I Am Now A Writer, After All!

“There is a light that we can’t always see, 

There is a world we can’t always be.    “

Apparently, a stuck kidney stone, or a prostate issue, has brought the greatest misery to me for the last few days.  Something unusual started happening three weeks ago when blood started appearing in my urine.  This culminated in recent kidney and urinary tract infections..  So I hereby give a disclaimer to the reader, my brain has been hijacked by fatigue and toxified and prone to confusion from the internal microbial apocalypse created by this infection.  I disavow any knowledge or claim any conscious responsibility for what I am about to write.

I now have a raging, system wide bacterial infection called sepsis, which started in the urinary tract and kidneys, and eventually reached into my throat. My mother died of MERSA, and I am not yet ready to join her.

There is nothing quite like frantic runs to the restroom four times an hour. To even pee caused great pain, with my whole body hurting clear into my fingertips.  I would prefer to run another ten marathons to that fitness plan.

For a few moments I thought I might die Wednesday and Thursday because I felt so weak and miserable.  I shook so hard I almost lost my clothes. I felt sick and subdued, and I have slept often during the last two days.  I contemplated the nearness and inevitability of my own demise, it felt that close.

I got antibiotics Thursday, slept all day Friday, and feel almost like myself Saturday, other than feeling quite fatigued. Sunday little changed, but at least I stabilized.  I have a CAT scan scheduled to see if I have a stuck kidney stone. I “feel” the presence of unfriendly visitors in my body, including in the right side, in about the same area as the last stone, which appeared three years ago.

I hope that it is just a kidney stone, though they can create the most painful and disabled bodily status..Prostatitis is another possibility, with unattractive possibilitiess for creating bodily dysfunction too.

While almost down for the count, I saw how little connection I have created with my world since my parents’ deterioration and deaths, a process that started close to 2006, changed in 2009 with my mother’s death, and only appeared to end in 2017 with my father’s death. During that time I devoted much of my life to loving and caring for my parents, at, apparently, a high social cost to me.

“If there is a dark
That we shouldn’t doubt
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out.”

Since 2016 when I first began to write, I have been exploring the entirety of human existence. That is what retirement is for, according to my spirit!  My personal experience of cultural and family trauma, and paths to spiritual recovery from all such brokenness, have predominated the writings. I have looked deeply at the embedded toxicities within our religious, economic, and family systems, which is guaranteed to attract few new friends or potential publishing companies.  People appear to like to live their day to day lives with as little uncomfortable feedback as possible, escape the sometimes drudgery of existence, and to read about other things, for sure.

“I know the world is done
But you don’t have to be
I’ve got a question for the child in you before it leaves
Are you tough enough to be kind?
Do you know your heart has its own mind?
Darkness gathers around the light
Hold on
Hold on.. . . .”

.

I no longer am happy to just blend in, and not rock the boat, when I am with people who are part of our cultural conspiracy of silence around this world’s distorted Patriarchal values. I now acknowledge the importance of expressing difficult feelings around all such issues while healing from trauma and other forms of spiritual wounding. It is rarely welcome information, and I was told by one acquaintance I should consider rejoining the conspiracy.

I lost one long term friend, Gary Spanovich in 2019 (yes, Oregon 2000 gubernatorial candidate and co-originator of the Wholistic Peace Institute) because of my voice, writings, and present point of view. We had quite the disagreement with how to communicate with people hypnotized with Trumposis.  Correcting Gary in front of an international audience did not endear him to me, but somebody had to do it.  Someday I will have to tell the full story of the nude sweat lodge ceremony that he organized on his Canby property in 1991.  AWKWARD!

I probably scared away a few others with the overall change in perspective I have had over the last 30 years, leaving behind a lot of interesting but illusory spiritual concepts.  It is amazing how far I went to hide my true self from the world for much of my life, unconscious and cowering behind the curtains provided by the teachings of others.

In 1998 I had to leave a friendship with a well known Bikram yoga teacher and author because of his toxicity, which was painful, but necessary. There was a lot of collateral damage from that experience, for sure, and it signaled the final end of a Living Enrichment Center inspired men’s group of twelve, started in 1991.

I was one of the original members of the 300 strong Empowerment Community, founded by Michael and Dianne Sutton in 1992. Our dear friend Michael’s death in 2013 symbolizes the end of that amazing spiritual journey, and community, for me.

The untimely, tragic, and inevitable deaths of many dear friends, family, and companion animals have also been  fellow travelers with me on the journey through adult life..There is no way to create old friends, or new family members now.  All of these people that I used to know and co-created joy, peace, and connection with me are gone, and I am not in the best position to create new communities, or generate interest in such things now.

I have no children or others under any family or social obligation to be of service to me for when I begin the final, inevitable decline, other than my wife, so we are now considering our options for caring for ourselves and each other as we transition into age related disability and/or death.  Rose Villa, where our friends Akiko and Peter now live, is appearing on our near-term radar.  We have to pay big to play by life’s new rules. Community building begins anew, yet under a different set of conditions we did not co-create.

My once  immortal self is anything but that now!

I reached out to a dozen or more RPHS ’73 graduates at/after the 50 year reunion for further friendship, apparently there is no reciprocated interest. I never was in the popular group, and my healing, spirituality perspectives, and personality style does little to make that likely in my present iteration as a senior citizen.

The past is dying, or dead.  I am being prepared for a new life that will not let the outdated versions of me be carried into it.

