The Search For Truth, Spiritual Evolution, Healing, and Purpose–A Multi-Media Experiment

• “He Was Just Waiting For A Better Day”—-Owner of the Punjab Tavern, 1986

 

Be mindful, oh Mankind, of all those painful secrets that you must keep

From a suffering silence you never awaken, dying without hope in your troubled sleep

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Unless the LORD ( Love Ordering Reality Daily) builds the house, they labor in vain that build it—-Psalm 127

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If it’s painful for you to hear my story, it’s OK. That’s part of the process because my story includes pain, so don’t stop listening because you are uncomfortable. If you would just move past your discomfort you might learn something about empathy and compassion and mercy and justice. —-Pastor Gricel Medinas

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It is truly amazing, and disheartening to witness the continuing blindness of  the unconscious and unaware elements of our culture. This spiritual blindness cuts across all income levels, religious affiliations, ethnicities, and races.. People with otherwise perfect 20/20 vision, when presented with a mirror, choose to look away, and even claim that they never saw themselves in it.  There is no need to question why there is insufficient empathy and compassion in this world.  PEOPLE LOOK AWAY, AND REFUSE TO SEE THEMSELVES—Elisha Scott.

This is a multi- media experiment using many memes, songs, poems, photographs, and prayers.  There is some supportive writing from me with a few excerpts from the previous eight books that I have written. My desire to enhance the general public’s interest in my writing has become an extraordinarily expensive proposition for me, and I understand that I may fail in my intentions.

I have personally experienced many of the ills, griefs,  and disappointments available to us as human beings.  I have also experienced many, if not all,  of the eternal truths spoken by the greats of all ages (we all do, if we pay close enough attention), yet I am not a “great”, nor will I ever be considered as such. While I treasure my anonymity,  i cannot avoid the perception that most people would rather read all of the historical spiritual savants’ messages than my own, so this work is my compromise with that understanding.

Yet, creativity and the desire to express myself continues, irregardless of other’s interests, or lack thereof,  in my own work.

Skin cancer, the inevitability of aging, and other issues, threaten to shorten my days.  As they say, there are a lot more birthdays behind me, than are ahead of me.

Healing, and Spirit, keeps every day imbued with infinite meaning and purpose.

Why on Earth are we here?

1. To see our self more clearly
2. To bring healing to our self so that we may grow and evolve without limitations
3. To then wholeheartedly be our true self

My life’s work began on November 20, 1955, and continues to this day. This is a picture of my starter version of myself, at 20 months.

Especially if you grow up to recreate your parents and/or grandparents dysfunction

To reach old age with wisdom, one had to be young and stupid, with a lot of luck

The slowly shifting desert sands of time

Create ever taller hills for all lost thirsty souls to climb

It is in this selfish pain filled world of little reason or rhyme,

That we begin our search for Truth and find healing waters of Love Sublime

My first drunk was when I was 5 years old, according to my father.  I chugged his bottle of beer when he left the room for a few moments.  I passed out and fell off of the couch.  Dad carefully watched his beers after that.  SO DID I.

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy” is one of the most famous of modern drinking quips. But who said it first? Tom Waits said the line on the August 1, 1977 episode of the television show Fernwood2night, a parody of The Tonight Show. Waits played a song, and then said the line in pre-scripted banter with the show’s host. it would appear that a television comedy writer should get credit for the line, but Waits said in a 2005 interview that he first read it on a bathroom wall. Waits: One is never completely certain when you drink and do drugs whether the spirits that are moving through you are the spirits from the bottle or your own. And, at a certain point, you become afraid of the answer. That’s one of the biggest things that keeps people from getting sober, they’re afraid to find out it was the liquor talking all along.” “I was trying to prove something to myself, too. It was like, ‘Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat? What am I made of? What’s left when you drain the pool?” Tom Waits

Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy—Benjamin Franklin.  Beer is proof that we can self medicate our self out of the pain and misery of a traumatized and/or empty life—–for awhile

I used to roll a joint with my right hand while driving, often with a beer between my legs

Senior year high school 1973-Beer, pot, and friendship (Bruce Chapman laying down, Tony Mecklem, Randy Olson, and me on right)

Well, some days I drank 4 quarts of beer as preparation for a night of heavy drinking and using.  Randy Olson and I would often travel the City, visiting rock and roll bars, closing them, and hanging out with the local rock stars for early morning adventures with yet more alcohol, cocaine, umm, important Portland celebrities, and, umm, women.

