

When was mankind’s first W A T E R moment?  It could  be said that individual man, and collective man, may have left its Garden Of Eden state with that same evolutionary unfoldment in consciousness. In the mystical literature of the Bible, as recorded through the words of New Testament scribe John: “The Word.became flesh, and dwelt among us”. We cannot be certain as to what the first words taught to each other in the dawning times of human consciousness were, but by historical evidence, it would appear that the language of survival, shelter aquisition, defense, killing, eating, and sexual activity probably dominated early language building cultures.

With the advent of symbolic representation, our history was no longer totally dependent upon oral transmission, yet oral transmission still, to this very day remains a powerful, and primary, form of communication, especially for those not proficient in their reading ability, and lacking in intellectual and spiritual discernment.  Words spoken in groups of people have infinitely more power in the present moment than words read from a book by an individual in the privacy of the home.  We all have witnessed the remarkable power of the mob mind, and need only look at the insurrection on January 6, 2021 to see the absolutely insane, crazy making energy they can stir up within people disconnected from reality.

There are two or more sides to every story, and the epoch of mankind certainly could have been defined historically  by its nearly infinite number of interactions between members of our worldwide community, past and present, and all of the resultant stories derived through those connections, be they ordered or chaotic in nature.  But, in the interest of brevity and our need to create meaning and bring order out of apparent chaos of the limitless multitudes, we tend to select the stories that appear to not only carry the ethos of the age in which they originated, but also support the perceptual agendas of the writers.. Our present civilization now proudly touts its written “recorded history”.

History is created and maintained by the institutionalized powers, and transferred to all members of the community. Our history continues to be written to accommodate the prevailing victorious powers and understandings of the age in which it was first written. Our history continues to be written primarily by men, and for men, with women and minorities merely an afterthought, if their stories are included. . In the distant past, and even today among the few uncivilized indigenous tribes left, the mother, father, and whatever tribe or supportive community transferred all of their wisdom and knowledge about hunting, weapon and tool construction and use, gathering fruit, berries, or wild vegetables, childbirth and rearing, wound care, fire building, and survival to the children, until they were of age, and could join their father, or their mother, in the daily grind of the home village, or branch out and seek their own fortune elsewhere.  Today, our parents and our culture continue the same process, transferring their knowledge, sacred or otherwise, to our children.  So, not only do we live in the two worlds of parents and culture, we also have two identities derived from those pattern givers to deal with.

Our collective/cultural self and our individual sense of self are rarely one person, though both now travel with us, wherever we might travel.  The civilized being is thus plagued by a form of schizophrenia, whether we want to face that difficult truth, or not. We have more than a biological evolution, we also have an ongoing emotional, intellectual, and spiritual evolution.  Our latter history, which is written, shows our ability to philosophize, and to form creative narratives about what the world once was, what it is now, and where it might be going in the future.  Our vision of what the world once was will always be just a best guess, and, just like now, our ancestors writing their own histories, proposed myths and legends to explain that which was pre-existent to  their own lives.  Our myths and legends serve us well in this regard, and many times they complement what we have discovered through all of the sciences, spiritual literature, as well as through our intuitive capacity.

Who tells the story?  Many times, the greatest, most courageous and intelligent heroes of our race remain anonymous, though their stories were captured by others..  They died before they could even create a story, thus the survivors, usually less qualified and relatively more uninformed, are the historians, and their story, not the story of the real heroes, are accepted as the narrative.  Religious texts abound with such exposition.  Our American history also has suffered under the need to present the prevailing propaganda of the time, as it looks back and interprets other’s historical accounts of what actually transpired, and molds it into a more self-supporting and self-aggrandizing cultural ethos and narrative.

When we were under the law of “survival of the fittest”( which still dominates the Capitalist mentality) we really had to measure up, and use all of our physical, emotional, and intuitive resources at maximum power, coupled with community and individual knowledge (wisdom) to have any hope of not becoming a meal for a stronger and hungrier predator than we were, or a victim of a hunter/aggressor from another tribe.. Biologically, the men of our species usually were blessed with the greatest physical assets, making them the men of action, while the women, through their capacity for becoming impregnated, were the carriers of the species future, plus messengers from a deeper realm of human potential through their heightened intuition and Earth centered wisdom, were the women of enhanced spiritual connection.. Women within many ancient cultures were regarded as healers and carriers of “medicine”.  They were loved, honored, respected, and protected by the community for those very reasons.  Modern anthropological studies continue to confirm that early indigenous women were held in at least as high esteem as the hunter/gatherer/warriors of ancient times, so it can be surmised that in our pre-history the balance of the masculine and the feminine through mutual understanding, acknowledgement, and equality existed and supported the good for all. The larger the community became, the more the equilibrium between men and women became disturbed,  Size indicates prosperity, and the bigger communities traded with friendly neighbors, and/or were attacked by others seeking to help their own tribes.  As our history shows an almost universal, steady progression of conflict and war, cultures took their strongest citizens and made them into defenders, or aggressors, to preserve the tribe’s rights to resources, which were usually scarce.  Biologically, the male warrior  usually was considered as the best choice, and a whole consciousness eventually developed around that difference in biology.  The best male might be considered the one who brings home the most game, gather the most berries, raise the most crops (a more recent development) and/or are most fearless and aggressive, within certain community proscribed limits.  The best female might be considered the one most willing to support the hunter/gatherer and the defenders, through family support, maintenance of the home, meal preparation, healing of wounds, and birthing and raising the family, especially while the men go about their business. Yet, mankind’s story, if it could be told by all of the women story tellers, would be much different than the story told by the history that men might present.  History is rarely described and defined by the ones who were stuck at home caring for the wounded and the children, by the submissive ones, by the artists or sculptors, or  by the losers in any conflict.  Our history is no different, being described, and defined, by those in power, which are predominantly white male influences.. There is an imbalance within the field of the human spirit.  Masculine energy has dominated our specie’s relationship with the universe, the world, the plants and animals, and with each other for most of recorded time, and probably well before the human race had any capacity to keep records.  Men carried the seed for life, yet they did not have the love and nurturing ability that the female of the species seemed to naturally possess.  Was this merely an environmental response, or a biological response, or a combination of the two? In the Hebrew based mythological story of The Garden Of Eden, we even see the beginning of male denial and scapegoating of the female for listening to the voice of the serpent, which now becomes the voice for the development of consciousness, and the potential for intuition and insight itself.  With eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man, and woman, now may hesitantly approach divine knowledge, yet forever remain outside of their original ignorant unconscious state of being.  The “flaming swords of the cherubim” guard the Garden and keep us, the now judgemental ones with poor enough self esteem that we need to deny our  creative nature, and cover our innocence to hide and to protect our self from others, and from the truth. The serpent in the Garden of Eden remains a fascinating, enlightening archetypal image. The serpent is always in contact with the ground, or with the limbs in the trees, depending upon where it lives, so it serves as a great metaphor for those in continuous contact with our planet. And, mothers have a much more earth centered understanding of life, being the bearers of human life itself, so the snake is also a metaphor for the earth centered and connected woman.  As the Earth gave life to us, so did the woman give life to the human.  Women learned early about the Earth’s capacity to heal us, through judicious application of its plants and herbs, and spiritual awareness and empathy. Women tended to see a more complete picture than did the men, due to the very constitution of their neural networks.  Women tended to see the forests and the trees, while the men remained obsessed about the trees.  And, in a later development, the more earth attuned women were actually persecuted and burned at the stake for being witches. The serpent is also recognized for the way that it winds around its victims, or coils before it strikes.  It is an obvious reference to the cunning nature of thought itself, winding around its victims, and coiling before it strikes.  Our limited thinking, even with all of its knowledge, attempts to baffle us with its bullshit, while it instinctively strikes out at others when feeling threatened.  The serpent metaphor  does also represent our biological and instinctual needs, where our ancient  reptilian brain functionally excels, like supporting our unevolved thinking nature, our natural reflexes, our unenlightened sexual activity and our need for self preservation.  In some early cultures, the serpent was even worshiped as a God, or even feared as the devil, probably because of the pain, suffering, and sometimes death that ensued from failing to follow its edicts, such as avoiding contact with others, or thoughts within ourselves, of a poisonous nature. Before I enter the portion discussing the Common Knowledge Game in detail, it is beneficial to provide some information about the physiological similarities and differences in the brain between men and women, and how we process information and express ourselves, as a result of those differences and similarities.  I will also post some quotes from the New Testament of the Christian Bible, to show how men have attempted to suppress the nature of the feminine, both within the women in their lives and culture, and within their own “masculine” minds.  Both of these factors have ultimate importance in the Common Knowledge game, providing the basic foundation for perception for our collective consciousness, and unconsciousness. .

Wow, there really is a difference! How did THAT get in there?!

It’s no secret that men and women are different, biologically, historically, emotionally, and spiritually, with these differences extending far beyond what the eye can see. Research reveals major distinctions between male and female brains. Scientists generally study several areas of difference in male and female brains: including structure, activity, processing, and chemistry. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. Some men are very sensitive, immensely talkative about their feelings, and naturally eschew the masculine way of doing things. As with all gender differences, usually no one way of doing things is better or worse. The differences are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have both advantages and disadvantages. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. You may know some boys who are very sensitive, immensely talkative about feelings, and just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things. The differences are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages.   There are both physiological and cultural reasons for why men and women see life differently from each other. Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently. Women tend to think globally and network more efficiently with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, than do males. Yet, all aspects and styles of processing are available to both men and women, depending on their own conditioning, internal natures, and intentions. Activities such as insight, meditation, exercise, enhanced community involvement, and journal writing have all shown tremendous results in realigning and reorienting the basic fabric of the brain itself, for both men and women, as well as enhance the capacity to modify the consciousness that dances within, and outside of, the brain’s domain of influence.   The male and female brain are structurally different.  “Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass. Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do.  Women tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men. Before birth, the male and female brains develop somewhat differently, with the right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains showing distinctive paths of development. Females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference, as females tend to use more words when discussing or describing objects of their concern. Males have fewer verbal centers in general and have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, women tend to have an advantage. Another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain. Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may be tempted to perceive that men avoid feelings in comparison to women or move to problem-solving too quickly. Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences of importance in the brain. Understanding gender differences from a neurological perspective not only opens the door to greater appreciation of the genders, it also calls into question how we parent, educate, and support our children from a young age. It brings to the forefront the importance of other activities to rebalance the brain, bring it into a better harmony within itself, and reprogramming it in ways that are more beneficial to the individual, and to the human race. . There appears to be a physiological reason in the brain for why men and women see life differently from each other.  Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently.  Women tend to think more globally, and outwardly network with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, better than males.  Yet, there are aspects of many styles of processing available to both men, and women, depending on their own internal natures, and intentions. Through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, loving manners.  And men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and their own emotional needs, if this becomes a conscious intention for them.  Studies have also shown the neuroplasticity of the human brain, and that the internal nature of all brains can be changed, even after one reaches adulthood.  Men can become much more “feminine” in the way their brain processes emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”. The bible has so many revealing statements and texts about the subjugation and disempowering of women, all in the name of maintaining “Godly” relations.   The Christian bible is replete with aphorisms and statements relegating women to the background of the “church”, and in all relations with life.  This oppression of women, and repression of so-called “feminine characteristics” within the male have been inculcated into so-called “religious people” and is baked into their culture.  Their attitudes reflect the diseased and imbalanced relationships between some Christian and Jewish bodies of thought, and the world in general.   Religion inspired paradigms have also become established as conscious, and unconscious, norms for perception within the collective consciousness of America, and mankind in general.  Just having a political and philosophical need to keep the church and the state separate is not quite enough, apparently, to create and maintain healthier norms for relationships between the sexes.  Another unfortunate and dangerous outcome to this division between the man and woman is that the man is unconsciously conditioned to see the ‘feminine” aspects of himself in an objectified manner, and tries to oppress, control and dominate those aspects, emotions, and tendencies as if those parts were his “Christian wife”, rather than integrate them into a complete holism within himself.   Our collective consciousness in the USA has most of its historical religious foundation in Judeo-Christian values and ethics, a decidedly divisive understanding for living life which continues to directly impact our moral, religious, ethical, political, economic, and judicial processes. I will not be quoting from Buddhist, Hindi, Taoist, Confucian, or other foreign originated philosophies and religions in the following discussion, though works from many of these thought systems are relevant. The Christian bible will be quoted from, with the intention of showing how the Judeo-Christian ethic can predetermine collective understanding of the relationship between men and women.

• For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.-—1 Peter 3:1
• Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a world by the conduct of their wives-–1 Corinthians
• The women should keep silent in the churches.  For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.  If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.  For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church—-1 Timothy 2:12-14
• I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.—-1 Timothy 2:
• To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.  Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.“—–Genesis 3:16
• The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church—–1 Corinthians 14:34-35

The bible has so many revealing statements and texts about the subjugation and disempowering of women, all in the name of maintaining Godly relations. The Christian bible is replete with aphorisms and statements relegating women to the background of the church, and in all relations with life. This oppression of women, and repression of feminine characteristics within the male have been historically inculcated into the history and traditions of religious people, and it reflects in the diseased and imbalanced relationships between some Christian and Jewish bodies of thought, and the world in general   So how on Earth, or in Heaven, do we bring balance back to ourselves, and with our relationships to each other, with our men and women, and with our planet Earth?  We need a new understanding incorporated into our world views.  We need to be inspired by new ideas, and develop deeper spiritual capacity through our intuition and insight. Many seekers of truth and knowledge throughout time have claimed that by meditating upon their body, their biology, and their breath, rather than the endless stream of words, thoughts, and concepts that seem to be constantly present, a door may open revealing the possibility of internally experiencing a more balanced nature, a nature pointed to by a sacred silence that appears to lie dormant and unrecognized within the more unconscious elements of mankind. To find our unique path back to a balanced spiritual home, , we must be willing to be transformed, and to no longer merely conform to others’ expectations. I propose that there are ways to be born again, but these are unusual paths, and some can be characterized by much pain and suffering, The aspirant must be absolutely disgusted with the past, willing to be freed from it, and to be open to new possibilities for a refreshed life experience. .Would we return to a pre-verbal or non verbal state of being, or would we recognize words for what they are, and use them with more love and care, or perhaps create our own unique conscious blend of the two states? Perhaps we will discover that words only have limited, relative value  rather than absolute value, in the search for our real origins. Jesus, in the new testament, proclaims:

• “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.“, and
• ““It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”, and, finally
• “My Kingdom is not of this world”.

The Jewish prophets and biblical writers understood the difficulty of such an undertaking. Most of the human race continues to be born into ancient times, using the tools of ancient, unenlightened thought, and they embody a continuation of the same mental and material processes that our ancient ancestors practiced, though disguised in the verbal clothing that this age offers..  There is an exciting alternative to the repetition and continuation of our human and personal history, however, but to be a part of that evolutionary leap, we must be “born again”. Like any religious or spiritual work, you don’t need to study my writings to find the Truth, you just need to learn how to study yourself. You are the greatest teacher, healer, and redeemer that you will ever find, once you tune up your understanding.  Have fun and learn, and then teach your children well! The rest of you? Well, you will do what you feel that you need to do, without too much question, and your learning will continue to come, often with extra helpings of suffering and pain.

• Why would anybody want to change, anyway?
• Is the desire to become a better man part of our evolutionary imperative?

Habitual ways of male thinking literally have become collective ruts in fragmented male consciousness through the generations. If these ruts are traveled too frequently and for too many years by the emotionally and spiritually unaware, they become worn down into the depths sufficient to become spiritual grave sites. Men collectively have been drawn to those grave sites through many generations of cultural conditioning, training, and bio-chemical predispositions. The Second Law Of Thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. The male brain can tend to be such a closed system, and we have all witnessed the chaotic end result of such a process in our present world mind and experience. Brain neuroplasticity is a common term used by neuroscientists, referring to the brain’s ability to change at any age – for better or worse. Through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, and loving manners. Men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and to their own emotional needs, if this becomes a conscious intention for them. Studies have also shown that the internal nature of all brains can be changed, even after one reaches adulthood.   There are both physiological and cultural reasons for why men and women see life differently from each other. Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently. Women tend to think globally and network more efficiently with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, than do males. Yet, all aspects and styles of processing are available to both men and women, depending on their own conditioning, internal natures, and intentions. Activities such as insight, meditation, exercise, enhanced community involvement, and journal writing have all shown tremendous results in realigning and reorienting the basic fabric of the brain itself, for both men and women, as well as enhance the capacity to modify the consciousness that dances within, and outside of, the brain’s domain of influence.   Men can learn to process information more globally, in the way their brain manages emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”. And, there are the blessed few who have had spiritually transformative events, which dramatically changes the very structure of the brain, giving an immediate access to a new mind, as well. The world can still be saved, if men first save themselves from their personal delusions, and their own self-destructive “habits of thinking”. Then, we can all work towards saving this beautiful, and fragile, world.. You must be the change you want to see in the world —Mahatma Gandhi All through my young life I craved the attention of members of the female gender.  My life was characterized by an intense loneliness, with my friendships with males not able to quiet my needs for female companionship.  When I did somehow draw women into my life, I failed to connect in a way that brought balance back into my life.  My stream of relationship failures placed me squarely on the path of despair.  I intuited that I needed something that only women could bring to me, yet I did not understand that it was up to me to create and cultivate those qualities within myself that I craved from healthy females. None of us are doomed to remain tethered to a solely male or a female perspective, though our culture and our religions certainly have dedicated much time, historically, to maintain the status quo and the division between the sexes I changed, because I was going to die, and I wanted to see if life would reveal to me a lasting, eternal life affirming and giving meaning.. .To be born again, one must prepare oneself to die to the old, while embracing the possibility of a new way of being. Are you ready to transmogrify? We must first see the full scope of our collective issues that are presently holding us back, as in the complete seeing of the problems, insight can be developed to bring our freedom to the forefront of our consciousness.