My voluminous writing has done nothing to improve the situation. Other than the competent, beautiful, but expensive editor, Melinda Copp, I have had only four people show interest in talking to me about my writings, wife Sharon, current friend Jim Hussey,.high school best friend Sean Tucker, and sister Pam. I think and write about important issues that few are interested in, or, perhaps, the reader dislikes the style of my presentations and would prefer to read the material from other sources.  With the oncoming Artificial Intelligence invasion, authors like me are a dying breed, for sure.

My blog site and the Facebook news feed are writer’s graveyards and frequently where my writing goes to be buried. I should probably post a motorcycle escort with all such future feeds.  My writing can be as popular as the plague, but I am not deterred, realizing that blogging and Facebook, though convenient, are ultimately inappropriate for my writing needs. If I don’t tag my wife to my Facebook posts, 80% of the time I get zero hits.  Where is the dopamine rush in that?  My wife Sharon at least gives me some credibility, as far as Facebook goes.  I have two caring women from other parts of the world who sometimes follow my blog.

“If there is a light
We can’t always see
And there is a world
We can’t always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn’t doubt
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out. . . .”

I respect the writings, though!  Writing is a wonderful expression of my Spirit and Flesh, and a favorite distraction for me now.  Writing usually heals and brings comfort to me from feelings of grief or loneliness and perceptions of my social irrelevance.  Writing has been a real friend for me. I have become reacquainted with an amazing truth about Life Itself!

I have finally found myself.

Yet, there will be no community forming around this lifelong endeavor, other than the healing community of my thoughts.

I am sometimes saddened, yet often still hopeful about my life.  I have gratitude for what each new moment brings.  No longer hypnotized by unconscious cultural toxicities, pseudo-Christian religious ideology, and/or inebriating substances, I can see more clearly now, save for when the fog descends into my essence through temporary unconsciousness or a severe illness, like now..

I am still listening to myself, though sometimes the story feels a little better with music.

I am a writer, after all.

And I hope that you are, too!

“And this is a song
A song for someone
This is a song
A song for someone
Someone like me
Someone like me
Someone like me.”

Music lyrics from U2, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, from Songs of Innocence

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TG88leSvR4A&si=_YkI8qid76VuOGOU

I AM

I am the brightest of mornings, I am the cloudiest of days,
I am the silent night altar upon which mankind prays and preys.

I am the Olmec and Mayan of times old, recent, and new,
I am all civilization’s ruins, and the ever-evolving life that regrew.

I am the bird’s call, its flight, and the wind beneath its wings,
I am the music and spirit that joyously lifts hearts up to sing.

I am the rain, the water, the lagoon and the bay,
I am the infinite ocean where my children are birthed, live, love and play.

I am the blue sky, the weather changes, and the gathering of clouds,
I am the lightning storms that are now appearing so dangerous and loud.

I am the wind and the sun, and the warm soothing breeze,
I am even our cold’s most raucous cleansing sneeze.

I am the dolphin and manatee, and the mangrove lined shores,
I am waves crashing against rocks, that photographers adore.

I am the mind, and the end to its lonely thoughts,
I am the heart’s loving web in which we are miraculously caught.

I am the boisterous protests, the police, and the crowds made quiet,
I can be even be found witnessing the white supremacists’ riot.

I am the wealthy, and the hurt, oppressed and poor,
I am our heritage, history, and future until we all are no more.

I am the Obamas and Bidens, the Putins and Trumps,
I am love’s warriors, and I am also hate’s chumps.

I am the Christian, and the Hindu, the Muslim and the Jew
I am the Atheist and Buddhist who you never thought that you knew.

I am the cancer and its treatment, and the movement towards health,
I am the healing balm that works mysteriously in stealth.

I am the grief, the loss, the pain and the sorrow,
I am the deepest well of hope from which we eternally borrow.

I am our lifetime, our body and its breath,
I am the blessed last moment before each of our deaths.

I am the death of the false self that leads to the only true heaven,
Our denial of this truth brings the hellish news on channel two at eleven.

I am the sacred, mundane, and even the profane,
I am the source of all that we treasure, resisting me only adds to life’s pain.

I am not the movement of our thoughts, while we cling to concepts of time,
I am the emergence from all shadows, we must reach for the sublime

What is my name, and where is my place?
Being ONE is seeing Me on every smiling and suffering sentient beings’ face.

(inspired by our trip to Belize in January, 2019)

Bruce Paullin

In honor of all of the innocent oppressed, bullied, victimized, traumatized, gassed, misogynized, persecuted, marginalized, neglected, abused, murdered, alienated, and institutionalized human beings, and all of the animals that are being driven into extinction, as we are all overrun by the principles of toxic masculinity in it’s almost infinite varieties of forms.. Toxic masculinity, toxic fatherhood, and toxic religion are cultural and historical impediments to achieving and maintaining happiness and good health.

Patriarchy is not only adhering to human male dominated perspectives, it is hearing the voice for God with a masculine intonation.  Whatever “truth” a seeker finds, if it has a masculine slant, that tone is the distance left to travel to find the real truth.  God is the Universe, Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit, Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, Shankara, Grandfather Great Spirit, Father, Son, You, Me, Mother Nature, Earth, the Still Small Voice, the Sacred, the Profane, Good, Evil, and infinitely more. If the Kingdom of God is within us, and God is Infinite, guess what?  It is time to finally learn about our Real Self.  Any attachment to one understanding thus dramatically limits the spiritual aspirant’s evolution through its own God consciousness.

Just saying!

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” – Psalm 46:10

Set out, pilgrim. Set out into the freedom and the wandering. Find your people. God is much bigger, wilder, more generous, and more wonderful than you imagined. – Sarah Bessey

See Matthew 16:26 from Bible for comparison