(the following is an excerpt from Book #2)

I was asked on my birthday in 2017 what my most “memorable” birthday was, and here, to the best of my recollection, is an account of the near death experience..

I was 21 years old, and my best friend at that time, Dan Dietz (RIP), and John Durkin, went with me to the Faucet Tavern. I was already a “seasoned drunk” by the time I had arrived at the age of 21, but being able to “legally” enter taverns and bars seemed like a big deal at the time (I had been getting into bars since I was 16 years old, usually accompanied by Dan). The southwest Portland Faucet tavern seemed like a great place to visit, as it was famous for its turtle races, and its all-around “party hardy” atmosphere.

Dan and I bought a bottle of booze, and we kept it in the trunk of his car, to “sip” from, in between beers at the tavern. I started out my birthday evening by playing several games of pool, gambling $5 a game with some “locals”. At that time of my life, I was a very good pool player, and I removed a few bucks from some very unhappy patrons. One unhappy patron followed me out to Dan’s car, where I was grabbing a swig off of a whisky bottle. He let me know that he did not like me having so much fun at his expense, and tried to fight with me. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but somehow the fight got “postponed”.

I walked back into the tavern, and enjoyed a couple more beers with Dan and John, and played some more pool. I was quite the “happy drunk”, though my behavior did not make the outraged individual I had already taken $20 from feel any better about me. The next time I walked out to Dan’s car, that unhappy man grabbed two of his friends, and they all tried to “teach me a lesson”. Dan looked out from the tavern door at his car, and saw that I was in trouble, and secured the bar manager. But it was too late, one guy pulled a knife, and the fight was on. There were a few lunges at me with the knife, and a couple of punches thrown (none quite hit me). There was a lot of loud voices, and some yelling and screaming.

The manager called the police, but at that same moment, the guy with the knife took a final stab at me. According to the reports from Dan, I spun kicked the knife out of his hand (which was an act of pure, unadulterated luck on my part), and then I threatened to take his head off with the next kick. The sirens of the police cars about to arrive there scared the three attackers away, and it also scared Dan and John, who quickly threw me into the car, and we drove off up Beaverton Hillsdale Highway towards Wilson High School.

I got angry with Dan for not coming out to help me with the attackers, and he told me that calling the police was the best that he could do. He then not so politely, invited me to walk home from close to Wilson HIgh, to Milwaukie, about 7 miles or so. I was fortunate to make it home in one piece, and not be arrested for being drunk in public, or for drunken walking. I visited Dan the next day, and apologized to him. He was in really bad shape, and he was still pretty hung over. And he was the designated driver!

Sadly, Dan and I ceased being best friends in 1981, after he assaulted my wife of that time, Donelle, while she was drunk and insane. Dan died of a heart attack around 1997, not even making it to 45 years of age. Many of my other drinking and drugging buddies have also died young, through suicide or disease, or are presently disabled due to the excesses of their young adulthood.

I became “sober” in 1987, after my own suicide attempts led me into an epic underworld journey.  It is the stuff of movies, and of nightmares, and has been documented elsewhere.

I am still “21 years old”, but with 44 years of extra experience! The last 33 years have been pretty sober, however, with a couple of minor slips. The world rests a little easier because of my sobriety, I am sure! I know that I rest easier.

Life can be some kind of fun, huh?  What a long, strange, miraculous, healing and redemptive trip it has been.

The photographs are from my first wedding, which was 22 months after this 21st birthday near-death experience..  Fortunately for those who survived our bacchanalian young adulthood, there are no selfies, or cell-phone photographs to be persecuted with in our “older age”.

My parents placed my baby version of myself in a car in the garage every work night, because I cried so much, and my father worked two jobs and needed to sleep.  Probably not a good idea, eh?  Anybody wonder why I had the perception that my pain and loneliness would never be recognized by others, and my voice has no value, and would never be heard?  Excessive discipline and bi-monthly beatings with a belt until I was 13 years old, emotionally unsupportive behavior, and public shaming by my father and other humiliations did not help much, either..