Stranger In A Strange Land: Defender Dan, And Growing Up In America

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ― C.G. Jung

. History will eventually record for the remnants of American civilization how easily gun promoters gaslit the rest of society through their distorted and evil interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.  These outliers pretended to be spokesmen for American’s basic rights, all the while denying all Americans the sense of safety and security from the dire, deadly threats by the many deranged men within society. The gun promoters rallied around the most flawed reasoning, manifesting a cult of death and mutual destruction.  They railed against their own interests, believing in their own  obvious cultural con.  The disaster spreads like a virus with the continued normalization of this gun loving insanity.. Guns, gold, greed, gonads, and girls. . . . how much is enough, American male? In the 1950’s and 1960’s, America’s economy was booming, and our country also grew into its role as world policeman, which followed its involvement in World War II. As a country, it was pleasant to think of ourselves as the defenders of freedom and liberty, and the liberator of the damned, especially after its world saving performance of WWII. The Defender Dan story serves as an allegory for my understanding of the American male experience of the brain and its function, and the “Baby Boomer” generation in general, of which I am a qualified member. At the top of the page I have inserted a picture of Defender Dan, a toy machine gun which was produced and marketed in the 1960’s, and which continues to carry immense symbolic value for me. Defender Dan was a plastic and metal representation for a powerful tool of war, and served our culture’s need to normalize and promote aggressive role playing behavior for males. This machine delivered simulated death by plastic bullets, and was a manifestation of the cultural perception that a need for such violent toys existed. The promotion of the use of these toy weapons happened concurrently with the execution of the Vietnam War, but one can review history to see that in each era that there has been war, there has also been toy weapons made available for children. These toy weapons represent our culture’s unconscious support for common knowledge based attack/defense postures and the mutual bullying behaviors that frequently appear in human relationships. Symbolically, these weapons helped to prepare our male population for continuing as unconscious human beings, who, when feeling threatened, would rather “shoot first, and ask questions later”. This toy perfectly represents the tool for manifesting that intention. Men, especially those from lower economic and educational backgrounds, were to be enforcement agents and soldiers for war, for our American economic and philosophical imperialism. Psychologically susceptible American boys, through the practice with and the use of such toy weapons were being prepared to continue in their father’s footsteps. Our leaders stressed that our international bullying behavior was intended to enhance world peace and protect individual freedom and liberties. The clinging to and the use of “adult versions” of weapons of war by spiritually underdeveloped citizens such as white supremacist terrorists, shows the power of the potential for evil arising from excess fear and the perceived need for protection from the effects of one’s errant philosophies. My physical relationship with Defender Dan began in 1968. At that time, my mother worked at the Oak Lodge Fire Department as a dispatcher. The department had an annual toy drive, where they collected and distributed donated toys to disadvantaged children within the local community. One of the toys donated was called a Defender Dan Machine Gun. It was not a new toy, as it had “minor damage” that made it an acceptable toy only for a boy, and a father with mechanical skills, who might be able to troubleshoot and repair it. It was reckoned that there would be a real disappointment to a family if the toy was given to them and they could not fix it, so the toy was pulled from the pool of gifts. My mother asked for it, and she was “gifted” with the defective toy, which she gave to me for a Christmas gift.. I was thirteen years old at the time, and when I opened up the gift at Christmas, I thought that I might be a “little too old” to be receiving and playing with a toy gun, even one as massive as this huge gun. I mean, this thing took up a lot of space (as do hurtful and self-destructive and other-destructive thoughts and judgements within our minds)! It was quite an intimidating looking piece of hardware. I set the machine gun up, and proceeded to fire about 20 plastic bullets at my sister (also symbolic of the fact that all war is fratricide) before the gun jammed up internally, and it would only misfire after that. Some friends of my parents showed up with their teenage daughter to visit, and it was then requested that I move the machine of war to the basement, much to my sister’s and to my parent’s relief.. I was confused as to what was expected from me. Why was I given something to play with that had known problems? Didn’t I deserve something that was new and perfect? My dad was disinterested in helping me fix it, and, in fact, he was not mechanically inclined enough to offer much help. I certainly did not have a fully developed skill package in troubleshooting and repairing this fairly complex mechanical system, but I liked a good challenge, and I thought that this endeavor might be worthwhile. Ann C., a daughter of the friends of my parents, came downstairs to talk with me, while her parents continued to talk with mine. I tried one final time to get Defender Dan to work, but I could not get it to function properly and with consistency. I began dismantling it, trying to understand how it worked so that I could find the problem and attempt to repair it.  And I also thought that I might be able to impress Ann just a little bit, if I were to succeed in fixing the machine.  Dad came downstairs and saw the gun parts spread all over the basement floor, accused me of destroying the gift, and then proceeded to remove his belt, and whip the hell out of me, right in front of Ann. That one hurt a lot of different ways, for sure.  In one sense I succeeded, because I am sure that the sight of a thirteen year old boy getting his ass beat with a belt was impressive. I was horribly shamed, with the feeling of shame not being unusual to me.  Defender Dan, and all of the supporting behavior and attitudes behind its existence, was to become synonymous with fear, and shame, in my own mind. My response to my father’s attack was to give up troubleshooting and repairing the toy. I did not treasure Defender Dan, and after my initial attempts at its repair failed, and my father’s shaming behavior, I took that as further affirmation of my lack of competence and value, so I took a hammer to the toy, smashing it into smaller, more useless pieces. “Some men just want to watch the world burn”, and this is one example of that principle in action, and why it arises in the first place. I placed the heap into the garbage can, while trying to forget about my latest “failure”. I then moved onto the next challenge facing me as a thirteen year old young man, which was to come up with a good story that might prevent another beating. Designers and builders of machinery , or creators of ideas or new forms of art, are encouraged and empowered by their society and their own “creator within” to bring into the world of form their latest creations. Creators are happiest when they actually bring something new, or an updated version of the old, into the world. With the power of creation carrying us across the ocean of life, we can’t help but use that power to make idols, icons, and images that represent that which we are grateful for, or what has given us protection or sustenance. I am sure that fathers over the history of humanity have given crude versions of their primary tools of trade or weapons of war to their boys since the idea of gifting first arose. And, the father encouraged the boys interest in protecting himself, his family, and in a more recent evolutionary development, even his ideology. Yet I have to wonder how giving the gift of fear, isolation, shame, aggression, and the potential for violence is really the highest quality gift that our “creator” has to offer to us Each human child is dependent upon the quality of love, safety, and prosperity of the family household, and these are primary factors that greatly influence a growing child’s evolutionary path through consciousness. The parents are by intention also designers, builders, and co-creators of the early life and consciousness of the new child, even if it is the DNA that determines a greater portion of the heritage. My father spent five years at a local university learning about psychology, child development, logic, philosophy and religion, and yet his successful mastering of these subjects in school did not translate into insight as to how to best parent his children. My mother studied Dr. Spock and others, yet did not develop the insight necessary to know that placing a blanket wrapped crying baby in a car in the garage at night until dad left for work so that he could sleep missed the bulls eye for perfect child care by the widest of margins. All creators strive for perfection, and most parents are no exceptions, yet that desire for excellence is difficult to identify in dysfunctional families, especially by children who were negatively impacted by chronic parental mismanagement. Victims of wounding carry the pain well into adulthood, and even unto death, in situations where the trauma is never made conscious or gets addressed in a loving, healing manner. I never have met the lucky ones who had the perfect birth, infancy, and childhoods. Like me, childhood was probably a mixed bag for the majority of people on this planet. And, there are a few of us who were born physically handicapped, and it leaves us to wonder why human biological creative energy manifested itself in such a unique way. These physical handicaps are visible to all who look their way. And, those who transcend their physical handicaps are honored for their courage, and their achievements in life. Yet, what about the rest of us, who may have been born with another type of handicap, a handicap of the human spirit, caused by a diseased culturally inculcated consciousness?

True freedom is NOT about accumulating guns, money, or politicized religion as damaged males continue to interpret these symbols.

I might have been born with a predisposition towards an overly ignorant, fearful mind, or those deficiencies could have evolved from my parent’s faltering attempts at nurturing. I do know that I was handed and told to repair a ‘defective piece of equipment” over the course of my education as a young person. Just what was this “defective piece of equipment” that I am referring to? Of course I am referring to self-destructive mental programming created through societal, historical and genetic predispositions , cultural conditioning, individual and collective ignorance, and all vitriolic, bullying, war-mongering behaviors.The “piece” consisted of poor self esteem, and a sense of being ignored, undervalued, and lonely. I was hyperactive, restless and discontented, and I suffered from a feeling of not being heard or fully accepted as a child. I would let the immune system of my mind run overtime, resulting in excessive attacks against myself and others, and excessive posturing in passive/aggressive approaches to insecure and troubled relationships My parents and my culture made their compelling arguments for trying to convince me that their paths and understandings were righteous, and I just needed to become mature enough to understand and find where I fit in this challenging place. All that I know is that the world sure appeared to be a fucked up place. And those who have successfully adapted to this fucked up place sure don’t like to be told the truth that they are also living in a fucked up place, and that their adjustments with and accommodations to the fucked up world keep the world, as well as their own puny little life, all fucked up, whether they are aware of that fact, or not.. My parents and my culture told me to become the best person that I could be. Yet, they insisted that I make do with their conflicted standards of understanding and behavior, adapt to it somehow, and to live my life with it. I could also try to “fix it”, if I had the time, inclination, and courage to learn more about it, interact with it on a different level, and become a conscious witness to its healing evolution. I have written extensively about toxic masculinity, and there is a direct relationship between the damaged American male, and the incidence of gun marketing, distribution, sales, use, murder and terrorism within our country. Enough is enough, my fellow male (and supporting female) citizens who are hypnotized by the destructive potential of their judgements AND their weapons of war and by the extremists that so effectively promote twisted values to our diseased society. The floodwaters of gun violence have been created by the unleashing of weapons upon our society by the twisted advocates of the 2nd Amendment, gun manufacturers, the NRA, and insane minds who understand nothing but fear, self-preservation, and hatred. It is impossible to save ourselves from the ravages of flooding brought about by the dam of public mental health bursting, so why don’t we work on preventing the dam from bursting in the first place? Human and Civil rights are not equivalent to gun rights, period, and, in fact, supersede all philosophical claims to dominion by extremist gun rights advocates. The 2nd Amendment has been fine tuned by neurotic, overzealous gun rights advocates to promote ideals not conforming to a rational, effective approach to gun safety and ownership. Gun violence against innocent Americans is NOT SUPPORTED BY OUR CONSTITUTION, no matter what those who blindly support the 2nd Amendment claim. No individual is a militia, no matter how megalomaniacal they may be, and it is utter nonsense that paranoid people use that as an excuse to stockpile weapons of mass-destruction. This is not a political statement to me. This is a statement of common sense, law, reason, and love. Those who “politicize” this issue with divisive, hateful reasoning, form their deadly alliances around their fears, and this prevents our society from healing. It is up to us to challenge these defective ideas in open forum, and to vote out of office all politicians who support politically sanctioned mass murder,. It is time to strictly regulate or ban the weapons used to assault our families, our own bodies, and our sensibilities, and it is time to change the dirty diaper that characterizes much of masculine thought in our country.. An American society dominated by the self-destructive and other-destructive fantasies of sick minds, (including the ultra-conservative “Christian followers” who believe in Armageddon, and who are doing everything in their power to create the conditions for it), have created this unsafe, upside down world where weapons of mass destruction are worshiped as tools of freedom and safety, rather than being seen for what they are, which are tools for murder, propagation of fear, bullying, and self-righteousness. Freedom is not preserved and protected through the threatened use of lethal force of one citizen upon another with guns. Freedom is preserved and protected through the understanding that the enemy lies within our own consciousness, and then healing our world through insight, and the cultivation of collaboration, unity, justice, and love. To the extent that Christian America believes in their weapons, is the extent that they do not believe in their supposed Christian ideals, period. The ultra-conservative “Christian” gun promoter is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and should be recognized as such. Time to listen up, America. Time to shut up, NRA, and the politician’s feeding at their troughs of gun violence, death and insanity.I just have to wonder when terrorism will hit these individuals in political power right where it hurts most, and then they can finally decide that their pro-gun, pro NRA positions are steeped in insanity and nonsense. When they start to feel the pain of the rest of our country, then they will act on behalf of gun control, rather than obfuscate the issues while monetarily profiting from our suffering, as they have in the past. People that profit from the deaths of innocent civilians are worse than terrorists. Why does America support domestic terrorism? Do we understand that our culture is disfigured, diseased, and in need of dramatic change? Guns kill people, and the people who supply guns to people KILL PEOPLE. There are those who prefer to gloss over the darkness in our society, and call the evil, bullying, and cruelty by names other than what represents the truth of the matter. Learn to recognize these people, and remember that in any coercive society, including Hitler’s Germany, these types of individuals were part of darkness’ support network, whether inadvertently by their own ignorance, or intentionally by their own malevolence. I have spoken out against guns and gun violence since 1980, and my voice has been drowned out by those who speak louder than me. Now, I am starting to believe that the silent majority is finally going to assert itself, and our country steer towards more rational approaches to gun ownership, and control. Our culture is INSANE, as are the people who support the unfettered DISTRIBUTION AND SALE OF GUNS AND AUTOMATIC WEAPONS. Once again, their specious reasoning and heartless, hollow arguments are filled with holes, the bullet holes of death to our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. NRA and the politicians who do not act to reduce the proliferation of automatic weapons are sponsors of national terrorism. Just how many automatic weapons does it take to make you feel safe? It is just that many weapons that it takes to make you unhealthy, insane, fearful, and outside of the picture of potential national healing. Gun violence directly stems from a national mental illness, and guns are never the proper medication to alleviate the symptoms. Atomic weapons don’t kill people, people kill people.  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. These are equivalent arguments, only differing by the degree of devastation that their use creates. Attitudes don’t kill people, people kill people. Anger, hatred, war, and despair don’t kill people, people kill people. Whatever position that one attempts to strike, the fundamental fact remains that people are the source of all of the attitudes, conflicts, hatred, fear, and other forms of ignorance that predicates the need for weapons of war, be they mechanical or philosophical in nature. Does the chicken or the egg come first? That is an invalid question, because both the chicken and the egg are the effects of consciousness, though they both have a direct relationship to each other. Consciousness is both causative and fundamental, As a world civilization, we try to regulate our atomic weapons, yet we let other weapons of mass destruction run free. Would you allow the arming of groups of mad men with nuclear weapons (white supremacists like our POTUS or Kim Jung Un notwithstanding)? We all must be protected from the atom bombs. We all must be protected from the guns that are designed for and used to kill people. It is impossible to protect us from all of the bullying lunatics out there in the world brandishing their weapons of mass murder, so we must act rationally, and decisively, to thwart the self-destructive and other-destructive tendencies of unevolved, fear based males. We don’t allow children to drive cars, which are dangerous in their immature hands. Men who think they need guns to protect themselves from philosophical extensions of their own fear, ignorance, and hatred are also children, and should be treated accordingly.  Politicians who cater to children deny the ability of the culture to accept and adopt more rational, healing approaches to the biological/neurological, historical and cultural predisposition to male violence. Automatic weapons are the tool of choice for mass murder and oppression now. Those who support the use of automatic weapons, are unwitting dupes for an evil that far transcends their limited understanding. It continues to be the time to turn these “swords into plowshares”, and create and enhance the conditions for honoring diversity and brotherhood between all peoples and nations. It is insanity to continue the proliferation of weapons of war, and there is NO sound argument, to continue distributing them in our country, as well. There sure are a lot of weak arguments, however, and the wayward pseudo-religious people and politicians who have failed to create the conditions for peace and safety within our society need to grow up, and assert what is true and right for humanity, and not what is right for ideologues and the immature male elements within our world culture. Have you ever tried to take a favorite toy away from your son? It continues to be hard to separate stubborn boys from their murderous toys. Disempowered males identify themselves with weapons of war, giving themselves a sense of control over a life that they feel is threatening to them, and which they feel ill-equipped to deal with in a rational, even spiritual manner. Weapons of war are men’s spiritually impoverished substitution for true individual power, If we love ourselves, and our fellow man, we have no need for weapons of war, PERIOD. Lenin wrote, “When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.” When it comes to time for human beings to murder and kill each other, they will clamor for the rights to own guns and ammunition to do so, and, in darkened America, they will point to misguided interpretations of the 2nd Amendment. Just like many wayward Christians point to passages in the bible to justify continued judgement, evil and hatred against others not of their tribe, sexual preferences, or unlike themselves in other ways.  My heart breaks, and goes out to the victims, and the victims families, of the massacres in America, Sri Lanka, France, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The eternal fires of evil are always being fanned, and uses our weapons of war to accomplish its goals. It is sad, tragic, and, at times, evil that gun toting bullies determine the rules for engagement with the world. It is time to grow up, and become part of the healing process of the human race. It is time to stop letting the unconscious male children run the world into ruination. Men, as a collective, would rather have our neighbors, wives and children assaulted, raped, overdosed through drug use, or murdered through gun violence, than make the necessary changes to our culture, and to our hearts and soul. We need more women in positions of power and influence, and men need to get in touch with their potential for toxic behavior and attitudes, and begin to make necessary course changes in their hearts and souls The rate of gun deaths in the United States rose in 2016 to about 12 per 100,000 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released in late 2017.  That was up from a rate of about 11 for every 100,000 people in 2015, and it reflected the second consecutive year that the mortality rate increased. Men, as a collective, appear helpless as to how to address the problems of violence, addiction, and failed families and successfully find solutions.  Continued insouciance and/or reluctance to face problems places our neighbors, wives and children at higher risks of being assaulted, raped, overdosed through drug use, or murdered through gun violence.  We must make the necessary changes to our culture, and to our hearts and soul. We need more women in positions of power and influence because of their ability to think and act globally, and more men to integrate more compassion, insight and mindfulness into their behaviors and attitudes, and together begin or continue to make necessary course changes in all hearts and souls. A rational human being would posit that ALL rates are unacceptable, and that the American culture needs to treat ALL conditions seriously and equally. Why are we so self-destructive and irrational as a culture that we allow gun violence, sexual violence, and drug additive violence to continue against our fellow citizens? You already know the answer, and it continues to propagate in the genitals, and the damaged minds, of many men in power. Collectively we really are not a very religious nation, let alone a “Christian nation”.  This may not be a bad thing, taking all factors into consideration, especially the spiritual destruction that our supposed “National Religion” has experienced through recent political raping and pillaging. I believe that much of Christianity is in hibernation in this country, and in its slumber has been taken over by politicians and zealots intent on the disfigurement of our society, through contortions of our nation to conform to their own dark, superstitious, and selfish needs and agendas. These economic and political bullies continue to co-create an imbalanced, disfigured world where economic and social disparity reigns supreme, and where violence and mass murder have become culturally acceptable byproducts of the need to serve their own conscious desires for self-promotion, corporate welfare, as well as their NRA masters. Little do they understand, that these are also unconscious desires for their own self-destruction, and the destruction of all others unlike their own mistaken understanding of their selves. I am not an American Christian, nor have I claimed to be since 1987.   I am appalled and disgusted by those in political power who profess a belief in Christian religious ideology, and go ahead and rape and pillage America in the name of their corrupt Gods of power, hubris, death, and greed. .I follow the directions that Truth and Love create for me in my life. I am not afraid to confront darkness, wherever it might appear, in the Church, in the NRA, Congress and in the White House, in our corporations, in my family, or even if it is within my own mind and heart What is the true source of your fear, those who stockpile weapons, cultivate hate and discontent, and fear monger?  Patriotism does not support terrorism, Christianity does not support gun violence and terrorism, and true patriots, be they Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, or atheists,  do not get confused by this If these latest assaults against our Spirit has not brought us to tears, if we are not impacted by all gun violence, then all is lost for us, and I am sad for all of us, and for the people who count on us. We can’t make America safe or great, by blindly following the idiots that profit from our own self-destruction Thoughts and prayers ALONE are for those who can’t or won’t act. I want people to ACT, while your thoughts and prayers keep you spiritually in the game, and acting courageously against the oppressors and the evil-doers in Congress, the White House, automatic weapons manufacturers, distributors, and vendors, and the NRA Jesus, in whatever form he spiritually exists today would take his “spiritual sword”, and hack the ideas behind 2nd Amendment hooligans to pieces. If you are seeking for guns, and for weapons of war, you are not seeking for peace. Holster that weapon, partner, and start working for real, lasting peace! That is what Jesus would do. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world (of guns, greed, gonads, or gold) gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. —-John 14:27 (NT) —–Jesus of Nazareth,  and every sane human being left on this planet. Freedom. liberty, and justice can not be preserved and protected solely through the threatened use of lethal force of one citizen upon another with guns. Freedom is preserved and protected through the understanding that the fundamental enemy lies within our own consciousness, and then healing our world through insight, and the cultivation of collaboration, unity, justice, and love. To the extent that Christian America believes in their weapons, is the extent that they do not believe in their supposed Christian ideals, period. The ultra-conservative “Christian” gun promoter is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and should be recognized as such. I wrote this chapter as a direct reaction to my relationships with my father, my father’s and my male friends and acquaintances over my lifetime, and my employment experience while working with toxic men in the electrical trades from 1987 to 2016, and at the US Postal Service from 1975-1985. The historical legacy of the American white man, and his support network of unconscious, disempowered, fearful and/or cowardly family and community members, continues unto today. America has normalized that which should never have been acceptable. How can we possibly “make America great, again”? Greatness only comes after we, as a society, face our collective darkness, cease our threatening or bellicose behavior against all we disagree with, acknowledge the damaging impacts of our fears on others, makes amends to ALL we have harmed, and find integrity, and stay on a more humane path in the future. The foundational consciousness that spawned “Defender Dan”, and which contributed mightily to the development of my young mind, continues to energize citizens into unhealthy attachments to their own weapons of war, be they philosophical or physical in nature. With the collective normalization of destructive behavior and attitudes that have become historically ingrained within consciousness, the deferral of sound heart sense to irrational fears has dictated the continued need for and proliferation of all such weapons of death, bullying, and control. For me to disassemble and examine the Defender Dan unit, and then to attempt to reassemble it into a higher functioning manner, was symbolic for and the prelude to the search for healing for my own loneliness, shame and fear-based mind through recovery endeavors in adulthood. I long ago made a decision to lay down my arms. The world will never be completely safe, until everybody else does so, as well.

Religions and governments use their population as unwitting agents for their own imperialism, propaganda, and persecution of others.  US vs THEM? TRIBALISM? We have met the enemy, and the enemy is US!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNnKau1OLp4

An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy, And To Our Need For Grounding And Bonding

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  Always remember, you have within you the strength, patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.—–Harriet Tubman .

The number 42 is a number of significance in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.  This is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything, calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a 7.5 million year period.

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Will we be saved by the number 42?

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I am not a hitchhiker, however, as I once was an electrician, and my personal supercomputer found another answer to the ultimate question—-ZER0!

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HOW CAN WE BE POSSIBLY BE SAVED BY ZERO?

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The human race has become the measure of all things, through its use of the energy of words and language, and the tools of thought and technology.  Words, and all subsequent concepts derived from stringing words together into some sort of rational  evolving order,, are our measuring devices, or containers for this energy.

Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, and thus lodges it in the past.  We must keep this in mind, and keep our minds open to new understandings, lest we institutionalize our inaccurate assessments into  our own dogmas, or permanent memories that are resistant to change.   If we have measured the world, and ourself, with a faulty tape measure, everything will remain out of balance, and distorted, and we will all come up short in each other’s understanding.. Our human history is the documentation of those inaccuracies.

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Names are essential for communication, yet are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. When names get gathered together to represent concepts, know that the real miracle of consciousness is about to be experienced, as we become invited into the worlds of abstraction and conscious evolution.

