Book 8: Chapter 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