Painting recovered from the ruins in Pompeii. That patriarchal culture believed that an erect penis was a symbol for prosperity, cultural placement, and personal empowerment. Patriarchy, and its ugliest of spawn, toxic masculinity has been around for a LONG LONG time. My erect penis as an under 30 man never pointed me in the right direction, usually resulting in more suffering for me, and others, FOR SURE.

(Excerpt from Book #3)

Here are some principles of toxic masculinity that I found live in our collective consciousness, and which also lived in unconscious domains of my own mind and heart. I have exaggerated them, and linked them with common monetary, sexual, and personal power dynamics. And yes, these principles, or variations of these themes, are part of the Common Knowledge Game (CKG) fundamentals for erroneous understanding of self and other. If they appear to mimic some of the values and principle’s underlying Donald Trump’s abhorrent behavior, then you are already paying close attention to our collective consciousness, and its dangerous and sometimes catastrophic influence on the affairs of humanity throughout our history.

1. I am the center of the Universe. The rest of humanity is here either for my pleasure, for my profit, or for my disdain. I may attend a church occasionally, so that I can create the impression that I worship a higher power than myself. But, I already know that there is no higher power but me. HUMILITY IS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME, and is only for the poor and weak among us.
2. Truly loving another human being is a sign of weakness, and thus I must continue to suppress all such impulses so that I can achieve my selfish goals. I will carry on a campaign of hatred, judgement, and condemnation of all people unlike myself, all the while claiming to represent their interests at the highest level of my being (with subtlety, if one is of the passive/aggressive nature) . The ignorant people populating my world will hopefully associate my hateful behavior with their understanding of what love is, thus damaging the hearts and souls of all who may fear, respect, and/or follow me. My schizophrenia will be confusing to others, but may still be normalized, as others that I have influenced model and support my behavior.
3. ::People, and Mother Nature itself, are most valuable if they can be monetized. If I can’t make money from my relationship with people or our natural surroundings, then I don’t necessarily need them. They will have to prove that they belong in my life in some other selfish, self-serving ways. I choose to neglect the long term effects of my short sighted thinking, because now is the only moment to profit from others, and from the Earth.
4. Never admit that I am wrong. Always blame somebody else for my problems. The admission of guilt is a sign of weakness, and only for those who do not have sufficient monetary and legal power. I don’t need your forgiveness for my mistakes, because, as far as you should be concerned, I do not ever make mistakes.
5. I have a right to choose how much drugs and alcohol that I consume.  I do not need feedback from others telling me that I am abusing my medicine and/or alcohol.  I have earned the right to drink as much as I feel like, because I have so much stress in my life, and  I make so many sacrifices that I deserve an extra break and release through excessive alcohol and;/or drug consumption.  I do not have a problem, and if you think that I have a problem with my chemicals, then it is your misunderstanding, and not my own.
6. Never spend any time in self-reflection or meditation. Developing insight is difficult and time-consuming, and I have more important things to do  I am already perfect, I always have been perfect, and everybody else needs to change to accommodate my needs. If I am not “perfect” today, I always have someone, or something, else to blame.
7. I have a right to use my strong emotions to intimidate and threaten anybody that I need to in order to get my way.  My anger is a weapon, to be wielded whenever necessary, and its expression is my first selection from my arsenal of control tools in manipulating and controlling my world.
8. If I can’t get my way with another human being, then I will cajole or bully them into submission, or attack their name and character, and/or impugn their dignity, until they either submit, or are discredited by my allies.
9. Everybody unlike me  should be distrusted. Relationships built through mutual trust and collaboration can be threatening to my short-term goals, and should not be cultivated, as only alliances of hate and distrust are capable of bringing me to my goals.
10. The women in our lives are more suited to be our personal possessions than self-sufficient, independent people, and are not to be treated as equals, and are better suited for exploitation for family support, sexual purposes and/or economic gain.
11. If I can’t get my way through truth-telling, then the telling of lies becomes my most potent weapon. If I am caught in a lie, then it is only your misunderstanding of my point, and not what I said, that is wrong. If I tell the same lie often enough, then people will start to accept the lie as the truth.
12. If there is no conflict currently in progress, then I must start creating the conditions for the next one, and socially position myself so that I can maximize emotional profits and visibility for myself.
13. I never will obtain enough money, power, sex, or attention to keep me happy. I must continue to pursue these needs to extremes in order to keep me from becoming depressed and losing my sense of personal value in this world. If I achieve my goals, and I am still unhappy, I must set new goals to attempt to fill that big hole in my heart and soul.
14. The powers of my penis reigns supreme. When it is erect, it always points me in the right direction, regardless of the people who may be hurt by my wayward sexual desires. My self-esteem is dependent on how many women that I can convince to make love to me, and nobody is immune from my advances. One is too many, and a thousand is not enough, when it comes to sexual conquests.
15. I am the king of my home. I have created my kingdom to serve my selfish needs. If my rules are not honored, and my intentions for the family do not hold up, and family members start to stray, I will coerce, cajole, or threaten all wayward members with violence, if necessary. The family must stay together under my control, no matter what the cost to others might be.
16. Perfectionism and full control of others should not be mutually exclusive propositions. I will judge, criticize, and condemn others, and myself, as needed, to bring all of my world into alignment with how I think that it should be. I will compare and contrast my wealth and success with others to establish the best baseline for my expectations and behavior. My wife and my children are first and foremost my possessions. I will direct and control as necessary, and nobody else has any right to criticize my choices in how I provide and care for them.  My whole sense of self-esteem is derived by how deeply they honor and obey me, without argument or back talk. I do not want or need alternate points of view, as my view is the only view that is relevant.
17. If those closest to me engage in betrayal, and destroy my sacred relationship with my family, I must avenge myself, and destroy all who have threatened my life and values. My wife is my property, and my property alone.  If she should ever have an affair with another man, I reserve the right to punish her and my family, up to, and including, murdering them. If I must die in the process, it is a good death for me.
18. Self sabotage is my unconscious need, as I fail to achieve my goals.  It is my right to destroy my creations even as I destroy myself, so murder-suicide is an acceptable option in the extreme, when my needs have been dishonored, and I feel that I have no more options to achieve my goals, and improve my life situation.  I am that man who just wants to watch my world burn, just like I am now burning up inside.
19. I have been a failure since I never measured up to my father’s, my church’s, or my society’s standards. I will continue to self-sabotage my success at ever bend in life’s road, and I will see life as a self-fulfilling prophesy of incompleteness and loss. I will not even question that my life has other possibilities for it, and I will resign myself to my depressing fate.
20. I reserve the right to murder anybody, when it suits my needs to protect myself. I will justify my possession and use of firearms through quoting the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, as well as pointing to the fear and threats in our world, and our country as my own justification for stockpiling weapons. I will not listen to reason, as my mind is made up, and you can have my weapons after “prying them from my cold, dead hands” (thanks NRA, and the late mega-asshole Charlton Heston).