Names, and our interpretations of them, change over the years, as

We all attempt to establish internal modeling for an external reality that we witness, from our own unique perspective, while remaining “bonded” to a common knowledge reference point.  And we often live a second-hand life, using the verbal foundations, or bonding jumpers, provided to us by others throughout history to act as some sort of bridge to those possibilities that we have not yet creatively accessed on our own. It is imperative that we ask some difficult questions:

• How do we weigh and measure our existence, and against which standard?
• How do we compare and contrast, to discover for our self what a concept, or an object of reality’s,  true value might be?
• What, within ourselves, do we have that enables us to establish a valid reference point for our measurements, so that there is consistency, not only within ourselves, but across the human population, as well?

Many of us love to be educated and enlightened by  the words and inspired messages from spirituality gurus, shamans or love inspired priests, quantum physicists, or well meaning physicians or therapists.  Umm, VERY, VERY FEW p;eople look to electricians for the Truth, though they sure love us to remodel, repair and upgrade  the old, or install new electrical systems..

If any of us are truly Truth connected, then our messages, or “bonding jumpers” will be our temporary verbal bridge back to the internal source for peace and healing.  Some people travel far and wide to sit in the presence of those who claim they are “ONE” with, or grounded with the Truth.  Truth comes from only One Source,  however, and it requires an intense desire to find it, unless, like the great herd of humanity, we wish to just continue that second hand life experience.

Insight, intelligence and discernment to sort through the vast ocean of knowledge, and ignorance, created by historians, scientists, teachers, philosophers, the media, theologians, propagandists, pseudo-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists are required tools to find the precious oysters bearing the real Pearls of wisdom..  The hubris and clay feet  of many of our spiritual experts shows either their lack of success in making a consistent connection with our ground of being, or Truth, and/or our lack of understanding  of what that connection and subsequent behavior might actually look like.

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(Mother) Earth is true ground the world around—Universal teaching for electricians worldwide.

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Mother Earth, amongst its almost infinite potential for creating and supporting life, has an electromagnetic nature, with its magnetic north and south poles.  Humans are electro-biological beings, also being made of Earth stuff, thus we are not only electromagnetically inspired, but also influenced by all of Mother Earth’s other characteristics.  Through a process of shared consciousness not yet fully understood by scientists and biologists, the life force field that constitutes our being exchanges information continuously with the environment, which shows that there may be unexpected outcomes for the human race with the loss of biodiversity through our heartless, reckless expansion through the .natural world. . Our bodies have over 50 trillion biologically and electrically interconnected cells that are totally derived from our ground of being, Mother Earth.  We are not only created from materials endemic to this planet, we are a minute version of Her…  We are also influenced by all of the forms of life which have derived their existence from this almost infinite ground of being.   Humanity has an extraordinary possibility for resonance with all of our natural world, if it would only rejoin it.  When we return to our source and connect with nature, our energetic frequency begins to change, and may actually appear to oscillate with the same frequency of life force as the Earth and the rest of its life forms Imagine, if you will, that there are 7.5 billion mountain peaks on our planet, each one representing one human life.  And, imagine that each peak looks at the other peaks, and does not see that each peak is connected to the same Earth, and each peak would not exist without its support.  Now imagine that each peak wants to try to establish a connection with the other peaks.  The biggest bridge building project in history must be undertaken, to connect all of the peaks together.  Now imagine that these bridges are actually the energy of words, sentences, perceptions, and concepts.  These bridges are our “bonding jumpers” to each other, so hopefully we bond through mutual love and compassion, and not hatred and fear, though both are possible.  These bridges are equivalent to our collective consciousness, the matrix that verbally connects the entirety of humanity together.  Yet what about the connection to the Earth?  If the peak feels separate from its ground of support, what might bring connection back to the peak?  Can each peak find its own unique ground of support?  Can one postulate that the ground of our being calls out to the peaks to remember their true ground?  And will the Earth send messages to the peaks, to remind them of their origin?  Would one call those words  that bring awareness back to our true connection with the Earth “the word of God”?  These “inspired words” could be called our “grounding connections”. Our modern world has encouraged us to become increasingly disconnected from nature. Civilization with its need for farming and cities has overrun vast tracks of the natural world, eliminating much of our spiritual and physical support.  We eat, sleep and live indoors, drive automobiles that are supported by insulating rubber tires, wear shoes that create a barrier to the Earth, work in offices with no plants or outdoor views, are subject to constant distraction and philosophical oppression and corruption from religious and political authorities, hyper-stimulated through smart phones and media obsession.. This 21st century lifestyle contributes to a  lack of connection with nature, which is the manifestation of our True Ground. . Without being connected to the Earth, we become ungrounded.  In at least a figurative sense, if not literally, we are constantly taking on frequencies that aren’t very supportive of our human minds and bodies; frequencies that conflict with our natural resonance.. Without grounding, it becomes difficult for us to discharge the frequencies that we’ve taken on board. We can even become controlled and oppressed by those chaotic energies. Without a common reference point, our words and concepts will be out of phase with other reference points, minimizing harmonization with others.  Communication failures  resulting from conflicting frames of reference  creates stress and anxiety. Over time, it takes its toll on our mental and physical health too. Without a connection with the Earth, we don’t share in a healing common knowledge, negating or preventing any sense of supportive calm and well-being that happens naturally when we are earthed.

My whole life has been devoted to the understanding of reality, as promoted and supported by our political, social, and religious institutions, and finding sane pathways away from their collective insanity and malfeasance..

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Ultimately,  healing, transformation, and enlightenment might be accessible, if we dare to consciously consider and directly address all cultural forces and their often times oppressive toxicities.  We need to also ask new questions, and seek new answers to old ones.

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• Can we continue in our old ways of thinking and behaving, and expect any new, or more intellectually, socially,  and spiritually evolved outcomes?
• Can we troubleshoot and repair a complex system, be it mechanical, electro-mechanical, or human in nature?
• Would you visit a thrift store to look for materials for your solar array?
• Would you buy a new stereo amplifier made of old vacuum tubes?
• Would you try to fly a biplane to the stars?
• Would you continue to bring more human babies into the world, while humanity is so divided, and has such a high adult mental and physcial health failure rate?
• Is that old 1962 transistor radio where you first heard a Beatles song still working?
• Is there any relationship between technology advances, and the improvement, or lack of it, of the human condition?
• Would you pour new wine into old wine skins?

Technology is always improving, yet the forces of resistance and impedance, reluctance, and friction generated heat  are always present in any system, be it electrical, mechanical, or human, in nature.  Everything has a life cycle associated with it, starting with its birth and/or introduction into the world, and its exit through deterioration  and death. As we remember from our high school physics class and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system of energy will experience entropy, unpredictability, chaos, and eventual destruction through the effects of friction and heating. There is a human equivalent to this 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and we see it arise in people, and in societies, that fiercely cling to the past, with all of its outdated structures of understanding.  The more that cognitive dissonance arises between our intuition, understanding, and personal knowledge and the socially accepted norms and dogmas of the day, the more conflict, friction, and inflammatory responses will be experienced by everyone.  Human energy systems, like parachutes, work the best when they open up.  If a philosophy of continuous process improvement (evolution) has been adopted, then functioning may be stabilized, or actually improved, all the way through to the end of the engineered system’s, or human being’s, life cycle.

Photograph circa 2002 from the roof of an Intel production fab in Aloha, Oregon.

As a young lad, I had a next door neighbor friend who I helped to build an underground fort with.  We would tell our parents that we were “camping out” in the yard, then after they went to bed, we would “hot wire” a cord to a light, which we would use to illuminate the inside of our expanding cave.  One time, I became the ground path, when I brushed up against the exposed hot lead to the lamp.  I screamed, shook, and struggled to free myself from the ground circuit I had become part of, and, by good fortune,  i shook free and my life was saved.  Another time, as an apprentice electrician, I had opened up a junction box, and saw some sparking under a big blue wire nut (used to hold multiple conductors together under one connection point).  Without thinking, I reached out for the wire nut, to  tighten it.  The insulation had broken down from the arcing, and I became the ground for a 277 volt lighting circuit.   I was able to jerk my hand free, but other electricians, and home owners,  have been much less fortunate. You have never known a more helpless feeling than being an unintentional ground, and the two near electrocution stories have stayed with me my entire life..Yet, what about those other broken connections, the ones human in nature, that have brought great harm to us and others?  What about that boss who has built up a huge anger charge,  just waiting to discharge it through some unwitting recipient?  Or how about that religious fundamentalist who bullies or cajoles everyone who does not believe in the same biblical narrative that he was inculcated with?  Who hasn’t ever wanted to ground out that obnoxious narrative?  We never know who is just waiting to use our life to discharge their own negative energy through, do we? Grounding is a process of connecting electrical systems, appliances, and metal enclosure to a common reference point, which is, typically, the potential of the ground that Mother Earth provides.  Grounding provides a low resistance path for electricity to flow, and is part of the return path for any complete circuit. Reference potentials in real life human experience of consciousness itself helps to stabilize connections and provide stability and extra predictability to relationships.  If all people share a common knowledge and understanding, there will be no catastrophic failures within the communications aspects of the social network. The best spiritual reference point is also Mother Earth.  If the materials of Mother Earth are remembered to be the source for all life, then whatever true potential that we have is sourced through that sacred connection.  A great way to stay spiritually grounded and bonded is to remember our true source, and to remember that we are of Mother Earth, and may consciously carry that spiritual energy into all of our relationships.  As the Mother loves us, so we must bring that motherly love to ALL of our relationships,  This dynamic energy exchange is a form of entrainment, or resonance. We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. To breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it, realize you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.”  ~Thich Nhat Hanh So what might a personal experience of “Ground” look and feel like?  Keep in mind that mystics and saints, and electricians, each have their own unique experience and representation of their personal experience of our ground of being. My experience in 1992 at Lookinglass Lake, in the Mt Adams wilderness area is one possibility for the direct experience of “Ground”. Lookinglass Lake, Mt. Adams, Aug 1992 I awoke one morning during the summer of 1992, and finished preparing to leave on a weekend hiking and camping trip with Sharon, up to the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area.  We were planning to backpack into Lookinglass Lake, about a ten mile hike one way. My senses were somehow heightened, and I felt as though I could see and hear better than I was accustomed to.  Food tasted better, the air carried many more scents, and my entire body felt alive with vitality, and sensation, well beyond what I was accustomed to experiencing in my day to day life.  I had to work that day, so I ignored my “extra sensory perception” for most of the work day, though I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner Sharon on the  hike. Our drive took longer than expected, and we arrived in the Mt Adams Wilderness area too late to reach the developed campground we wanted to use as a basecamp, so we parked for the night in a snow park area, and set up our tent to shelter for the evening.  We sat outside of the tent, and I began to experience, in its fullness, that “extrasensory perception” yet again, but much more profoundly this time. It was as if I had sensory receptors in the dirt, the sky, and the trees.  It was as if I had grown roots, so to speak. I not only could see the ground all around us, and the beautiful trees, and the sky, I could FEEL the ground, and it was as if I extended all the way through everywhere that I could see.  It was the experience, in a new form, of “all that I can see is myself”.  It was like I was “hearing” and “seeing” and “feeling” for all of nature that surrounded us, and it was a profound mystical, transcendental event. We finally lay down for the evening in our tent, and though I was still quite profoundly experiencing this event, I was able to fall asleep beside my beloved.  Shortly afterward, I awoke to a great light enveloping our tent, and I arose to go outside to see what was happening.  In the sky appeared a Great Light, and the entire surrounding area was bathed in a light that totally eliminated all shadows, even though it was near midnight!  I awoke Sharon, who rose to witness the light.  To this day, I have no clue if the light is associated with my “heightened mystic awareness”, or if it was just a coincidence that a UFO would awaken us to bathe us in its radiance. After we returned home, I told my mother about the light, and she reported that the week before, a mysterious light in the Mt Adams wilderness area was also reported in the Oregonian newspaper,, so who knows what was happening there? There is only One Creator.  There is no reason that we cannot be attuned with ALL OF ITS CREATIONS, including all willing members of the human, animal, plant, geological, and, uh, “alien” races..

When we touch our Self with deep awareness, we touch everything

Mother Earth is fully conscious, in a way we do not yet fully understand, yet, we can all eventually  resonate with Her. . . . I have touched our Mother Earth with the deepest of awareness. I love and treasure our Mother Earth. How about you? Looking back at my life’s history, I remain immersed in the light of its Mystery. Consciousness can be modeled through many theories, and represented by many metaphors.  I continue to use electrical theory as one modeling technique, because that is my background, while also providing good referential understanding.  As has been seen elsewhere, I also like mythology and archetype based imagery to assist in explanatory, and exploratory, models. One of the more valuable categories of circuitry is the RLC circuit, which has its human equivalent in consciousness, in which resonance may appear.   Resonance has fascinating capacities for both an electrical and human circuit.  Resonance extends its influence beyond its own physical boundaries, to influence surrounding circuits, or other humans.  For electrical circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance is dependent upon three factors.  For human circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance can figuratively be based upon those three primary factors, to the extent that we can model our consciousness through the RLC metaphor.. In electrical theory and practice, there are three qualities that characterize each resonating circuit.  They are named

• Capacitance
• Inductance
• Resistance/Impedance

Capacitance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, denotes our ability to store energy, and then release it, as the situation may dictate.  We really need to build up a charge, before we are inspired to communicate, or to take action in the world, don’t we?  Hopefully, we are not constantly charging our hate, lust, or greed capacitors, and instead charge more healthy collaborative ideals.  Trauma gets electrically attached to our body, becoming unconscious charge centers that influence every other charge center in our consciousness.  I have come to name these centers black holes. Capacitance is the ratio of the amount of electric charge stored on a conductor to a difference in electric potential. There are two closely related notions of capacitance: self capacitance and mutual capacitance.^[ Any object that can be electrically charged exhibits self capacitance. In this case the electric potential difference is measured between the object and ground. A material with a large self capacitance holds more frequencies. charge at a given potential difference than one with low capacitance.  We can easily see the human parallel.  If I am storing a big charge on one side of an emotional issue, and you are storing a charge which appears as an opposite polarity, there definitely will be major mutual capacitance.

Inductance,  as far as human consciousness is concerned, also has its parallel.  We all have a resistance to change, yet we all carry a vast field of energy within us, just waiting to move in harmony within us  and the world under the right conditions.   The greatest potential differences happen with the highest rate of change of charge flow, or current.  If you want to develop your highest potential, make sure to find your proper reference ground, and allow all of your static stored charges to become dynamic and discharge them rapidly, rather than continuing to store them in a static field. Inductance is the tendency of an electrical conductor to oppose a change in the electric current flowing through it. The flow of electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductor. The field strength depends on the magnitude of the current, and follows any changes in current. From Faraday’s law of induction, any change in magnetic field through a circuit induces an electromotive force (EMF) (voltage) in the conductors, a process known as electromagnetic induction. This induced voltage created by the changing current has the effect of opposing the change in current, though it never opposes it enough to stop the process, it only dampens it. Resistance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, may point to any number of attitudes  we may adopt, and actions we may take.  If we were perfect conductors for Life, there would be no resistance, yet there would be no capacity for human energy storage or exchange.  In a RLC circuit, resistance keeps a circuit from oscillating until eternity, instead dampening its action, until it eventually dies out. Yet, if another person engages with us who still is charged with the possibilities of any particular concept or ideology, our ideas can be re-energized through the previously discussed resonance principle. There are no perfect conductors in our world, save those cooled to, wait for this, Absolute Zero temperature..  Some might theorize that enlightened people have zero resistance to Life, thus they have no need to store energy.  This might explain why they appear to need to do so little actual work in the world, while actually being a clearer channel for the intentions of our reference potential, or ground.. The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current.. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with mechanical friction, as well as its important role within human consciousness itself.  Have you ever felt a little “resistance” to new people, ideas, or experiences? The resistance of an object depends in large part on the material it is made of. Objects made of electrical insulators like rubber tend to have very high resistance and low conductivity, while objects made of electrical conductors like metals tend to have very low resistance and high conductivity. This relationship is quantified by resistivity or conductivity. The nature of a material is not the only factor in resistance and conductance, however; it also depends on the size and shape of an object because these properties are extensive rather than intensive. For example, a wire’s resistance is higher if it is long and thin, and lower if it is short and thick. All objects resist electrical current, except for superconductors, which have a resistance of zero. The human equivalents are obvious here.  Some people are more resistant to other people’s ideas, or to change itself, than others.  Biologically, we have an immune system that we count on to being resistant to any change that brings biological harm to ourselves, thus antibodies are created.  At the level of human consciousness, our resistance to false narratives, racist or misogynist ideologies, or ignorant attacks against innocent life inspires our own macro version of “anti-bodies”, where we directly address and confront offending parties and their abhorrent philosophies, and keep them from spreading like the virus that they are. Resonant or RLC circuitry A form of human resonance occurs when large numbers of humans physically congregate together to protest against injustices, share in an idea, a musical group and their music, a pep-talk to affirm personal value for students at the local high school, join in a destructive mob mind of a group of insurectionists and recists.or any of at least a million other reasons to humanly bond.  Humans truly have the capacity to resonate with each other, for better, or for worse. Without a common ground, or reference point, resonance will not lead to further stability of the whole human network, as it introduces yet more instability into the system. . What are the essential components within an electrical, or human, system, that creates this form of energy exchange? An RLC circuit is an electrical circuit consisting of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor, connected in series or in parallel. The RLC part of the name is due to those letters being the usual electrical symbols for resistance, inductance and capacitance respectively. The circuit forms a harmonic oscillator for current and resonates similarly to an LC circuit. The main difference stemming from the presence of the resistor is that any oscillation induced in the circuit decays over time if it is not kept going by a source. This effect of the resistor is called damping. Some resistance is unavoidable in real circuits, even if a resistor is not specifically included as a separate component. There are many applications for this circuit. It is used in many different types of oscillator circuits. An important application is for tuning, such as in radio receivers or television sets, where they are used to select a narrow range of frequencies from the ambient radio waves. In this role the circuit is often referred to as a tuned circuit. . What about the human capacity to create their own “tuned circuit”.?  Our knowledge, concepts, and language are the very carriers of energy in our human consciousness circuitry, and they all need an extreme tune-up, if we are to survive as a species.  

I remain intensely interested in connections, focusing on those that are primarily human in nature.  I remain fascinated with our true ground of being, Mother Earth and her timeless teachings..  I celebrate the ability of our hearts and minds to join together within our own lives  the larger community that constitutes human civilization, and the animal and plant world..  I lament the primary issues preventing such spirituality, and enhanced loving, healing, compassionate, and empathetic interconnection, though I am hopeful for the human race.. We all must realize that we are negatively impacted by trauma, toxic capitalism, toxic religion, and toxic masculinity,  with its many toxic styles of gun ownership.   These forces have a cumulative impact upon our sense of self and connection with the Earth, and these are causative forces preventing healing connections..

the ungrounded members of humanity cause the problems that are dominating our world.

• poor self esteem,
• consumerism,
• indifference to others,
• emotional hiding and mutual deception,
• media distraction, and
• the callous disregard of the health and safety of our planet

The Mystery Of The Path Between You And Me

Life’s journey is forever like a dotted line pathway.  It is the quality of our connections with each other that fills in the space between the dots.  Empathy is the major vehicle for our consciousness to transcend our apparent differences, enabling each of us to connect the dots in a mutually affirming manner.  It is only through each other that we can see who we really are. I am you, and you are me, and together we are everything, apart, we are still chained together by whatever separates us.  We find our shared meaning, which links us together on our journey in Spirit—-Elisha Scott   As human beings in social environments, we have come to expect that our leaders will lead with integrity and morality, though inevitable weaknesses will occasionally make themselves evident..  If our leader is of high enough integrity, we may even want to pattern ourselves after them, should we also aspire to any leadership roles in our own future, including taking charge of our own lives.  Patterning after others who are successful is considered to be a normal and natural response, while also being an evolutionary adaptation.  To survive, and prosper as a species, we became willing to adopt attitudes and perform actions that others may have succeeded with in the past, as well as remaining open to any new unfoldment in our understanding that will complement our unique role.. Yet, there are many times when we pattern ourselves after an adored member of the status quo, or the institutionalized understanding of the past, and we may be led down deceptive paths of reasoning, with resultant poor social and personal health decisions and outcomes.  We may become subtly, or profoundly, traumatized through these relationships.   “What would Jesus do?” can be a benign question, and may even lead the Christian oriented questioner down a more spiritually centered path, as long it does not lead to more conformity to dogma or the practicing of other systems of traumatic oppression such as the religion’s historical institutionalized misanthropy, including misogyny and racism.

Alabaster Idol and representative of European  Caucasoid oppression, or the Truth?

The commentary on the common knowledge game, and the lemming effect, should have given the reader a huge window to look through to humanity’s potential for both corruption and healing within our social connections. Another facet of the most fundamental truths of our existence is the extraordinary potential for the depth of our connections to each other, and how strongly that connection influences all of us, for good, and for bad.  If we learn to collectively embrace this universal fact, we would have a clue as to how to reduce the incidences of disease and distress in our world without just tattooing more medical technology upon our body and souls.. There are several American pandemics raging right now, including COVID-19, cultural divisiveness, addictions, obesity, cancer, and all traumatic influences, including MAD, or mutually assured death, the acronym for the gun lobby, 2nd Amendment zealots, and the proliferation of firearms used in the murders and suicides of our innocents.  These pandemics are creating more opportunities for eruptions of drama and anxiety, which interbreeds with any potentially unhealed pain and suffering already inherent within our lives. We must become more conscious of how the unconscious actions of others, and our own unfulfilled healing response, tend to introduce more traumatic influences into our own lives.  Those on the healing path will attempt to be spiritually present for others, while recognizing and transforming both individually and collectively, all internalized trauma dramas… Love, hate, and indifference are three terms that we use to help describe the quality of our relationships with each other. To some extent, in various proportions, all of us employ these three qualities of energy exchange in our lives, depending on the person and/or the situation involved. As human beings we experience love and hatred as powerful emotions, which guide all subsequent feelings and perceptions in predefined directions. Love is an open system of friction free energy exchange and hate is more of a closed, attenuated system of energy exchange, both of which bind us to each other, in easily identifiable, though divergent manners.  As we know, love is the open channel that compassion may flow through, while hatred is the closed channel that traumatizes both the receiver, and the giver, of that energy. Indifference is a quality of attention that attempts to keep everybody and everything separate from the observer, and the emotionally detached individual is choosing to live in a closed system, or spiritual vacuum. Those practicing total indifference live in an isolated world, with little real emotional connection with anybody or anything other than their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. Indifference is often times the result of traumatic influences, and results in the emotional and spiritual oppression of others, and a repression of the personal spirit, as well. For most normal people, indifference is only applied to special situations, and is not applied to a complete life experience. Yet, the quality of indifference gives the practitioner the illusory sense of having no personal accountability to that which is being witnessed. Personal responsibility for a collectively shared error in the heart is denied, and the potential for a shared healing experience is negated. We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. — Fred Rogers The word “empathy” has a secret message built into it, by doing creative interpretation.  Let’s take the word apart into three components:  em—path —y (ou).  Empathy is now seen to be the healing path between the mirror image of me (em) and y(ou). When the concepts of ‘you’ and the “mirror image of me” are realized to be identically ONE, Me and you disappear, and our empathy becomes just the “path”.  Empathy, in both its positive and negative expressions, is a name for the mechanism for transporting emotional energy to create a form of resonance or attunement between sentient beings, and is always in play in both love and hate relationships. In positive empathy, energy flows freely in both directions, between the “giver” and the “receiver”. There is a shared sense of the “expansion” of the self. (In a radical variation of positive empathy, one may even experience shared mental images-telepathy-and spiritual healing, but those are subjects that I will not address here). In negative empathy, energy flow is uneven, and dominated by one party, potentially resulting in forms of oppression of the other, and repression of aspects of the self, by the “giver”, and, potentially, the repression of aspects of the self by the “receiver”. There is a strong sense of the “contraction” of the self by at least one party in this energy exchange. Contemporary research into neuroscience tells us that our brains, like those of other primates, contain mirror neurons. These neurons are triggered in our own brains when someone else is sad, angry, or happy, and those mirror neurons, in coordination with other pre-cognitive and cognitive functions, helps us to feel what that other person is feeling. What they actually help us to feel is what we would experience if we were in that person’s place.  If our experiences are similar enough, we can empathize in a way that promotes a connection which can be soothing to the other person. The effort to understand someone else, when made in good faith, can go a long way towards helping them feel better and even, sometimes, to change their behaviors. This can be considered to be a collaboration between the spirit of the individuals in communication. The changing of another’s behavior is not the conscious intention of empathy, though most find that through the empathetic connection each participant is taken beyond the former boundaries of their understanding of self and other.. Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it. – Anaïs Nin Human beings are usually quite empathetic beings. Studies are showing that all animals, especially those mammalian in nature, share in this often times sublime characteristic. It is very difficult to harm another person if we can sense the suffering that they are presently experiencing, or that we may actually be causing them. The exceptions being when one is in an extremely hateful state, or those whose indifference may arise from sociopathic or psychopathic natures. A conscious person would never abuse any person, or animal of any species (including eating it, unless there were no other choices for food), after recognizing the unity of sentience that exists in our natural world. Of course, much of mankind is unconscious, and we can’t even keep from harming each other, let alone the whole of the animal species. Mankind has “dehumanized-de-sentienced” humans and animals so as to justify cruel and destructive relationships, as well as with the natural world that supports all of us. The Judeo-Christian western religious tradition and its misunderstanding of the wholeness and unity of life, and it subsequent influence on thinkers throughout the ages has been at the forefront of this travesty for millennia. Empathy has been found to have not just a positive or “good” aspect to it, but that empathy can also drag an unsuspecting empath into the ditch with someone who may be of low consciousness. It might be termed ‘negative empathy’, which is a state of being so sensitive to other people’s experiences that we become overwhelmed by their suffering, to the point where we begin to suffer ourselves. This has the opposite effect of the collaboration that occurs through positive empathy, instead becoming an alliance of shared mutual personal pain, which eventually results in new forms of emotional isolation. The extreme form of this empathy is the stigmata syndrome, where the empath takes on so much of the suffering energy and experience of a hated or a treasured person, that they manifest in their own bodies and minds the wounds and symptoms of the person that they have become obsessed with. Those who have read all of my works are well aware of my profound experience in 2017 with a dying friend with brain cancer, and the dangers, and spiritual growth potentials, of such an extraordinary relationship. Empathy, positive or negative, is one of several powerful transmission vehicles for human collective consciousness to be carried to us as individuals, as well as acting as a return vehicle for our individual experiences to be delivered back to the collective field. Collective consciousness contains the history of the knowledge that human beings have accrued over eons of time. It contains a vast matrix of dedicated/fixed pathways of responses to all manors of environmental and social interactions. This is the entirety of our species’ training which has been transmitted to, or handed down to, countless generations of human beings, through parental interactions, education, religious training, and the lifelong social and emotional training gained by our continuous interface with other members of our species . Yet, as so much of this “common knowledge” is a result of incomplete or inaccurate information, and is the accumulation of all the theories embedded in our cultural past. If we act in a “knee jerk” reaction, or unconscious manner, to any societal or environmental stimulus, our response is all too likely to be dated, and inappropriate. The Judeo/Christian religious metaphor here is that our “first born” of thought may need to be “sacrificed” so as to make way for the truth of the moment. In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. – Eric Hoffer Perhaps our knee jerk reaction has been to hate and despise Donald Trump. There has been much written by conscious, caring people about the necessity of not hating Donald Trump, but to instead perceive him as an ill person, as a poor person, or even as a suffering person. This change of perception may open our own personal doors to compassion, sympathy, and love. It is OK to be angry with the President of the US, past and present, as long as that anger does not get institutionalized into our minds. By clinging to anger and resentments over a long period time, there is an enhanced susceptibility to them becoming transformed into hate filled memories, or personally institutionalized hatred. We witness daily the collectively institutionalized hatred within our world culture, manifesting as religious persecution, patriarchy, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, bullying, homophobia, nationalism, earth ecology destructive (including extinction of countless species) and other self-destructive energy exchanges. We really do not want to add to the suffering of others, or of ourselves, by creating new pathways of institutionalized hatred. Constructive anger is spontaneous, arising from being an active witness of the present moment, and is always relevant, productive, wakes up the oppressed and repressed spirit, and is helpful in generating extra motivational energy for constructive engagement with a world needing change. Constructive anger gives all parties involved an opportunity to share in the perception of a wrong or an injustice, and share in a plan to right the wrongs. Hatred and its divisive energy, on the other hand, has much deliberation behind it. Hatred arises from the historical deposits of unresolved anger or repressed pain and suffering within our memories, and looks at punishment and/or the destruction of others as a primary objective. Hatred develops from the collective deposits of darkness that our culture has handed down to us over many generations, as well as also arising from our personal painful and negative memories incurred over the course of our lives. Hatred, both collectively and individually acquired, becomes entrenched as a mostly unconscious dark power broker within our minds, keeping each of us pilloried to the past, and emotionally chained to the object(s) of our hatred. We are no longer free to respond to each new moment as it unfolds, instead substituting old patterns of self-defeating and oppressive responses to others, while repressing the desire to connect with peace and love.

What can be most difficult to consider is the truth that people that habitually hate others also hate themselves. Some may try to hide from self- loathing and hatred through false narratives of their own greatness, while deriding and demeaning all unlike self. The multitude of lies and deceptive behavior, and the need to manipulate others perceptions show an absolute need to hide from the truth a diminished sense of self.  This is manifested through continuously projecting out of this mind, by accusing the innocent, and the guilty, of one’s own personal shortcomings, deceptions, and criminality. This communication style is absolutely crazy making for any rational, intelligent human being, and the witness to his expression can feel like the fabric of sanity is being ripped apart right before their eyes. For those not under a hypnotic trance, this spiritual depravity is easily perceived, and felt. The unwary watcher, in an involuntary and forced relationship with this disfigured being, through negative empathy can inadvertently share in others hatred of self. This is another manifestation of the stigmata syndrome, where the entrained observer inadvertently takes on the negative energy of the person under observation, and through the mirror neuron phenomenon, or negative empathy, share in the disfigured spirit that this darkness continues to manifest. This is an absolutely normal and natural response. Yet, as we become more conscious, it is revealed that we need no longer climb into someone’s, say a Donald Trump type,  pigpen and unconsciously support them in their self- hatred and self- loathing. We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. —-Anais Nin According to the latest research on the human brain and its capacity to form perceptions, the brain works by “predictive coding”. It integrates new information based on the beliefs provided by old information. A typical human being moving through the world is not just passively perceiving sensory inputs through the senses, but actually assembles a model in the mind based on what is expected to be seen. This mental setup allows the perceiver to move unbothered through the world, taking in each detail without too much analysis. The brain has been found to have the capacity to over predict, at times expecting something to be there that is not. That expectation can, literally, create a self-hypnotic suggestion, and a non-existent thing can be perceived as if it was really there. A difficult truth must be embraced: All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is the extension of our consciousness. How we see ourselves determines the quality of our life experience, and the integrity of our connection with our “higher power”. Insight into the corrupted matrix of human consciousness and its limited understanding leads to the new pathways of consciousness where intuition and spiritual power are more readily accessed—-Elisha Scott

This fact has been verified by mystics, sages, and now, quantum theorists, so it should not be passed over like an unpopular dish at dinner time. Historically, the human race has become addicted to the religious junk food continuously being processed from the limitations of our distant past, rather than feasting at the table of the infinite Spirit of Now. The former Vice President Pence justified sharing in hatred of gays and drug users in the 1980’s and 1990’s by claiming AIDS was God’s punishment for all such people that God hated for not obeying “God’s laws”. We all suffered because of the collective narrative of hatred being shared by the victims, and their accusers. The Real World One can only wonder what the twisted, secret narratives that both Mike Pence, and Donald Trump entertained in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not sure that Pence had evolved much from his hateful AIDS postures of the past. His own self-hatred, as represented by a corrupted view of the “will of God” may well be one of the primary reasons behind that administration’s incompetent, hands off approach to the disaster. Pence has entertained more than one “apocalyptic narrative” that justifies his position as a passive witness to God’s wrath punishing the wicked and the heathen, rather than him acting as an active healing participant in the salvation of the oppressed. Like Trump, he disregarded the seriousness of the pandemic, and wouldn’t consistently wear a mask to protect others from the potential of his own viral infection. They both continued to manifest their hatred of the world through their shared callous disregard for the safety of the people that they made contact with. Trump and his administration, while in office, were guilty of many mistakes over the course of his leadership, but their response to the pandemic is enough to stir anger and distress in any saint, or sinner that I know.   Trump’s actions appeared to be that of a broken, spiritless man.

• refusal to heed early warnings from abroad,
• refusal to listen to expert advice from within the US health care system,
• punishing those seeking to implement a timely strategy,
• lying to the American people about the pandemic,
• failing to provide enough tests soon enough,
• failing to produce adequate medical equipment soon enough,
• refusing to get samples of the virus necessary for work on vaccines and therapeutics,
• prioritizing contracts for companies connected to Trump or to the Kushner family,
• failure to implement enforceable social distancing and face protection rules,
• failure of federal leaders to practice safe social distancing and face protection,

And, most damning,

• failing to formulate a coordinated national response.
• failure to acknowledge a massive loss of life, and a massive amount of suffering, with no caring, conscious leader to lead the national mourning for our victims.
  

  

The New Trump Towers As their response to the “outer world” is their response to their “inner world” (remember, all that we ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves), it is obvious that they do not respect or honor much of who they are, or their neglected, but sacred, relationship with all of humanity. As we “empathized” with Trump, or even Pence, with their self- hatreds, that hatred attaches itself to neglected or disassociated fragments within ourselves, and circulates within our consciousness underneath the surface, taking on a disturbed life of its own.Many of us allowed this administration to plant seeds of their own self-destruction into our minds. We were all susceptible to some extent, depending upon the depth of our own self-awareness and personal insight. Thus, a “trickster” of hatred can be introduced into our consciousness, taking us to sometimes undesirable and uncomfortable psychological places. Yet this awareness may lead to amazing, healing insights for ourselves, so we need not judge or be harsh with ourselves. In the “seeing”, these illusory processes, or “mirages of thought” are no longer unconscious, and our freedom of perceptual choice is returned to us. We are learning and healing! Trump still is a pathetic, and, at times, a deplorable human being, as are some of his ardent supporters, yet we can all be spiritually reduced a notch or two by supporting this devil and his tribe by sharing in their hatred of themselves.. We will no longer “waste our hate” on Trump, or anybody else for that matter, realizing that they (the image of the other created in our own minds) has become a projection of a newly formed aspect of our own unconscious collectively shared negative self-image. “You” can never be real in any ultimate sense, since the “you” or the Donald Trump, exists as only a conceptual image in our minds. The mental pugilist blows that we direct at Donald and his friends ends up being directed predominantly against ourselves, because we are fighting the creations within our own minds, and the collective mind that we share with others, rather than actually exchanging energy with the objects of our objections, which is the only place where objective change may occur. Donald Trump, like far too many national leaders,  retained an advantage by being a one-way transmitter of negative energy to the world. They rarely place themselves in a vulnerable position where they can be a genuine receiver of the abhorrent behaviorial energy that they emit, and is continuously attempting to reflect back to them. We all have witnessed  deplorable confrontations with reporters, who can only serve as surrogates for us, as a concerned public. So, we must still write our letters to our congressmen, stage our protests (when safe), and hold community meetings to speak our truth and maintain our own sanity. The only way to permanently remove spiritual eyesores from our vision is to heal our inner sight, realizing that profound changes in our own consciousness eventually impacts our world, remembering that “all that we will ever see unto eternity, is ourselves”. Because we also remember that our minds are inextricably intertwined with the collective consciousness of the world, we will continue to have ample opportunities to bring healing to the world, and to our sense of self which is in relationship to the collective. We remain wary of the theological theories and dogma surrounding Jesus and Christianity. In their misunderstanding, Jesus negatively empathized with THE WORLD, and took on the sins of the world, in the ultimate act of the stigmata syndrome. Love and Truth does not accept any scapegoating!  This folderoll is an unfortunate leftover from from the Old Testament Jewish tradition. The dogma of his crucifixion was that his sacrifice to God was to save us from our sins. Apply grains of salt liberally here, ok? There is no God in heaven or on earth that would EVER use this dysfunctional philosophical vehicle to bring redemption and “salvation” to the human race. If Jesus truly believed that by sacrificing himself, the world would be saved, Jesus was much more unevolved than history would leave us to believe that he truly was.  The only sacrifice acceptable on our own unique way to our personal resurrection and transcendence is letting go of our false sense of self.   People, and civilization, hates negative feedback, and punishes liberally the innocent, to discourage further review. Sadly, he was victimized by the evil projections of others, as are all true prophets… If you believe that bringing harm to others is a wonderful pastime, suffering continuously is acceptable, and death is the only hope for release, and for heaven, that you have, you might want to reexamine that mindset.

Our “salvation” is only worked out within the individual minds and hearts of true seekers of Truth and Love, and can never be delivered through the efforts of someone else, no matter how historically exalted of a position that individual occupies in the religious pantheons. We must sacrifice our own misunderstandings of who we mistakenly thought that we were, and who and what we thought the rest of creation is, allowing for the new universal truth to resurrect our understanding of self and other. Failure to do so will make us more vulnerable to unconsciousness, where the process of negative empathy, and in the extreme, collective suffering and the stigmata syndrome, may expose us to spiritual chaos, and potentially death. We do not need to self-crucify, to remain connected with the rest of the human race, and to bring healing to the world.

The world will always be reminding us how far we are, collectively, from healing. We do our best to remain engaged with the world, while not allowing the world to overrun our morals, ethics, and spiritual intentions. And we need not spiritually die because of the “sins” of the world, whether it is toxic capitalism, toxic masculinity (and patriarchy), toxic politics, or toxic religion. We always retain freedom of choice, and must exercise and accept personal responsibility for those choices, in all of our lives. If our choices bring harm to ourselves or to each other, we are free to choose again. We make amends wherever possible after any error in our presentation, which keeps our empathy channels fully opened.

While what Donald Trump is, in truth, remains impossible to ascertain, his negative, self-defeating behavior will likely continue to be troubling to all thoughtful, moral, ethical, caring beings. Is he the Devil? Is he a rattlesnake, just waiting to bite all of us, and inject us with deadly venom? Or is he an angel, and we just don’t have the perceptual tools to see it? Well, I am sure that he is not wholly just one of these assessments. Trump probably carries a fair amount of all of these qualities, though unevenly weighted toward the darker sides. The point is for the rest of us to maintain a keen curiosity about our world, and all of the people in it, including Trump, and continue to be conscious, and aware, of our tendency to overreact to each assault on our spiritual and political sensibilities. We all must cultivate a better spiritual presentation for ourselves than did this President. To hate Trump is to negatively empathize with him, and subject ourselves to his divisive energy. We must save our empathy and energy for those who truly can benefit from it. Donald Trump does NOT want to change, he wants everybody else to change to conform to his disfigured understanding as to how life should be. Yet, most mindful people have certain aspects of our own lives that we would like to change, to enhance our own self image and self worth. These are things that we can work on successfully. Those others who also want to change, while still suffering under the disfiguring conditions of our civilization, want and deserve our empathy and compassion. Wasting energy on a man who is wasting himself is not a productive endeavor. I am not advocating indifference towards the President or to his supporters, but instead more like taking the posture of a detached witness to him, his continuing shenanigans and his minions, while responding in emotionally intelligent manners that do not bring harm to ourselves or to others. We can cultivate the thought and feeling of wanting better for the man than he wants for himself, remembering that Trump is indeed sick, and suffering under the conditions of his own spiritual disease.

Donald Trump  created the conditions for his own disrepute and destruction. This is why Donald Trump is now dying, for he has lost love and self-respect for everyone but his own limited tribe of understanding. Roger Stone, the sleazy political operative and personal confidant of Trump, has publicly stated, as far as political advertising is concerned, that “hate is a more powerful motivating force than love”. We can see that Trump enlists and employs that energy to mobilize his base. We need not follow him and his supporters into the darkest of ditches. Trump steers his consciousness towards chaos and division, while we steer our own towards unity and understanding. Donald Trump, like all self-haters, just wants to watch his world burn. We need not burn with him.

It is little wonder why any of us found ourselves becoming repulsed by this man, and some even hating this demon. Yes, negative empathy, in sharing Donald Trump’s hatred of himself, while not sharing the objects of his hatred, has brought to us many lessons about ourselves, and how we might see the whole of life more clearly. We have cleared the film off of our glasses, but Donald Trump remains blinded by his hubris and self-hatred. We have healed the parts of ourselves that would create hatred and havoc as a response to this damaged, corrupted human being. We can hope and pray for this disfigured man to see the light of love and reason, yet none of us are holding our breaths until it happens. There is as much to learn from a spiritually disfigured human being as Donald Trump, as there is from exalted figures from our spiritual heritage and history. Trump is part of our present existence. Trump remains an emanation of our universal consciousness. Yet, the thought of Trump brings few to a state of bliss or contentment. By the seeing of Trump as he is, we can see the blocks to our access to that which exists BEYOND such a distorted image, which just might be universal love and truth. In the seeing, we may transcend that which is seen, and soar to new heights of understanding and experience. Some of us may even experience the same realms as those pointed to by Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, or other revered saints and sages. A long term friend of mine, who is also a long term friend of the Dalai Lama has said that my understanding is contrary to the teachings of this Buddhist monk, but I will not let that deter me. Had the Dalai Lama been raised under the same conditions of life as I had, and vice versa, our spiritual theories and realities would have been significantly different from our present positions. There are millions of opinions as to how to best live life, and even my friend’s take on the Dalai Lama is only an opinion. Today I choose to not allow other people’s opinions to support my tendency to be repressive of my true nature, and I instead opt to be more fully present for my truest sense of self in this moment.