This list is the abbreviated list, as aspects of our collective selfishness covers the entire range of human darkness.  Men burdened by toxicity tend towards sexism, racism, isolation, poor judgement against all others unlike themselves, and low self-esteem, while men moving towards spiritual healing tend to unite with others in peace and mutual acceptance, and a willingness to share an improving sense of their self with the world.

Far too many men engage in our cultural conspiracy of silence daily, which is a most deadly component of the CKG.  These include the following admonitions:

• don’t talk
• don’t tell
• don’t touch
• don’t feel
• don’t engage
• don’t listen
• don’t change
• don’t heal

Caricature of men working things out between themselves. The conspiracy of silence is inculcated into many males, and females, too.

The abhorrent behavior of Donald Trump, the poster boy and face for toxic male stupidity and darkness, as well as his supporting cast of damaged characters, has become the de-facto leader of the energy of toxic masculinity.. If we as a culture, and me as an individual, don’t speak out, and affirm to ourselves, and to others, what the truth really is to us, then eventually the hypnosis and propaganda of others may become our own collective reality, and continue to overtly influence our personal integrity, community relationships and overall spirituality.

The  historical legacy of the American white man’s ignorance and evil, and his support network of unconscious, disempowered, fearful and/or cowardly family and community members, continues even up till today.  Subservient women, often times religiously inculcated to be that way, continue to follow their husband’s lead, and as a group remain one of the leading populations of unconscious support for continued unhealthy male dominance. There always comes the day when the family of the woman under the husband’s domination needed for her to speak up the most, and the whole family is further damaged because of her own silence and continued powerlessness.