The conscious people, the people who have already embraced healing and transformation, are co-writing with me a new story for mankind. Together, with my spiritual brothers and sisters, we are co-creating the new religion, the new world order, the new blueprint for humanity and its eternal evolution through this universe. Together we are overcoming millennia of oppression and repression of the human, and the animal spirit. Together, we are defending and honoring our sacred Mother Earth, the true creator and sustainer of life on this planet. We must remain spiritually vigilant as we continue to be a conscious presence engaging with a world still dominated by toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion. We must be able to access our anger, not hatred, as we address the injustices wrought upon the human soul through the ignorance and toxicity of others. Love will be our guardian as we make the difficult confrontations with those who do not respect, or honor, the wholeness of life on our Mother Earth that we all share together in love and in truth.

If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die. —Maya Angelou In case it was not directly observed, what I have presented here is a meditation on love, hatred, indifference, anger, and the process of forgiveness. Mindfulness allows for us to see what is immediately before us, and choose between the knowns of the past, and the unknown present. Forgiveness is an openness to the mystery of the present. Forgiveness, however, does not forget or excuse the offender from his misdeeds, especially while the offender continues abhorrent behavior. Forgiveness releases the practitioner from the damages of incurring negative perceptions of others. We still must act consciously and decisively against all forces which continue to imperil our lives, our family’s lives, and the life of our planet. We must continue to be willing to speak truth to power, whether the power is in the White House, or in our own hearts. Love unifies, while hate fragments and traumatizes. As human beings, we must be conscious enough to choose the best way to present ourselves to the world, and to ourselves, as we face the challenges of the insanity within our world. Our world is in greatest need of hearts that are expanding through mutual positive empathy, rather than contracting through negative empathy, or indifference. We did not create the world as it is now, we cannot control it, nor can we cure it. But we can evolve, and, collectively, we can address the disease of the spirit that is dominating our world civilization, and which continues to bring devastation to our world, and to all of the life upon it. Each of us are beings with infinite potential. Yet, each of us must break free from the conditioning of our personal past, and our cultural past. There are four pillars supporting higher consciousness, which are (1) via negative- through negating what is not real, seeing what might be real, (2) via positiva-through constantly affirming the goodness inherent in life, reading the writings of mystical poets and saints, and being a grateful participant of life, we may experience Grace, (3) via transformativa- through re-creating or re-birthing ourselves through educational means and/or mystical connection, and bringing forth a new person, or our new understanding of our self, into the world, in the image and likeness of a more universal consciousness, and (4) via creativa- developing and/or expressing our innate ability to co-create with the Universe, by expressing ourselves through art, music, writing, or other means. We must access the deepest of desires to transcend the boundaries of self, and to reimagine our existence. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. – Matthew 9:17 (NIV)

We must travel new paths of consciousness, letting go of all controls that keep us tethered to the past, with its incomplete perceptions and understandings. In the end, there is no teacher who will effect our salvation, for it is a personal journey, where we must accept responsibility for the totality of our lives, and make all necessary adjustments in course that will take us to our spiritual goals. We can actually rebirth ourselves, into a new understanding that the Universe has birthed itself in an infinitude of forms through the portal of Mother Earth, and each of us is “one verse” of the song of creation. As we see the totality of the movement of thought as time, and its nature of keeping us tethered to a past, or to a future that is always an extension of this past, we can free ourselves from those illusory controls. We can live more of a life based on the ever unfolding now, or present moment, thus unleashing vast reservoirs of intuition and spiritual power. As we look upon all of life, we finally gain the insight that ALL is the extension of the “I am” that we are. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is, thus, our SELF. for “I am” is distributed throughout all of creation. Everything that we see is our brothers and sisters in Spirit, and, in Truth, and all are extensions of the “I” that “I am”. Our collective error in understanding is believing that “You” has any reality in ultimate Truth, for “you cannot be real”. “You” is forever just an image of thought, created by the collective, or by the individual, mind of man, while believing that he is a separate, isolated being in a lonely universe. The further along the path of Truth and Love that we travel, the more that we understand that, all we will ever see, unto eternity, is extensions of our Self. How we see our Self today determines the quality of Love and Truth that we manifest in our lives. How we see our Self today determines how much spiritual power can be brought to our damaged planet, which is now dependent upon us. How we see our Self today determines how much, as awakening beings, we are able to bring healing to our shared, damaged human consciousness. There is no power in Heaven or on Earth greater than “I am”. Yet our world suffers, because of the collective belief that we are not of this world, not of each other, or not of this Universe. The unconscious people of the world continue to bring harm to Mother Earth, and to all of her inhabitants, in the name of their own religions, their own disfigured political and economic principles, and their own ignorance. We all suffer accordingly. I realize that I am an insignificant voice. I am yet another voice calling out from the wilderness of human misunderstanding, trying to locate lost fellow travelers, and aid whoever I may make contact with, in whatever humble way that I can, in our shared journey towards healing. We will heal together, or die alone. I am one of millions of spiritual “Johnny Appleseed’s”, spreading the seeds of our potential for transcendence on the rocky grounds of human consciousness on our planet Earth. I will not live to see the good that may arise from my work, and the greater works of others, and that is OK.

“The finger pointing at the moon, can never be the moon”. —The Buddha Were the reader to ever have a similar apocalyptic spiritual experience as I did, on July 21, 1987, the reader would see, as I now see, how pathetic and inadequate can be our words. Words are limited containers for infinite energy, and though they point to a shared reality, they will forever fall short in their intention for communicating what lies deep within the heart. While living in a verbal consciousness, the word remains the way the human world is measured. And the word, because of its inherent limitations, continues to create imbalances within the mind of man. Mankind, with its religions and its political science, continues with its pride and hubris, and clings to its knowledge like it was truth itself, forgetting that our words and thoughts will forever only be theories chasing after the truth that is continuously being updated by the present moment. The universe laughs with us, when we see that all of our words are but simple pointers, to that which exists within each of us, yet also exists far above and beyond the limited and limiting boundaries of human consciousness. . “Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate’er you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, Where truth abides in fullness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW, Rather consists of opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without.” —–Robert Browning As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. The greatest insights that I have ever had continue to arise through the sacred silence within my being. Words are formed to become the bridge from that silence, to the conscious mind, in its attempt to bring balance back to which the verbal universe has brought imbalance to. Yet those words, though sacred to me, are only pointers to the potential for others. Yet, to continue to point I must. Hatred, indifference, positive or negative empathy, love, healing, or mutual destruction are parts of our infinite potentiality.. The choice is ours to make for our own unique life experience, when we have become more healed and conscious There is a Silence within each of us attempting to inform our consciousness as to how to best exercise our free will. What is our choice today? The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world, and to bring balance back to our imbalanced soul. My world will never be the same. How about yours?

The Uncommon Knowledge Theory

We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other. —-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin What is “uncommon knowledge”?  Common knowledge is information that everyone knows, and everyone knows that everyone else knows it, as well.  Uncommon knowledge would be information that not everybody knows, and those that know, know that everybody does not know it.  How might one pursue uncommon knowledge?

• Let go of the controls of fear, poor self esteem,  and powerlessness!
• Find your true being, and stop becoming someone else’s idea of who you should be.
• Eliminate time dependent thought, to find the real eternal life.

Insight and change are essential.  In the seeing of the old, is freedom from the prison of the past is finally found.  Make new paths of consciousness, and then follow them only while they lead to loving action and wisdom, and discard them when they no longer serve the Hearts best intention!

To follow new paths of consciousness, while knowing that any concept of “you” can’t be real in any absolute sense sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If any”you” can’t be absolutely real, including “God”, or “the other” then everything that I associate with “I” is preeminent. Every time I identify with a person, a process, or a place, I have created either a “new path of consciousness”, or I have reaffirmed some older, more familiar, potentially worn out path that I have already been traveling upon. .”I am an electrician”, or “I am an alcoholic”, or “I am a son of Beryl and Corinne Paullin”, or “I am full of shit”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “I am angry with X,Y, Z”, or WHATEVER I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then STOP thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, and/or “the Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each unique moment. .Some may call this process “forgiveness”. I call my process “my miracle experiment”, and this is the way that I re-imagined my life.

We are free to Laugh and cry at our creations, then change them, and laugh and cry again! We are free to repeat this cycle until only laughter. love, and joy remains, then we will know that Peace has been found.  Remember, all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self.  How will we see our Self today? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about yourself is only a theory, and potentially an unproven one, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about your significant other, your children, your parents, and even your best friends are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about your planet, including the plants, animals, insects, oceans, rivers, and the rocks and dirt, are only theories, and potentially unproven ones, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know, or believe, about God, the Bible, Christianity, or other religions are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that? What if I were to tell you that “you” can’t be real, yet the only fact about “you” that can be apperceived is that “I” am here? Is everything that we witness with our senses, and reflect upon with our minds, really there, or are they ever evolving theories created by the mind of man? What if I were to tell you that there is a deeper truth, another reality, or state of being, that is accessible, once we discard our concepts of time? What if I were to tell you that the seemingly infinite world of your verbal creation pales in comparison to a non-verbal potentiality that lies undiscovered and unappreciated within your heart and soul? What facts do we truly have access to, and which tools do we presently have to help us find the truth about ourselves, and about our life, the truth that supports us, yet lies in a sacred silence well under of our internal matrix of memories and personal and collective accumulations of information and knowledge? “Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe” ——Attributed to Pythagoras, and the Oracle at Delphi Mankind has used religion, spirituality, philosophy, and the science of observation for thousands of years to help understand the world, and for insight into the self. Are science, religion and spirituality based upon facts, laws, theories, or mythological stories, or are they a combination of the four? And what about our personal philosophies, are they based upon the same factors? Finally, does our science, personal philosophies, religion, and spirituality help us or hinder us to “know thyself, to know God and the Universe”? The following book is an inquiry into what we can know, what we will never know, and how to understand at a higher level who the “knower” really is. To develop the capacity for insight requires a tremendous depth of desire to know one’s self in a different, more profound and holistic way. Overcoming a lifetime of cultural and family conditioning and training, suffering, ignorance, indifference towards and/or oppression by others, and repression of one’s emotional and spiritual nature can be a most difficult proposition. We must develop the strength of will to wrestle with our own and our culture’s demons, and angels, to successfully travel the path of transformation. Insight, or “knowing thyself” has been the path to the Gods since the mind of man first postulated the existence of a unique self, and of a God, and then began the establishing of the rules of engagement between all such mental creations. One of the earliest insights that I remember having is a direct result of a science class that I attended in fourth grade. Mr. Hill, our Principal and co-teacher of our class, was going to perform an experiment, and he wanted to teach the students about the power of observation. Each member of the class was to record everything that they observed onto a note pad, so as to completely describe what they witnessed. Mr. Hill heated a portable electric stove, then grabbed with some insulated tongs a thin sheet of metal and set it onto the burner. The metal immediately began to distort in size, and became quite disfigured, and the metal no longer looked like it did before. I watched, yet I had no words to describe what it was that I had just witnessed. I had never seen anything like that before, and I was struck dumb by it. I saw two kids writing feverishly on either side of me, and in my need to be accepted, “fit in” and not look stupid, I looked at each of the two student’s writings, and saw how they described the event. I used their expressions to help me to create my own descriptions. As a child, I saw how dependent that I was on other people to give a description about events that I did not have the words for. Someone else had the description of what I could not yet describe, so I used borrowed words to fill in the gap. Extrapolate this need to fit in and to belong to all collective gatherings of human life, including religion, politics, and society, and it is easily seen the potential foundation for shared learning, and its alter-ego, illusion and superstition, within all such bodies of experience. As an adult, I have seen how the mystery of life can sometimes get overrun by society’s need for order by establishing and maintaining a continuity of reality and a shared understanding of events between all of its members. The description is never the actual event, yet those who did not have the experience, copy and worship the description, and overlook the event that may be still happening right under their noses. They have never developed the capacity and/or the willingness, to give their own unique description of an event, for they are either in fear of offering a different or contrary version of the event, fear that they might look stupid if they don’t agree with the herd, or they have never witnessed the event itself and are dependent upon others for their descriptions. Scientific and cultural education and religious indoctrination brings a measure of order to all of us. Yet it can also teach the student about other people’s perspectives on matters of individuality, self-expression, and the potential for a connection with a “power greater than our self”, while confusing and delaying the individual’s direct connection and link to his own higher truth and nature. While “unawakened” we are especially susceptible to those in positions of power and influence, and we easily can become hypnotized by other people’s thoughts and attitudes. It becomes easy to mistakenly associate all other’s points of view as being our own, until we finally decide to break free from our own second-hand, culturally inculcated reality for the understanding of self, and other, and begin our awakening process. In a similarity between science and religion, each claims to be the “real” truth. And, many people view them as mutually exclusive. Scientific materialism, or scientism, for example, is based on the idea that scientific analysis is the only means of understanding what things really are. Science might say, if it had a voice, that there is no need for any other kind of explanation than that provided by pure science, since there is no other kind of reality than the purely physical, for that is what is being observed. Many religious institutions also teach their followers a similar ideology. Religious leaning people such as Christians maintain that the Bible teaches the ‘true’ science and that secular science should be rejected if it does not correspond with the letters of the scripture. Yet, objectively, both science and religion have independently revealed enough truths to give them each a degree of credence, while we must also continue to treat them both to a healthy dose of skepticism when their observations do not conform to what we might expect to see. In science and mathematics, a theory is a statement proposing an explanation for the processes that we witness. A law is an observation which becomes an assumed fact; a theory is the explanation of that observation. The Law of Gravity and the Theory of Relativity are good examples. Just because a law is an observable fact, or a theory is intuitively obvious, we cannot prove them to be true. The apple always falls downward from the tree, doesn’t it? Yet the observation of matter converting into energy, with E=Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light is not observable, at least through our normal senses. A theory requires experimentation under various conditions. Why an apple always falls downward to the earth becomes the motivator for many more discoveries, and theories. A law has no such requirements for experimentation. A theory may become obsolete with time. This is not the case with a law. A theory can be replaced by another better theory; however, this never happens with a law. When people say “Relativity is just a theory, not a fact” or “Evolution is just a theory, not a fact”, they show that they do not understand how science works. Theory is as good as it gets. There is always room for further evolution of our scientific theories, thus no limit is placed upon learning and refining all theories to best represent what we now observe through continuous process improvement which supports higher qualities of awareness, and enhanced realms of intelligence and understanding. Even incorrect theories have their value. Discredited alchemy was the birthplace of modern chemistry, and medicine made great strides long before we understood the roles of bacteria and viruses. Improving our theories often leads to exciting new discoveries that were unimaginable under the old way of thinking. We should not assume that all of our current scientific theories will stand the test of time. A single unexpected result is enough to challenge the status quo. However, vulnerability to some potentially better explanation doesn’t weaken a current scientific theory. Instead, it shields science from becoming unchallenged dogma. This is not the case with religion, which clings to all understandings from the far distant past as if their entire faith was dependent upon adherence to such dogma. In an interesting study of human behavior, it seems that stubborn-minded dogma and ideology is another thing that religion and science both share. The same way that blind adherence to religious faith often leads to religious dogma, the faith-based aspect of science also forms the basis of scientific dogma. And, while “religion” still dictates the terms of spiritual life for so many, science, in its own way, has become the self-proclaimed “religion of reason,” dictating the terms of reality for the world, and also steering the course of humanity. Yet both categories of understanding vie for the steering wheel of our civilization, at times sharing the wheel as helpmates, and other times as antagonists. While science attempts to obtain concrete evidence of theories through the formulation and testing of hypotheses, and the calculation of highly probable or deductive theories, religious institutions do nothing to provide any solid evidence of their claims of the existence of a Universal Creator, or its claims of an “Everlasting/Afterlife.” Many religious believers, of course, cite the testimonies contained within their ancient holy books, and those testimonies from others that they witness while in their place of worship, as their “proofs.” Faith, rather than observation, becomes the primary lens for understanding life. God said it, I believe it, and that is all there is to it! ——-statement attributed to many religious believers. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. ——-Hebrews 11:1 New Testament, Christian Bible So what do we accept as our laws, what do we accept as our theories, and what do we accept on “faith” about the nature of our self, our world, our “God” and our universe? Are we relying upon the statements of others, do we practice “blind faith”, or are we active observers of the phenomenon of our lives? If we base our understanding upon our own observations of ourselves, others, and the world, can we then extrapolate upon our known facts or laws to build our bridge to a personal, and potentially to a universal truth? The Uncommon Knowledge Theory points to the potential for spiritual awakening. It has a direct relationship to insight, intuition, mysticism, and a desire for enlightenment, with the expression of universal love and transcendence. It remains latent and unexpressed within the human heart and soul within major sectors of our population. It remains only a theory, or a potentiality, until it is brought into awareness, and practiced as if it was real, or the truth. And, it might be found that the more that the theory is practiced, the more it might appear that the Uncommon Knowledge Theory is really an undiscovered or ignored law in the first place. In the Uncommon Knowledge Theory teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, it is stated:

1. “My father’s house/mansion has many rooms. . . “
2. “My kingdom is not of this world”, and
3. “be in the world, don’t be of the world.”

These sayings are pointers to the fact that there are two possibilities for living, in Common Knowledge Game and Common Unconscious Knowledge Game experiences as a sleeping being in a dark, disfigured world, or as an awakening being in a multi-dimensional human relationship with infinity, as experience through our Uncommon Knowledge Theory. The sleeping beings, or those dreamers practicing unconscious knowledge, are those who live in the world of personal illusion, or Maya, without being aware of the fantasies of thought that dominate their minds and lives. Their present moment remains dominated by perceptions arising from wounding from their personal and their culture’s past, without sufficient application of healing awareness to that fact. The awakening ones are able to see through the chaos of the dreaming, unaware mind, and no longer are unconscious servants their own brokenness, or to values of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, which are primary support pillars for the CKG and the CUKG, especially through religions with a long history. The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge. ——Meister Eckart The danger here, with the truth that Meister Eckart points to, is the ascribing of ultimate truth to the fantasies of a sleeping, somnambulating, undereducated, fantasy driven mind. What does the process of awakening look like, and how might I begin the journey? I now have my own life experience to refer to, having eschewed most other points of view that have been in conflict with the unfolding of my greater good. The process of awakening begins early for some, and later for other, and not at all for the most unconscious among us. For me, it has been a lifelong process, which began in my most unconscious of years as a young person. Up until nine years of age, I did not like falling asleep, as sleep might open the door to yet more terrifying nightmares, which I was all too accustomed to. By this time, my dreams had finally began to evolve beyond the continuous nightmare phase that I was accustomed to, but uncertainty about their possibility of arising still prevailed within my mind. This was during a period of time when I slept very little, as I usually got to sleep no earlier than midnight, even though I my enforced bedtime was 8:00 PM. In preparation for sleep, while lying in bed for all those hours, I would review the day every night, and see where I could have done things better, or said something a little differently. Somehow I had intuited that by improving my daytime behavior, my nighttime dream world might become more peaceful. And I had begun to have many unusual dreams, most of them which I quickly forgot. Yet at the age of nine, I had another amazing insight through the avenue of my dreams. To this day, its message still rings loud and clear in my mind, no matter how poorly, or successfully, that I may be applying its principles. Here is THE DREAM: The priest, having received his directive from “on high”, then returned to his village along the lake in the high mountain region. He gathered all of the villagers together, and informed them that they were to take every golden figurine, every sacred symbol that they owned, and they were to throw them all into the lake, and never to think about them again. Then, he told each villager that they must each go into their own home, and face the “evil one” without any protection or care from any of their gods or their symbols of the sacred. The priest then returned to his own home, having tossed all of his own idols and treasures into the deep blue lake. He stripped himself bare of all clothing, and then began to summon the forces of the dark. He became surrounded by a fog, and as he lifted his hands, sparks started flying out of his fingertips at the unknown force of darkness that lay just beyond his visual field, still hidden beyond the boundaries of the fog. The priest refocused his energy into his arms, and hands, and the sparks grew into a steady energy field, extending from his body, his heart, and his spirit, towards his unknown adversary. He was determined to overcome this force, this dark energy, and he redoubled his efforts. The priest’s heart began to race out of control, he began to sweat profusely, and a growing sense of fear and dread began to take hold of his entire being, as he finally understood that his energy could not last forever. Yes, for him to continue this battle, he must sacrifice all of his life force. Yet, he felt that he had no choice but to keep engaging the enemy, to finally see the face of the force that had terrorized his village since time began. He desperately strained and stretched to see the object of his fear and disdain, even as the ebbing energy field flowing from his fingertips continued to cut through the fog. Suddenly, a face began materializing before his faltering gaze. As he collapsed to the floor, almost drained of all life, he could no longer fight an undeniable truth– the face of the evil one might be his own! We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. – –Anaïs Nin This insightful dream says it all, and even the unimaginative among us cannot miss out on the unmistakable message that is contained within it. Projection is a name given by psychologists to this experience, where we finally realized that the conscious world that we feared, the conscious world in which we created idols and gods, and self-protective psychological mechanisms, to protect us from the perceived or potential evil, was actually a world that we created through our own ignorance, both collectively, and individually. This manifests in all of the horrors that we witness on the world stage daily, and in all of the family and cultural dysfunction under which we were raised. We are all wounded by this process, and rather than find a way to heal from it, we ignorantly arm ourselves against further assaults from others, even though we are part of the attack against our own self in the first place. Oh shadow boxer of evil, will your fists and arms ever tire? Becoming co-champions of a nightmare world creates conditions which are perpetually dire! Stop breathing life into your fears and illusions will all those mental pugilist blows, And in silence await the peaceful messages from the only One who All Knows! A most hurtful way that human beings acting out of their own wounded natures project their negativity is by continuing the attacks against those that they have already hurt. It is just heartbreaking to be a witness to, or to be on the receiving end of, attacks against our souls and being by those who have already hurt us, and who cannot or will not acknowledge their own culpability. The victim is made wrong for having feelings, and for expressing their anger, fear, distress, or heartbreak at having been attacked, either in the past, the present, or both. Because the perpetrator does not want to face his own bad attitudes and behavior, he lashes out, and makes wrong, those who attempt to speak up for their own life, and rights. If all cannot accept responsibility for wayward thoughts and actions, healing and forgiveness, whatever those words may point to, remains an impossibility. Those who remain silent about their own responsibility for and participation in their own projections of hatred, ignorance, pain, suffering, intolerance onto others, remain a fixture of our culture’s conspiracy of silence. It happens on the cultural level, and on the personal level. We are all victims of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, bullying, and all other malicious, malevolent attitudes and behaviors, trickling down from our politicians, corporate boards, employers, family members, co-workers, acquaintances, fellow drivers on the road, or the person in the cashier’s line with us at the grocery store. Our country and its citizens owe an apology and reparations to all of the minorities it has persecuted and punished, such as the Indians, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Immigrants, the Infirm, the Old, and the Poor. Our Christian religion owes an apology to the Muslims, homosexuals, to the infidels, to the secular, to the “Jewish faith who crucified Jesus”, and to all who have been persecuted because they were non-believers or non-conformers. The greatest threat to peace in this world is the cultivation of resistance to change and religious fundamentalism. Life is change, change is Life, and those who do not allow themselves to grow, heal, and evolve are consigned to live their lives in progressively smaller mental boxes, or prison cells, the further along in life that they travel. It must be remembered that truth is not a fixed point in time and space, it is an ever unfolding reality, and the truth of this moment may appear to be non-conforming to the truth of 100 years ago. We can continue to ask the same questions, yet we must be prepared to accept new, updated answers as they become available. If we remain trapped to the conditioning of our past, the dogmas of our religions, our sciences, and our economic and social theories, we will not find the new freedom and intelligence that is beckoning to us each moment of our lives. Collective consciousness is comprised of the entirety of our history as a species, as well as all of the answers that our culture, our families, and all of our individual selves have dreamed up in the past to some of the great questions of life. The answers have become part of our philosophy, our history, our religion, the substance of our hopes and dreams, and the foundation for all of our nightmares. I have addressed the seed consciousness behind the development of my sense of self, where my own answers to the important questions of life gave rise to my fragmented interpretation of life, and of the universe. My incomplete and inaccurate answers became the unstable foundation for my journey through collective consciousness, but I was not alone in my ignorance and misunderstanding. It is this very matrix of misunderstanding that we all must eventually embrace within ourselves, see it for what it really is, and isn’t, and then move through the illusions of self to the very foundation of our timeless soul, where peace and healing eternally resides. Cleansing the doors to perception means bringing truth into sharper focus, and the process of asking the right questions, and not necessarily immediately supplying any answers, provides the potential for powerful energy to this endeavor.  Snap answers typically arise from the conditioned mind, so patience is a requirement as the intelligence of the moment, and of eternity, is accessed, and then builds its own unique verbal bridge back to our awareness.

Get rid of our old answers to old questions, and start asking new questions! Do we know what new questions to ask of ourselves, questions that will place us on a new, healthier path of consciousness?

Here are several questions that I have pondered:

• Why does suffering exist, and why does it visit me so often?
• Who and what am I?
• Is happiness, joy, and freedom possible in my life?
• What am I really looking for, and will I ever find it?
• What really is prayer?
• Does religion have relevance anymore?
• Can there be any truth. love, or justice to be found in the 21st century version of American Christianity?
• What happened to the moral and ethical authority once touted as being endemic to Christianity?
• Does religion hinder or help a modern-day seeker of God?
• What is a “well lived life” and how do I achieve it?
• What is good mental health, or what does it mean to be normal?
• Who are my “people”, and where are they located?
• Why do people cling to certain groups of people, and reject all others, and why do I feel rejected so often?
• Why don’t people get along better with each other, and why have I become so isolated?
• Will I ever fit in? Will anyone ever notice me?
• Why don’t I feel peace of mind?
• What is death, what does it mean to die to myself, and if I die to myself, what is left?

Why does our society and much of the world’s population continue to not experience peace of mind, with beauty, wonder, and the innate internal integrity of our (potentially) divine nature, and what might I do to attain these qualities?

• Why is history defined predominantly by male energy, and why does my own life story spin so tightly around the male gender and its destructive byproducts?
• Why do some men become spiritually and emotionally disfigured by their desire for sex?
• What is the role of objectifying people in ignorance, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism?
• Can men ever completely overcome objectifying women in their relationships with them?
• Why do some men exercise excessive emotional control over their partners?
• Why do I not feel satisfaction when I achieve the goals that I have set up for myself?
• Why do I not feel joy when others achieve greatness, or accomplish great things for themselves?
• Why do I sometimes feel threatened by others’ successes?
• Why do I internally try to hold others back from success and positive social acknowledgement?
• Why do I always seem to “self-destruct” right at the moment when I am about to achieve great success?
• Will I ever completely understand myself, and others?
• What is oppression, and what is my relationship to it?
• What is repression, and why do I participate in it?
• Why is expressing real human emotions such a double-edged sword, and
• why are my feelings so hard to identify sometimes?
• Why are some people always so angry, indifferent, detached, or depressed, and can these people ever see me for who I am?
• Why is anxiety the defining feeling of this age, and why is it so hard to heal from it?
• Where is the love that I feel is missing from my life?
• Why don’t I feel more love for myself or for others?
• Why do I continue to experience poor self-esteem?
• Why is our culture so focused on youth and physical appearance?
• Why am I so self-conscious, and will I ever be accepted for who I am?
• Why do I feel that I have to always be competitive, or “better than the others” just to fit in?
• Why is competition and greed, as presently coupled with Capitalism, the predominant economic system in our world?
• Why does shame and guilt control so much of my life’s experience?
• Is it possible to speak or live a lie long enough that we no longer can accept or believe the truth?
• Is a person’s silence because of an absence of opinion, or from a fear of speaking the truth?
• Why can’t some people be more emotionally and spiritually present for others?
• Why do people feel that they need to engage in mutual “control dramas”?
• Why do people endlessly pursue entertainment and/or use drugs and alcohol to excess, and ignore their own personal transformation and healing?
• Why is just more knowledge so much more important than intuition, wisdom and insight to most men and left brained dominated women?
• Why is collaboration such a dirty word for a national political process?
• Why do I have no desire to contribute to society in a more generous and meaningful way?
• Will America Ever Fully Awaken?

To answer all of these questions successfully would require a 5000 page book. My intention is not to provide a universal answer, but to stimulate interest and curiosity within the reader to pursue their own answers. My story will indicate a path for a more holistic approach to the answer for some of these questions, and my answers may have a more universal application than just my limited life experience.  If we ask the right questions and get satisfying answers, most of the other questions of life become unimportant. My life story from the period 1987 to the present have become my improving attempts at addressing these questions, and adjusting to whatever answers, if any, that came into my awareness at any particular point in time.. There is nothing really “new” being written here, though this is the most important writing that I have ever attempted. Please forgive me in advance if my insights and realizations appear obvious and simple. When they come to an innocent mind for the first time, they bring with them the sense of profundity and wonder.. To be in realization of Truth, is to find that God’s High Mount is another illusion to climb, Created by fearful, desirous minds caught on fear’s merry-go-round of time. The unilluminated, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason,  Forever chasing after the next mirage, until it sees that its movements are all guilty of treason.

The Divine Feminine and Finding Spiritual Balance

I have lived two complete lives through a process known as anamnesis.  Much of the first life is still available to me, through family history, and through my own very good memory.  My second life,  though characterized by significantly different energies than the first, is still powerfully influenced by our culture’s resistance to practices that enhance balance, intelligence, and reduce the historical impacts of patriarchal dominance.  A culture, including its highest court that continues to oppress the divine feminine, be it our daughters, our sisters, our wives, our grandmothers, our planet Earth, or,   the silent, repressed part of our self, continues to live out of balance with itself, and remains dominated by male power and control issues.

Let’s fly united in our potential for healing!

I have always loved my mother, Corinne Beatrice Henry Paullin.  I have always taken for granted my mother.  She was like the air I breathed, I rarely saw her for who she was, yet I would not have survived without her.  She was one of the finest, most loving and reliable persons in my life.  I never doubted her love or caring for me, or for our family.  She loved her younger brother, Wayne, as much or more than any other sister.  She was treasured by her own grandparents, who were relatively prosperous, as well as by her parents, who were lower in income.  Mom’s grandpa was the first really old guy that I had ever met.  I remember visiting him and his “new” wife (a nurse who married him and took all of his money) in Salem, and Mom requesting that I go over and kiss the old man, who was seated upon some sort of chair with a potty built into it.  It is a kiss that I will never forget, the kiss  of foreboding death.  His funeral was to be the first that I attended, as well. . She worked at many jobs over the course of her working career.  She started at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland.  She worked at National Insurance, General Tool, Grandma’s Cookies, The Oak Lodge Fire Department, and Murphy Logging, and a couple of other companies that I do not remember.

My mother at Oak Lodge Fire Department station

Mom working at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland, around 1946

She usually defined for me what God’s love must look like, the unconditional love that a mother has for her newborn child, which was the love mom had for me. Mom offered nourishment of all varieties when I was young, feeding me, telling me stories, healing my childhood wounds by kissing them and applying bandages to them, holding me after horrible nightmares, and protecting me from over exuberant punishment when it was meted out. She always had her wisdom and knowledge of life, which she freely shared with me my entire  life. I did not always follow her advice, at my own peril, because she was usually right about most things that were important enough for her to talk to me about.  Mom was always mom to me, from birth until the day she died. I honor her for that and I respected and loved her presence in my life. . I took her for granted for all of my childhood, and into adulthood until the age of 31 for me.  She always wanted the best for me, she tried to be a motivator, she tried to help me right my ship whenever it listed too severely and I will forever be grateful to her.  We did not talk much over the years, even though we spent so much time together, especially from the year 1995 on, when Sharon and I moved into my parent’s neighborhood.  Beginning with Mom and Dad’s fiftieth wedding anniversary in 2000, and extending through 2009, Sharon, Pam, Aunt Susie, and I shared in most of the vacations that were taken, due to the need to be more present for our aging parents.. . Suffice it to say, my mother was severely overshadowed by my father’s exuberance and outrageous nature, though she did not seem to mind most of the time.  My lack of elucidation on my mother’s story shows aspects of my own poor communication style, and aspects of Toxic Masculinity that directed me to not pay more conscious attention to her as a human being, and create better stories about her and her life. I was never really very clear about mothers’ religious persuasions, as she did not speak too much on those matters. She wanted me to take her to New Hope Christian Church fairly late in her life, but I was so done with that perspective that I never volunteered to take her there. She did watch and listen with interest as i wandered through the years on my own search for life’s meaning and significance. I think that she was almost entertained and amused by some of my relationships with the various teachings, teachers, ministers, and spiritual advisors. It was apparent that she was most impressed by my relationship with the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous, however, as that is where she saw I gained the most understanding and stability in life.. . Going through all of the photographs of my mother has caused me to think also about many aspects of my own life: what a great gift that life is, what a great debt of gratitude I owe my mother, and father, for what is the greatest opportunity in our known universe, which is to live on this planet. I am so fortunate to have been born into a family with a mother who always tried her hardest to do the best job she could do, whether it be raising children, working in any of her numerous jobs, enjoying friendships, or just living life to its fullest. . By hearing some of the talk of friends who have called since mom’s death, I have heard some wonderful, funny, and fascinating things about my mother that I never got to experience personally. She was, at times, an enigma to me, but I could always count on her to be there for me, no matter what was going on in my life. I tried to return the favor later in life, but I could never repay her for all the good she brought me. . I just enjoyed sitting with her, talking or quiet, and sharing time. My mother always seemed to need to be on the move, however, so those shared periods were short in time, though frequent in later years.  Every time we sat down, and the conversation started to turn “serious”, especially about death, dying, or emotionally laden issues, she would just pop up from the chair, and state: . “Macy’s is having a great sale today.  I gotta go now!” . And, with a smile, off she would go. . I still feel inadequate, and not up to the task, of fully representing the beauty and the humanity of the person I called mom, and that the rest of the world called Corinne. I do know that she loved life, and her friends and family, and always sought the best for all that she knew. She loved the outdoors, and that was reflected by many years of camping and travel trailering. She loved hiking, and logged thousands of miles hiking and Volkswalking through the years, through many states and countries. She loved to dance when younger, and enjoyed many years of square dancing, and many friendships that ensued from that activity. She also loved her golfing, and had many friendships that she enjoyed from that activity. . She loved her children, though, and that is what I remember the most, and will for the rest of my life miss the most, about mom. I made the mistake of assuming that Mom was always going to be with me, and I delayed some important conversations with her, and missed opportunities to truly get to know her better. It is the curse of being a child that we never get to know our parents as well as we could. My parents”friends had a much greater opportunity for that privilege. Mom certainly had many great friendships over the years, and some of the longest would be perhaps, with Eloise Mills. She loved so many of her friendships that were developed through square dancing.  The loss to death of a long-time friend Betty Rolf late in Mother’s life was particularly hard, and I know that the parade of death of so many of her friends was harsh for her, prior to her own passing. . My grandmother, Beatrice Henry, was the greatest woman I had ever known, next to my own mother, even after I reached adulthood. My first memory is of being at my grandparents’ home, and probably dates around the summer of 1957.  And, it was my Uncle Wayne talking to me that I remembered.  I was still in a diaper at the time (my mother said that I wore diapers until I was at least 2 years old).  Of course, I was not speaking then (yes, I was an extremely late developer), but I still remember having some vague thoughts, and I understood the verbal question given to me in this memory, though no words seemed to form in my mind, just “picture impressions” .  I actually remember my uncle asking me if I had messed up in my diaper, while I walked/staggered up a path to the porch of my grandparents’ home.. . I spent many a weekend at my grandparents’ home over the years (and when I turned 15 I lived there for 3 straight months painting their home, and hanging out with local teenage girls).  My parents were very liberal in allowing me to spend as much time with my grandparents as they could tolerate.  The biggest issue in the early years was that my sister and I fought quite a bit, so Grandma would try to keep the peace where possible, and sometimes limit our time at their house accordingly, or just allow one of us at a time to stay. Grandma was a fine seamstress, and she would make us pajamas every Christmas.  When my cousin Brian finally came of age 3 (he was 5 years younger than I), Grandma would make Brian and I pajamas of the same material.  I loved my cousin Brian, and found myself being rather protective of him, especially when playing outside with my grandmothers’ neighbors’ kids.  Brian seemed a little slow, and too gentle of spirit, and I somehow perceived that he might need my extra protection while engaging with the neighbor kids.  Even in adulthood, where he experiences life threatening alcoholism, I feel as though he could use a little extra help, but he has had no interest in my style of sobriety.  He nearly died of the complications of the delirium tremors while undergoing a colonoscopy in February of 2018, and quit drinking alcohol for a brief period, only to resume drinking at the same rate as before his near death experience. Grandma had a record player in her living room.  It was the old style console type player, and she would occasionally play some of her music while we were there.  I think that her favorite musician was Johnny Ray, the world famous singer of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, who was Grandma’s beloved nephew and her sister Hazel’s number one son.  Grandma had a picture of Johnny in her living room, and I don’t think that there was anybody in the world that Grandma admired more.  And, Johnny is directly responsible for my life, as he saved my mother from drowning when mom was eleven years old.

My Grandparents’ world famous nephew, Johnny Ray

My Grandparents’ world famous nephew was Johnny Ray, singer and best friend to Judy Garland, among others.  He saved his cousin Corinne, my mother,  from drowning when she was 11 years old.  Around 1980, just prior to Johnny’s death, we all went to a club in northwest Portland, called Darcelles, where Johnny performed (yes, Johnny was gay).  I do not remember too much about Johnny, or his performance, but his show was well attended, and I had to try to look through a ceiling support column in order to see him.  Grandma did not see Johnny much, because he had chosen to live in England after he became famous in the 1950’s.  But, Johnny made a point of visiting with Grandma whenever he came to town, and we have some nice photographs of his family visits. My grandmother belonged to the Order Of the Eastern Star, Daughters Of the American Revolution, and was an active church goer, as well.  I remember when she was elected the Grand Matron, and of course Grandpa became the Grand Patron, and attending “installment” ceremonies and other events that she was required to attend.  She was so respected and loved (and my Grandpa, as well) that I was quite impressed, having never seen such love exchanged between non family members before.  She never proselytized, nor did my grandpa. . My grandparents, and my mother and uncle, lived in Salem until around 1940, when they then moved up to Portland.  They were both descendants of the great pioneer movements of the 1800’s, with Grandma being a direct descendant of George Gay.  Gay participated in the Champoeg Meetings that created a provisional government in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon. George was one of the first settlers in the Willamette Valley near Salem.  He arrived in the Willamette Valley in1830, after a shipwreck on the northern California coast in 1829, and surviving a challenging journey north from the wreck. His name is on the obelisk monument at Champoeg Park.  Much of our family’s ancestral possessions are on display in museums on the premises of Champoeg Park, as well.   Grandma showed to me that she  had some serious identity issues.  She was ashamed of her Native American heritage, and recoiled whenever somebody hinted that she might have some ancestry there (she did, of course, as she was the granddaughter of George Gay and an Indian bride).  A side story to this is that in 1995, Sharon and I brought Grandma to our house to die, after she was discharged from the hospital for lymphoma.  While in an altered state, she found herself surrounded by Indians doing a ceremony around her.  She was quite upset about it, even though it showed to us a probable internal healing action by her true self. . May 24, 1987 Beginning on May 24th, and extending through July 21st, 1987, I had a series of three spiritual “events” which, to this day, guide and direct the consciousness presently unfolding within me. On May 24, 1987. I had a deeply personal, spiritual event.. To not share it would be an act of hiding on my part..  Sometimes, the Conspiracy of Silence manifests itself by keeping quiet about the activities of miracles and healing, and my unwillingness to share my voice and my experience with others. . I had resumed attendance at Hinson Baptist Church, upon my reentry into sobriety in March of 1987.  In my earnestness to follow the right path through this religion, I accepted a baptism, scheduled for May 28, 1987.  On the weekend prior to my baptism, I received my first ever conscious “visitation of the spirit”.  It manifested in my experience, for lack of a better description, as having the feeling of being held in the loving arms of an infinite motherly presence, and I felt like I was being reborn as a person as a result. When I described my experience to the Minister, he requested that I attend a training to get my “beliefs” more in alignment with the structure that the American Baptist church accepts. Really? The minister misunderstood my experience, as it represented a direct connection with the God of my spiritual understanding, and not his. . During this period of time, I also needed to get tested for AIDS, since I had relations with women who had sex with bi-sexual men as well as intravenous drug activity, during my darker days. I was looking for some support during this time, as the threat of a death by AIDS was quite real to many of us in those days. I found that there was NO SUPPORT TO BE FOUND, at the Baptist Church, where all people with the potential for having AIDS were regarded as outcasts from GOD, and undeserving of support or respect from the good Christian folks. This helped to cement my understanding that our religious institutions exist to support something other than just our “spiritual natures”, and their ignorance of such things causes the injection of some really unhealthy outlooks on life and love into the collective mindsets of their parishioners. . The last straw for me was when the lead minister claimed that of all of God’s creatures, only man has a soul, and that all of earth’s creatures have no basic spiritual essence, I was aghast.  A religion that makes such a claim for man by uplifting its own standing in God’s universe by reducing the spiritual standing of his animal brothers and sisters is Ptolemaic, self-centered and egotistical to the absolute extreme, and another supporting reason as to why our earth is under such attack right now.  As an individual searching for the “Truth Of Being” I thought it was best to steer clear of organized religion, where truth is not so much a sacred value, but instead more a medium for ignorance and a marketable commodity that also is used to help keep people philosophically controlled, and united in one particular way of looking at life.  Historically, religion in general remains the primary avenue for the proliferation of ignorance among the people who don’t have the insight or take the time to think for themselves.. . I was educated by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May18, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps. . On May 24, I drove towards Beaverton to visit with Randy Olson. Randy was a lifelong friend, fellow party monster, and rent sharing partner in 1986 when I contemplated, and then took the active steps towards committing suicide on January 28, 1986 and beyond. As I drove over the West Hills, a wonderful vision came to me, accompanied by a feeling that I had not had since I was twelve years old. It was the vision of a loving mother (actually, the Mona Lisa), holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime (later, I was taught to understand that this energy is the Divine Feminine, of which our patriarchal world continues to suppress daily, and has successfully done so, more or less, for at least the last 2000 years).  The wonderful feelings that accompanied that vision became known to me as divine horripilations. There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and through me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting. . The image of the Mona Lisa holding a baby is a fascinating, enlightening image.  It was reported some time back that Leonardo DaVinci had painted the Mona Lisa as a self-portrait of himself, in feminine form.  His message is subject to interpretation, but in today’s terms, he was honoring his feminine side, or nature.  He saw that the source of all creativity came from this mysterious, non-conscious center within himself where feelings of wonder, awe, mystery, and sensitivity to and compassion for others arises from.  His mission was to symbolically represent the divine within himself, through the most effective medium of the day, which was painting.  My own consciousness chose this as a healing image for myself, and I also saw how this feminine side carried all of the divine love and deep feelings of goodness that I had ever wanted for myself.  I was literally re-birthing myself, and this image of the mother holding the baby pictorially represented that new birth to perfection. . Jesus, in his teachings of 2000 years ago, repeatedly referred to God as “the Father within”.  That characterization does little for many of us, who instead see a more balanced understanding of the divine intention.  It is no wonder that the Christian faith became so highly patriarchal, and even to this day there is an imbalance within the spiritual world as a direct result of these errors in understanding.  To bring healing to me, “God” suplanted the “father within”, be it vestiges of my own father’s wayward teachings, or even Jesus’s, and healed the imbalance with a sense of unconditional motherly love.  And, I was that love, go figure! . I found that I was to be attracted to women, as well as enlightened male teachers. .

In August of 1987, I met Marie Schmidt, a practitioner of Joel Goldsmith’s

The Infinite Way, which is a movement involved with mysticism and spiritual healing..  She was a woman about 87 years old, who taught every Sunday at the old YWCA on 10th Avenue in downtown Portland.  I had seen a simple advertisement for her tape group, while attending the International New Thought Alliance conference in Portland in August of 1987.  The tape group was a combination meditation group, and a forum for listening to the taped teachings of Joel Goldsmith, a spiritual healer and mystic who first began his healing practice shortly after the Great Depression began. . She had been holding weekly meditations and tape recorded playbacks of Joel’s actual messages since 1962. Marie would sit in the front of the room, and lead a 15 minute meditation, followed by the playing of a cassette tape of one hour length.  She had a collection of at least 300 tapes, of which I eventually copied virtually all of them, and committed them to memory as best that I could. Marie had over 1000 hours of his recorded messages, which she ended up giving to me, and which I converted to digital format.. Some of the tapes were the old style reel-to-reel, and I was not able to convert those tapes to the more modern digital format.. . I was captured by this group, which had mostly older people who attended.  I believe that I was the youngest person there, for the period from 1987-1991, while I remain involved with her group.  Initially, I kept my distance from most of the people, not really being sure what the whole business was about.  I eventually drew Joan Madsen and Marcus Jones into the group, who I knew from the International New Thought Alliance convention of 1987, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous, and the Living Enrichment Center. One day in February of 1989, after I had just broken off an engagement to be married to Laurie H, and I was devastated.  The sweet old woman, Marie, offered me a “healing session”.  Well, I had my doubts, and nothing to lose, and I was a little curious about this “healing business”.  I went up to her apartment, still devastated, and meditated with her for 15 minutes. At the end, Marie spoke the “message” that she heard from Spirit, in regards to me. . “More perfect than you are, you could never be”, . with . “All that is human, is illusion”. . Well, OK, but how can I possibly apply that spiritual salve?.. . As I thanked her for her time, I then noticed I was totally at peace, and I was “healed” of all of my emotional disturbances around the ending of my engagement to Laurie.  It was as if the winds of Spirit had blown away everything from my mind, except peace and joy. . As I look at my life’s history, I have been healed by its Loving Mystery. . I later tried to have her heal my mentally sick ex-wife, Donelle,  with no success.  So there were limits to her ability, though she always stated that God  heals, not herself . I can almost now hear Marie’s voice, telling me, in regards to all of us: . “More Perfect than you are, you could never be.” . How that manifests in all of our lives remains an unraveled mystery, to be experienced by us each day that we have the privilege to wake up.  She would tell me that we are all blessed by each other’s continued walk through life.    Love goes before us, to make all of  “the crooked places straight”. We are Loved, and, in fact are Love Itself.    The body goes where it must, but also, so does our Hearts.  Go in Peace and Love, and always be willing to bring healing to any situation, for that is our mission, and who we are always to be. . In 1994, Marie was placed in the St. Andrews home near Mt. Tabor, when her nephew noted her deteriorating health, and he was concerned about her decline.  Marie continued to practice healing with the other patients, even while under care of the attending professionals.  My last visit to her, prior to her death, was characterized by her still restating to Sharon and me of our perfection in the eyes of God. . “More Perfect than you are, you could never be.”

Marie, my wife Sharon, and myself at a lunch in 1991

Believe in yourself. Believe in your potential. Be in your UNIQUE PRESENCE. BE NOW, AND BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT “I AM” IS THE DOOR TO THE ONLY GOD THAT WE CAN EXPERIENCE AS HUMAN BEINGS. I dedicate this chapter to my wife, Sharon White. Sharon is younger at age 72 than when she was 40 The lessons of love learned while with my wife Sharon could encompass an entire book of its own.. On July 4, 1989  I met Sharon, and her daughter Hayley while attending a Course In Miracles discussion group in the basement of the Unity Church in southeast Portland.  Right off the bat I was struck by what a genuine human being that she was,  appearing real, honest, deep, and personal. Her daughter exhibited some unusual behavior, and I could tell that Sharon was dealing with troubling mental health issues with family members. Sharon (at age 42) and Hayley, 1989[/caption] I eventually joined in relationship with Sharon, after being reintroduced to her at a Living Enrichment Center gathering around the Twelve Steps of Recovery, a several week presentation by Mary Boggs, the minister of LEC.  We both scheduled our attendance at a Course In Miracles weekend retreat that LEC was sponsoring over the weekend of August 4, 1989.  When the retreat was cancelled, I offered to Sharon that we create a retreat of our own.  I chose Cultus Lake, a mountain lake in Central Oregon, which my family had camped at several times when I was a young person.  We proceeded to hit it off so good together that weekend, that we knew we were right for each for now, and for a long, long time to come.

LEC Course In Miracles Weekend handout

Come September, though, I could see that I was becoming quite involved in Sharon’s life, and if I did not travel to Boston soon, and research a powerful dream that I had, I would have no opportunity to do so in the future.  So I arranged a week trip to Boston, not knowing what in the heck I was going to find there.  I knew that the Mother Church of the Church Of Christian Science was located there.  Joel Goldsmith’s teachings had some of their origins from Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings, so maybe I  was supposed to go there to see or hear something Ms. Eddy related.  I did go by the church, and sat in on a few sessions.  I was asked by one of the ministers what I was doing there, just visiting, or did I have a desire to learn more about Christian  Science?  I told her that I was a student of Joel Goldsmith, and that I had also read some of Mary’s works.  She immediately escorted me to Mary’s private study, which nobody had access to, save a special few individuals.  She told me that I probably would like to sit and pray and meditate there, and for me to take as much time as I like.  So, that is what I did.  I found my sense of the sacred and profound, and felt blessed by this exposure to the Church, and to Mary Baker Eddy’s private study.  I will never know for sure if this is what the dream wanted for me to do, but that is what I did.  I wanted to make sure to honor the energy, and its revelations, as best as I could. . I moved in permanently with Sharon later that year, and her daughter Hayley lived with us until July of 1990, when she struck out on her own, to find her own truth and healing.  I was having some difficulty communicating with Hayley.  Sharon and her daughter had some unique mutual control dynamics that were not healthy or satisfying to witness, or to participate with.  Sharon ended up signing up for a class from Diana Martha Clark, who was teaching a twelve step recovery course on co-dependency, which Sharon ended up benefiting greatly from.  Hayley had a lot of growing up to do, and I became disturbed by her need for chaos, need to hold her mother as an emotional hostage, and her lack of respect for my need for peace and honest, loving expression in communication. . Hayley could be particularly harsh, angry, and insensitive, and I felt like I was always walking on eggshells with her. One weekend in July of 1990, I went to my grandma Henry’s home to stay while she was out-of-town.  I spent literally the whole weekend in prayer and meditation around my troubles with Hayley.  Then a most unusual thing happened.  I “heard” that my issues around Hayley had been resolved, and that she was not to be an issue any further.  I went back to our apartment that Sunday evening, and upon my re-entry, I was informed that Hayley had decided to move out, and live with Martha Cannon, a former patient of Sharon’s. Remarkably, the only problems that arose with my early relationship with Sharon, other than daughter related, revolved around Sharon assuming that I knew what her needs were before she expressed them to me, but that misunderstanding quickly worked itself out. . As I look at my history, I see the workings of the Mystery. Sharon and I shared a common passion of finding and expressing the joy and truth in life, and we meditated and prayed together for many hundreds of hours together, especially early on in our relationship.  The fruitage of one of our shared meditations is the following “poem”.  I had a particularly deep, profound connection during a meditation around 1990, where I had once again entered into Truth’s domain.  There was no apparent message, that is, until I returned to my conscious mind.  The silence then used the words in my memory to create the following message.  The first stanza I wrote in 1985, prior to any real spiritual unfolding, and I could never finish it until this meditation in 1990 filled in the body of it: . THE VOICE OF AWAKENING Though the slowly shifting sands of time, Create ever taller hills for this lost soul to climb, It must be in my selfish, hateful world of no reason or rhyme, I must begin the search for Truth, to find the Love that is sublime. “Oh seeker of Truth, God’s high mount you would climb, Though you now stumble through the valley’s shifting sands of time. Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason, For they are forever charged by Truth with treason!” “Oh mental marathoner , only on Life’s treadmill you now stand, Just re-using the same words and thoughts keeps you life’s ‘also ran’ You’ll forever chase in vain Love’s all-knowing voice, So be still, for with your run’s end, is the Cause to rejoice!” “Oh marionette’s dancing image of the screen of the world’s mind, With all of those conditioned beliefs in control, what freedom could you find? Release yourself from all of those memories’ materialistic strings To prepare for the inner Wisdom that only my Intelligence brings!” “Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire? Tis only champion of a dream world to which you aspire! Cease giving energy to your illusions with those mental pugilist blows, And reveal the peaceful mind of the One who now knows!” “So please wake up to Love’s voice sweet somnambulator, And realize the eternal truth that “I” within “you” is greater, Than any mental image you could ever form or learn, And then your World will reflect the One for whom you now yearn!” And then the real “punch line” to the search for Truth: “To be in realization of Truth, is to find God’s high mount another illusion to climb, Created by fearful, desirous minds caught on the merry-go-round of time” The dark, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason, And only chases after mirages, until it sees all of its movements are guilty of treason!” . While continuing in a loving relationship with Sharon, I joined with many communities of like-minded people, or continued my present participation in them, such as Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, the Course In Miracles support groups, the Infinite Way, The Living Enrichment Center (LEC), with a very important men’s group experience that arose through my relationship with LEC, and The Empowerment Community with its many offshoot core groups.  Sharon and I became part of a “couple’s group” with two other couples, which became a 20 year affair, lasting all the way until August of 2017 (ending with the death of our dear friend, Marty).. . In 1992, I was still in communication with my ex-wife, Donelle.  At this point, she was in the mental hospital at Fort Steilacoom, Washington.  She was committed yet again in 1990, and was languishing in there when I visited her.  This was the 3rd time I had visited her there.  She always had a shopping list for me to fill, invariably with some types of makeup.  She still liked to make herself look as pretty as possible, but the effects of the medication over the years on her had taken a horrible toll.  She was twice her normal weight, and she could not keep her food down consistently. . The most beautiful woman who I had known from my youth was no longer that, and I was quite saddened, once again, to have to connect with her while she was so diseased.  The medication was quite the “double edged sword”, and had been for all of her adult life.    I don’t know what drug cocktails they were giving her this time, but they had the same conflicted end results.  (I now have little respect for the drug industry, or for a system that prescribes these drugs to people, rather than treating people in a more holistic manner). . This particular weekend, my wife Sharon was running in the annual Hood to Coast relay race.  At this point in my life, I was not a runner, having hung up my running shoes in high school, and also having retired from recreational basketball in 1985 due to back problems. My only responsibility was to drive to Seaside to pick Sharon up at the end of her adventure, after my visit with Donelle.  I was quite down after my visit, and the drive to Seaside from Ft. Steilacoom was very dark, and subdued. When I started to enter the outskirts of Seaside, without even seeing one H2C (Hood To Coast) participant, I picked up on a new energy that just started “vibrating in the ethers”.  The collective self was informing me that my individual self would further evolve with the acceptance of this energy.   I came to name this energy “TEAMWORK” after the fact, not knowing what else to call it.  It was the energy of collective support, love, companionship, and goal achieving, and I had never known that as a youth, as I had never experienced that on grade or high school sports teams, of which I never qualified for.   It was like a beautiful “spell” had come over me, and I was totally captured by it!. . Running through my life’s history, I seem to have stumbled over a greater Mystery. . I had my first experience of crowd energy . .when I attended my first rock concert in 1971.  There were well over 12,000 people attending, and the MIND BLOWING experience was a unitive event where my presence was distributed over the entirety of the crowd.  If you have never experienced this, you cannot understand this.  Over the many years from 1971, through the present moment,  I have found that I am sensitive to crowd energy (a palpable form of collective consciousness), and I can “feel” the collective energy of several types of groups of people, and actually draw from it, and add to it if I am receptive to what is going on.  And, unfocused groups put off such diffuse energy that there is nothing special to tune in to, and I find little to attract me to such energy. . Since there were over 12,000 runners and many more support people at the event, it is no wonder that a field was created in and around Seaside, the destination of the great world-famous event.  I became so impressed with the energy of the experience that I committed to running with Sharon, and I began to run with her several months later, so that the next year I could join her Hood To Coast team, the Sole Mates. (note:  This experience led me to become one of the top local older runners in our area, culminating in way too many awards, and injuries, but also leading me into a deeper understanding of two of the darker forces predominant in male collective consciousness, which are excess competition and greed) . It was the summer of 1993, and I had scheduled a 5-day retreat with Eileen Bowden and 20 other followers of the Infinite Way, a mystical healing path originated by Joel Goldsmith (died in 1964).  The retreat took place in Federal Way, Washington, at the Pacific Palisades retreat center overlooking the Puget Sound.  I spent the four days in silent contemplation and meditation, with several group talks given by Eileen over the course of the tim”aligncenter” width=”243″]

Eileen Bowden Retreat

Eileen Bowden, who lived in British Columbia, Canada, was a student of Joel Goldsmith, the originator of the Infinite Way.  Joel was a non-practicing Jew, and was led into Christian Science in the 20’s, while his father was on his death-bed.  Joel watched a Christian Science practitioner heal his father, and Joel caught fire with the possibilities for bringing spiritual healing to all of life (life that is receptive to healing, that is) because of this.  She was hand-picked by Joel to continue teaching the Infinite Way, as she “had the message”, meaning that she had achieved, or attained, the “Presence”.   She would enter into the sacred energy, and then give her unprepared talks (she spoke extemporaneously for at least 1 hour for each talk given).  Our role as “listeners” was to be in a sacred, meditative space, as well, so as to contribute to the total energy of the experience.   The result for me from this experience was that I was totally “involved” in the sacred energy of the Spirit, with the total quietness/stillness of my mind complemented by perfect peace, and joy.  I carried this energy for a full week after the experience.  Some call this experience samadhi, bliss, enlightenment, heaven, or whatever points to that state beyond the normal human, verbally intoxicated state. . Awakening Part 4 (written in 1992-1993 time period) Perfection lies, behind all eyes, We, who would look within ourselves, will find, The Sublime Surprise, of which all Life does comprise, The Divine Self of all Mankind. We, who have made our choice, with one free voice, Call to our Eternal Source Supreme, We will no longer roam, we are coming Home, We are awakening from the “human” dream! With courage draught, from fear made naught, We move from temporal shadow to Eternal Light, The Kingdom sought becomes the Vision caught, Whosoever overcomes, now sees with unhindered sight! The Love All-Knowing, the Truth now showing, With Divinity, We walk hand in hand. In us its growing, through us its flowing, Embracing all between space and land. With Hearts entwined, One Soul Divine, To this world, We are a blessing immense. Though we pass this way for but a day, With Divine experience, who would dare dispense? . The experience was somewhat perplexing to Sharon, as she wondered why I was having this profound experience, and why it continued on for so long.  She had many questions, but the perfect peace that I was experiencing was not ebbing, at least initially.  I had to return to work, as I worked for a living as an electrician.  At work, the energy continued to flow in its own unique way, but well into the work week I started to question the value of “enlightenment” when I still had to continue to work.  My co-workers were so out of touch with these things that I considered important, special, or sacred, and I could not quite get a handle on how this spiritual experience would have any value in the workplace.  I dared not speak about it, or show any type of behavior that would distinguish me from anybody else, and the dominating attitude for me was to “just blend in” as best I could. . I had already cut way back on meditation with the beginning of my running career in 1993, and when the spiritual “energy” finally ebbed, I despaired a bit, and I felt a little awkward pursuing any deeper connection. I needed a powerful ego to support my intentions to make a successful career, and I knew that I needed a healthy sense of self esteem, beyond just having my “secret connection”.  I had started questioning that commitment to the connection, and to the value of a process that I was uncertain as to how to integrate into the rest of my life.  I needed an empowered self, a self that could promote and defend itself from the often times threatening world of toxic male dominated construction trades.  Ever so gradually, my  commitment to my spiritual unfoldment began to ebb, and I wrapped my spirit baby in a blanket, and placed it into a garage so that I could sleep, just like my parents did to me as a youngster.  But my love for my partner, Sharon, and for all of our shared friendships and family did not ebb, but continued to increase and enhance the quality of my life. . July 30, 1994, Sharon and I had a “commitment ceremony” in our backyard.  We had over 75 people attend, including most of our immediate family, and many, many friends.  I had solidified in my own mind and heart the absolute value of my relationship with Sharon.  She came to represent to me integrity, honesty in communication, speaking from the heart, empowered divine feminine energy, compassion, service to others, and the celebration of our shared humanity at the highest level, of any person that I have ever met, even up to this very day.  I have made many mistakes in my life, but I celebrate every moment of every day my relationship with Sharon.  She is truly made in the image of the highest power in o Giving our vows, July 30, 1994 Eddy Brame (Crouch) officiating[/caption] Life Is Better With You, by Michael Franti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XEOVl875d0 The years 1995-2005 were dominated by employment for both Sharon and I.  Sharon, who is a nurse, became a manager for Legacy, and eventually became a hospice nurse for Providence.  I continued on my career as an electrician, occasionally accepting management roles.  This  also was the period that I focused on improving my running ability, as well as increasing my participation in our family environment.  Gradually, our huge circle of friends diminished during this period of time, and death started creeping into our awareness as important family members and friends starting passing away.  Losing my grandmother in 1995, and Victor Thomas in 1996 were two most troubling losses. In late 1987, I had a dream where I saw a ring with seven jewels on it, but it was missing its major stone, though the ring had a setting just waiting for the jewel to be inserted.  The missing jewel was much, much bigger than the seven stones.  What could this dream possibly mean?  I was engaged to be married to “woman number seven”, Laurie Hartmann, at the time, so to have this dream was disconcerting.  More was to be revealed at a much later time, when my future wife, Sharon, was to choose a ring for our second wedding in Las Vegas, in 2004.  Without any knowledge of my dream, Sharon proceeded to pick a ring at the original Mother Goose store with SEVEN SMALL STONES and ONE LARGE CENTRAL STONE.  She had picked out, without me being present or having ever told her about my dream, the EXACT ring from my dream.  I had forgotten about the dream, until I located a journal in August of 2018 that I had in storage since 1988.

seven jeweled ring with big stone

As I look at my history, I am surrounded by the “rings” of its Mystery.. Sharon retired from her career as a hospice nurse in early 2009, and wrote her first book, Whose Death is It Anyway, A Hospice Nurse Remembers Sharon helped me with the care of my father, Beryl, over the period of time after the death of my mother in 2009, though Dad’s death in September of 2017.  Sharon took over care of my aunt Susie, Dad’s sister, after the death of  her daughter, Sharyn, in August 2017.  Sharon continues to be an invaluable guide and aide for me as I walk down the challenging roads of being present for dying friends and family members, including pets. Sharon remains an inspiration to me.  She appears to get younger every year, and her outlook on life tends towards optimism, and she remains upbeat.  She is a “connector” to this day, and she reaches out to everybody that she can, in her attempt to be the voice for healing, love, and friendship in her world.  She continues to draw miracles into her life, and she has a special intuition, or inner knowledge, that allows for her to make connections with people who the “normal folk” of the world would never get to experience.  Sharon continues to be the “gem of greatest value” in my life, and her spirit sparkles with a brilliance unmatched by anyone that I have ever met.

The Three Evolutionary Stages Of Being Human (mishmash here, sort it out)

It has been proposed by psychologists and spiritual masters  that the human being has at least three stages of consciousness to experience in our evolutionary life process.,

1. the unconscious stage, or, for me, Bruce 1.0
2. the aware stage, or, for me, Bruce 2.0, and
3. the self-aware stage, or, for me, Bruce 3.0

I utilize this three-stage model to represent the potential for growth and evolution of human consciousness, though there are other accepted models of more complex natures available for understanding (see Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, Spiral Dynamics, etc.).  Keep in mind that each stage supports the stage above it, and that the stages all coexist with each other.  We can, literally, be present in all three stages at one time, depending upon our level of healing and mindfulness.  The relationship might be characterized by living solely in stage one makes one ignorant of the potentials for stage 2 and stage 3, though the boundaries between the stage 2 and stage 3 gets fuzzier for those living in stage 2, or stage 3.  Life is ar an evolving synthesis of the three stages. In the first stage of our unfoldment as human beings, we spend most of our time in the unconscious state, remaining chained to life’s launching pad.  We are basically living life through our habits of thought, without much concern about our thoughts and their ultimate source, or our subsequent behavior inspired by those inchoate impressions.  Mindfulness is only a concept here, rather than a living reality.  Relationships that are more defined by power and control issues are activated and supported by the lower, or reptilian, brain where fight or flight predominates. This ancient component of our brain is engaged with most threatening issues, and passive/aggressive styles of interaction predominate.  Fear, isolation or tribalism, superstitious reasoning around hope and faith, social insecurity, chronic emotional illness and scarcity consciousness, and a disconnect with nature with the resultant lack of a grounded connection with Earth and nature are the dark results. There is little sense of curiosity, awe, mystery, and wonder while chained to this state of being.  Suffering is our present and future experience, and we do not have any options to overcome it.  We may even attempt to destroy our lives and/or the lives of others through actions motivated by chronic despair,  We are consumed by our personal sense of self, and falteringly attempt to preserve and protect it, most times at the exclusion or expense of all others unlike ourselves. In this first stage of our unfoldment, humanity forever exists on the launching pad of life, while never fully engaging the launch sequence for the truth of existence, with its spiritually empowered expression. The second stage of our  unfoldment is consciously living with the aware state, which is , where we may prepare for  the launch sequence for our rocket ship of life, and engage in more conscious behavior such as self improvement and personal goal setting and achieving. This second state of human evolution does not supply all of the conditions for transcending the self and its limitations, though it gives enough insight to indicate that a change of heart can be a desirable and achievable  outcome.  Hope and faith take on a different meaning for those in the second stage from those still stuck in the first stage, because now hope and faith become expressions of a more conscious personal intention.  We now believe in the possibility that we can actually transcend ourselves and our problems, and we start drawing our resources together in anticipation of the beginning of the greatest adventure that life can offer. We start to become sincere in our desire to improve ourselves, and to  reach out, however falteringly, to others who may be less fortunate.  Our “higher power”  gives us hints that we have access to much greater wisdom and power, but we continue to believe that we are not worthy, or we may still be a little overweight with hubris.  Either of these qualities limits our full time access to our highest nature, and this delays our “launch date”, until the internal weather conditions improve.  We are finally beginning to see that the boundary between self and other is a lot vaguer than we ever thought possible.  There is now a lot of activity around the launching pad, and in the second stage of our unfoldment, we become willing to leave the safe confines of our lives and set our intention for exploring the unknown.  We might wonder what our next step in life is to be at this stage, which starts catalyzing that spiritual rocket fuel in our souls. The third stage of our  unfoldment is the self-aware state, which is achieved once one has not only left the launching pad, but has also transcended the boundaries of the historical self.  We can now soar into the new, unexplored mysteries of human spiritual potential and love for all being, human, animal, and the whole of the planet Earth.  We see that, in our true essence, we are a hologram of the whole, and our intentions now carry the need to protect, honor, and enhance the health and well-being of the totality of life, and not just that of our family, friends, neighborhood, country of origin, or species..We are now conscious, and mindful.  And, we have tapped into the sacred silence, or wisdom, at the center of our being. We become consumed by reducing, and then eliminating, our negative impacts upon the world, and upon each other.  A driving question of existence becomes how we can be of greater service to the ignorant and/or less fortunate among us, including the animal world.  We are no longer consumed by our personal sense of self and what others might think or expect of us.  Personal suffering is transmuted into compassion and empathy, and we have the experience of transcendence and mysticism.  Our “higher power” is no longer a theory, but a living, breathing reality residing in our hearts.  We are now rocketing into a new dimension of being.  From this exalted position, all that we see, and ever will see, unto eternity, is ourselves, and our primary action in this world is to bring more love to our Self. II would like to tie in those three general stages of unfoldment with my theories about Bruce 1.0, Bruce2.0, and Bruce 3.0. I  propose that there are three stages to my unfoldment, or evolution as a human being.  The first stage, or Bruce 1.0, is the identity that was established through the relationship of my early life with my parents and with other important, and not so important people.  This era could be characterized by my experiences of the unconditional love of my mother and my grandparents, and the conflicted, conditional love of my father, and the rest of my world.  Bruce 2.0 was my conscious re-creation of my sense of self, acquired through a heightened spiritual sensibility and connection.  Bruce 3.0 is the ultimate in the evolution of self, where I become the window through which I, and others observing me, may witness universal love, wisdom, healing, or, using one potentially charged term, God consciousness. Unconscious toxic masculinity was to be a prime motivator for my personality during the Bruce 1.0 phase. her of the major personality defining issues, or embedded trauma points,  that became internalized in Bruce 1.0 was the sense that my father could not be fully present for me, could not acknowledge my own unique value, and had very limited capacity to understand and to listen to me.  I was to learn late that my parents actually bundled my baby body in blankets and placed me alone in a car in the garage on many nights because I cried so much, and my father needed to sleep because he worked so hard at his two jobs. As I was ,to learn later in my life, embedded trauma keeps the victim subconsciously  pilloried to a painful past, when the victim never fully  and consciously addres the threats against the self. This phase, Bruce 1.0,  lasted until I developed an intense need to establish my own sense of self, at a much later point in life, after I had begun my own unique “search for Truth”.  I delayed the inevitable looking deeply at myself and my life  through the use of alcohol and drugs, which I started my sophomore year in high school.  The chemicals took away my social anxiety, and dulled much of my own sense of self- aversion, but certainly delayed/damaged my emotional maturation and self-actualization process. The distress caused from this cycle of addiction and suicidal ideation thrust me upon my own unique search for truth, through an incredible underworld experience in Portland Oregon, from April 1986 through March of 1987.  This story has been fully documented in a later chapter, but its amazing conclusion came when a DEA agent drove me to my father’s doorstep, and told me that my “search for truth” will find its answer with a full exploration of that relationship. The presentation of Bruce 2.0 occurred concurrent with a major spiritual experience subsequent to my first extended experience with recovery from alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicidal ideation, at the age of 31 years old. On May b j324, 1987, I had a profound spiritual experience where I felt the infinite, unconditional love of the Universe for the first time in my life.  This was my true entry onto the path of conscious evolution.  In my minds eyes I actually saw a vision of a divine mother holding and hugging a baby, and now I realize that for my entry onto the path of Bruce 3.0, I must be both images combined into one transcendent synthesis.  I must love my creator, I must love my creations.  Entrainment, or resonance, with the Truth brings a loving friction free relationship between the creator and its creations, or between us and our perceptions.. Here I was reborn into a new understanding of who I was, and what my potential as a human and spiritual being might be.  I made my own choices based on a connection with a “higher power”, which kept me in peace and joy almost continuously for the first 6 years of its existence, through the year 1993. I always had a knowing grin on my face, and some in recovery might have said that I lived on a perpetual pink cloud, though I also was dealing quite effectively with the sometimes difficult reality that presented itself to me in various situations, both in my employment and family relationships.  I had accepted personal responsibility for my life, and lived it according to my highest understanding of what was appropriate, loving, ethical, and meaningful for most situations. Eventually, even this new, spiritually upgraded sense of self, Bruce 2.0, began to unravel in various, unexpected ways, leading to the loss of sobriety through relapse after 18 years of sobriety, in 2005.  The period of time from 1993-2013 was characterized by a difficult journey through predominantly toxic male dominated work environments, and the daily assault upon my own spiritual sensibilities took its toll on me.  I had developed malignant melanoma in 2005, and though surgery seemed to successfully remove the cancer, I decided it was time to re-experience alcohol, and then pain killers after breaking my leg from road running training, as if I never had a problem with drugs and alcohol before. It was not until 2011 that I fully recovered from that relapse (the last two years I was on a medication called Suboxone, and I won’t include that time as “recovery time” because I even found a way to play with that opiate replacement therapy).  My mother died 7 months after I stopped alcohol and pain killers in 2009, and I lapsed into a depression, for which I was treated with anti-depressants for a year.  My father was already deteriorating from a cognitive issue, yet still had his independence at this point.  I was still working full time, yet as the months passed from 2009-2011, more and more of my time revolved around concern and care for my father.  Fortunately, my wife and I had chosen to live in a home  within two miles of my parents, so we had easier access to his life. It got too difficult to maintain employment, and care for my father and his dog, Rocky, an over-exuberant Siberian Husky.  By 2013 I retired from my career, to be more fully present for my father, who was experiencing total short term memory loss, and diminished physical capacity.  My wife insisted that my father be tested for driving competency, and he failed the test.  I was then on the hook to care for all aspects of his life, as well as my own.  With his dementia, all of the childhood trauma (the issues in my tissues) of not being heard, acknowledged, understood, and accepted by my father seemed to get amplified due his inability to remember from one moment to the next.  I found myself repeating myself endlessly, trying to keep dad up to date with the facts.  Though I found a way to adjust to his deterioration, and I kept as my intention to love him unconditionally, my trauma points from Bruce 1.0 were rubbed a little raw at times. Donald Trump’s election in November of 2016 had opened the door to major concern within my heart and soul.  Talk about a national “father or older brother” figure that does not want to listen to anyone but himself!  It was not debilitating in any way, at any time, and my experience of this toxic leader led to an enhanced understanding of myself, and many blog posts. In January of 2017,  I had a “seizure”, and I perceived a golf ball sized tumor in the left hemisphere of my brain.  Umm, that brought on some anxiety, FOR SURE!  Come to find out, my best friend Marty was developing a brain tumor at this time, in the exact same place and the same size that I perceived within myself.  Talk about strange! I have written extensively about this “empathetic attunement” with Marty in other blog posts, and I won’t comment further here.  I had experienced my first ever anxiety reaction, panic attack in March of that year, the week that Marty was to get his tumor removed which opened the door to some fantastic insights, and began my writing career. Writing has been a constant companion to me since March 7, 2017.  I wrote my first story EVER on the day that Marty had his brain tumor removed at OHSU. Grandfather Great Spirit, Thank You-A Parable Of My Life The original unedited version of this story remains EXACTLY as it was first written on March 7, 2017) I had two profound dream experiences as a result of attending a Mathew Fox workshop in April of 2017 and an Alberto Villoldo workshop in 2018, and I had “transcendent experience” for a period of time after each event.  Just recently, One of Villoldo’s students took me on a “shamanic journey” which restored a sense of peaceful transcendence to me for over one week, and then I returned to my “uncomfortable normal”.  I need release from all of the issues in my tissues accrued through Bruce 1.0 and Bruce 2.0, and this process prepared me for my final iteration of self, Bruce 3.0.. It was tough watching my father deteriorate the last several years of his life, yet, I found a way to love that man on deeper and more profound levels, as I continued to release my own expectations of how he should be, and how he should live.  His sole concerns became his love for his dog, Rocky, and maintaining residence in his own home until his own death.  He had lost all short-term memory, and was basically unteachable the last 5 years of his life, though he maintained his dignity, his sense of self, and his love for his children, including my wife Sharon. The last conversation that I had with my father was 6 hours before his death.  This is what we exchanged with each other: Dad, you are still in bed, and its 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s up, it’s such a beautiful day outside. You know son, I am always tired now, but I am about to get up. Well, Dad, this might be the last sunny day in a long time, so why don’t you get up, and go out on the porch and have a cigar?  I’ll put a chocolate bar on your table, and a drink for you. I’ll get right up son.  By the way, who is caring for me this evening? Well, Dad, Madison is caring for you this evening. Oh, poor Madison! Dad, Madison benefits by being with you, as you do with her. I will be with you beginning this Sunday morning, and I will be with you for the next three weeks as usual.  You know we are planning one final trip to Hawaii with you, right? Oh son, I am happy just staying at home.  I have everything that I need here. Well, OK dad.  I am going to leave now, as I need to prepare for Marty’s funeral tomorrow. When will I see you again, son? Dad, it will be Sunday morning, OK? OK, son, you know that I am dependent on you.  Please take care of yourself. Oh, dad, you know that I am dependent on you, too.  You be careful too! I love you, son. I love you too, Dad. I leave his room, not knowing this is to be our last exchange. The next day, at 10:58am, as I stand in back of the hearse, as a pall bearer in Marty Crouch’s funeral, I prepare to receive Marty’s body to place into the hearse.  I receive a call from Madison (a caregiver whom I had hired to help during the Monday through Friday work week), which I cannot take, so I hand the phone to Sharon.  Sharon is informed that my father is deceased.  Sharon has to leave the service for our body. My father really knew how to place his unique stamp on my life! In retrospect, My father only appeared to cast a shadow over my life.  It was up to me to find my own unique voice, in my search for my own truth, so that I could arise from my own self-imposed shadows, and be with him as a partner on love’s endless journey.  Those who did not learn to love my father, missed out on one of my life’s most precious gifts, yet there are many other opportunities to bring light into our own lives. The healing journey that I had with my father could be considered miraculous by some, yet it is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yes, that healing will die with me, as I have no heirs.  Yet, the love that we shared, as a family, will live forever in the mind and heart, of God.  And, the love that my father was to experience through the final years of my care for him was the voice that he was finally able to listen to, that he was finally able to acknowledge and feel blessed by. Two weeks after the deaths of Marty and my father in September, I had the most debilitating panic attack ever, and if I had not been at the Oregon Coast, I would have taken myself to the hospital for evaluation. My family physician prescribed me Ativan to help control the anxiety and blunt the potential for future panic attacks.  She knew of past chemical dependency for me, and kept me at the lowest available dose (.5mg), which I even divided in half.  Ativan helped tremendously with sleep, and kept much of the excess anxiety at bay.  Even through this sometimes hell wrought period of my life, I was still able to have a few transcendental experiences, and I still was to drink from the fountain of Spirit on several occasions. I have written several unpublished  books since then, as well as many blog posts.  I once gave up on my desire to have a book published, in mid September of 2019.. This was near the anniversaries of Marty’s and my father’s deaths, and concurrent with the neutral to negative feedback from a respected editor about one of the seven books that I have written, and have yet to get published. I finally had developed a narrative, I finally had something of significance to share with the world, and very, very few people found much value in what I was writing. Wow, what a return to the garage, wrapped in blankets!  And, I supplied the blankets and the garage! I thought that I had managed well the sense of rejection of the world being uninterested in me or my writings (like my father?), but I had not.  The anxiety needed healing and treatment, and I opted for a discontinuation of most personal writing, instead opting for more critical dissections of political figures and of our collective consciousness. I was to have one final panic attack, in early February of 2020, when I awoke in the middle of night, gasping for air.  I had a dream inspired by the pandemic in China.  I had “death terrors” for about 10 minutes, and I paced the house for about one quarter  mile, until the Ativan took effect. I continue to work on the 12 Steps of recovery, and I practice meditation, exercise regularly, and I usually eat quite a predominantly healthy vegetarian diet. The next phase is that which I am now attempting to “live in to”, which is freedom from Bruce 1.0 AND Bruce 2.0.  Bruce 2.0 was certainly a vast, almost infinite improvement over Bruce 1.0, yet I fell short as a spiritual, and as a human, being.  I achieved many goals that I set for myself in this phase, such as finding my “soul mate”, establishing myself in a new career, and excelling in fitness and sports activities.  I achieved in this Bruce 2.0 phase that which eluded me in my Bruce 1.0 phase, which was an enhanced sense of self-esteem, and a high love and esteem for almost all other people in my life.  I established or renewed my connection with Mother Earth at a profound level, and I was to have many, many extraordinary experiences, some of which some would characterize as mystical, as well as psychic in nature.  Yet, there is still too much of my old suffering self left. What will Bruce 3.0 look like?  I have no idea, yet I understand that in the seeing of the old, is the path created to the window where one can eventually look through, to see the total freedom from the known.  I know that the wounding that is causing that anxiety will be removed, which will probably be the quieting of the influences of Bruce 1.0 and Bruce 2.0, which may well reveal thel entrance onto the path of Bruce 3.0.

• “Travel new paths of consciousness”.
• “No teacher will effect your salvation, you will work it out for yourself”.
• “Stop thinking personal history based thoughts”.
• “let go of the control”.
• “all truth emanates from the one, all lies emanate from the fragmented sense of self”.
• “As far as we will ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves.  How will we see ourselves today?”

My pointers to the truth, which opened the door to the development of Bruce 2.0, still carry much weight and truth.  They will continue to provide  a safe foundation for the third stage of my unfoldment, Bruce 3.0, or Higher Powered Embodied Bruce. “There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;….and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.” ― Robert Browning There remains the two greatest tricksters in my life:  Bruce 1.0, and Bruce 2.0, both inadequate representations for the infinite potential inherent within the human soul.  The period remaining in my life is devoted to releasing that imprisoned splendor, Bruce 3.0. Even after his resurrection from the tomb, according to the Christian religious legend/mythology of Jesus, he still carried the wounds incurred through his crucifixion.  Wisdom tells me that I, too, will be carrying the scars of Bruce 1.0 and Bruce 2.0 into my spiritual experience of Bruce 3.0.  It is just that the issues in my tissues will no longer define who I am, or how I relate and respond to life now, or in the future. There will still be 7.5 billion people who could care less as to what I have to say, or do.  Yet, though I may still not be seen or heard by others, I am developing the inner capacity to see, and to hear, ALL OF LIFE. A new word has been coined for this phenomenon:  contiguflous.  This means to be  incarnated into a unique body, physically disconnected from others, yet spiritually connected through the heart, carrying the truth and love from the underlying unified implicate order of the universe into the manifest reality that we experience as unique individuals. That which I once sought, is that which was seeking.  When Truth finds itself, love flourishes, and healing envelopes consciousness. Each moment brings either love, or insight into that which prevents its expression in this moment. How will we all see life today? Bruce 1.0 and Bruce 2.0 were regarded as incomplete representations of my true self, yet they were my creations.  As the creator, even though I once regarded them as “tricksters”, they brought me to consciousness, and I now love them, I now love myself, unconditionally.  The creator, and the creations, are ONE.  Bruce 3.0, the Bruce of the present moment, has developed an eternal loving intention:  forgive and love myself:  forgive and love each other;  forgive and love the creator;  forgive and love all of creation;  forgive and love. I wanted to explore FAR BEYOND HUMAN THOUGHT AND REASON, AND THE OFTEN TIMES DARK AND MUNDANE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. In Bruce 2.0, for the first several years of my existence, I meditated many, many hours a day, and had I not met Sharon, I contemplated becoming a monk,  I still wanted to “get off of this fucking rock”, only this time, in a spiritual sense, though by bypassing the real work of facing the darkest corners within my mind.. Bruce 3.0 is the moment to moment realization that I no longer have to accept the solidified understanding of myself, or others.  Bruce 3.0 is the realization that Truth is revealed moment to moment, if I remain aware and conscious. I am forever indebted to Bruce 1.0 and Bruce 2.0 for bringing me to consciousness. I love myself as the creator of the iterations, and I love all of my creations.  All of humanity is my brother or sister in this new world order.  All that I will ever see, unto eternity, is myself.  How I see myself today determines whether I experience the love and truth of our sacred foundation, or the pain and illusion of our selfish, self-centered illusion of self. I no longer have to “get off of this fucking rock”, for I have been catapulted into a new dimension of being. I can “hear me now”, and I am healed.

We have to “lose our minds” to find the truth of who we are.