Toxic men have their gun in one hand, their penis in the other hand, and no room for a bible, let alone understanding of its real message.

Toxic cultures, toxic religions, toxic economic systems, and toxic families CREATE TOXIC PEOPLE

Like “the Brute” grandpa Beryl, like father Beryl, like son (me)

Heaven did not want me, and Hell would not let me in permanently, for fear that I would take it over (one of the top 50 sayings my father used)

Randy Olson (died 2013) and Dan Dietz (right-died 1997) were the best men at my first wedding in 1979. They were my best friends, and both died having never stopped drinking, smoking, and being their normal fun loving selves.

Jeff Tobin 1970 Yearbook photograph.  Jeff was another childhood friend, and co-worker at the USPS with me until his first suicide attempt in 1979.  We partied together frequently up till that point.  He completed his suicide mission in 2010, shortly after seeing Sharon and I on the Oaks Bottom Trail in Sellwood.

Craig Salter 1970 yearbook photo.  My next door neighbor, and friend.  He had an IQ of over 140, and was a creative genius, though socially isolated. I introduced him to alcohol in 1972, and pot shortly afterwards.  He quickly became even worse of an alcoholic than me, getting into legal problems, and incurring horrible health side effects from his use.  Craig was instrumental in getting me back into AA in March of 1987.  He was committed to a care facility in 2011 with alcoholic dementia.

.PAIN (written while in alcoholic recovery unit 1984)

Just a  tree growing without roots with  a trunk that won’t bend

Weathering life’s continuous storms, which never seem to end

Hopelessly waiting for the sun which will never arise,

Knowing now that love’s truth will never show through my eyes.

Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,

With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.

Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,

Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.

Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,

Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.

Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,

With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

Time to clean the lifetime of road grime off of our headlights!!

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Hurt—Performed by Johnny Cash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI

• I hurt myself today
• To see if I still feel
• I focus on the pain
• The only thing that’s real
• The needle tears a hole
• That old familiar sting
• I try to kill it all away
• But I remember everything
• What have I become
• my dearest friend
• Everyone I know
• Goes away in the end
• And you can have it all
• My empire of dirt
• I will let you down
• I will make you hurt
• I wear this crown of thorns
• Upon my liars chair
• Full of broken thoughts
• I cannot repair
• Beneath the stains of time
• The feelings disappear
• You are someone else
• I am still right here
• If I could start again
• A million miles away
• I would keep myself
• I would find a way.

( Hurt–by Nine Inch Nails)

Just call the younger version of myself       SUPER FLY

I met Donelle in 1972.  We were to be life partners, but mental illness devastated her life, and my own, from 1973-1985, when I finally divorced her.  Her “nervous breakdowns” were the most heartbreaking experience, and sucked all of the spiritual wind out of both of our sails.  I sacrificed all of my childhood hopes and dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot, and, ultimately, an astronaut, for the relationship, quitting the Air Force ROTC in 1974, which had given me a full ride scholarship.  I had to withdraw, because Donelle’s mental health was too fragile, and she needed constant physical and emotional support.  In the end, she manifested multiple personality disorder.  In the end, I manifested the desire to end my life.  Drugs and alcohol just could not keep me from a most distressing truth:   Donelle was a living example of what traumatizing by sick parents can do to an innocent soul.  Her mother exposed her to repeated sexual abuse by sick men from her drunken affairs when she was only 6 years old.  Donelle had an amazing inner light, and a profound darkness which threatened destruction to all who knew her.  LIFE REALLY CAN SUCK, when sanity is not our life’s companion, and we can no longer pursue dreams.

Coldplay—-Fix You

I tried to get clean and sober several times between 1980 and 1985. I threw in the towel July 4, 1985, and made a date with death.

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Michael Cain, acting as Alfred, in Batman, The Dark Knight.  My world was ON FIRE.

Challenger Explosion January 28, 1986-The day I attempted suicide, and began my Search For Truth

The Look Of Death. Photograph From 4 days after suicide attempt

I asked the Universe to give me another sign.  It kept reflecting back to me myself!    WTF?

.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 innocent mind with worn out rhyme and reason,

And eternal wisdom will expel all thoughts that are charged with treason

 

God said to me “Love your enemies“

So I learned to love myself.

—-Kahlil Gibran

It’s Going To Get Better—Michael Franti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvuS9xX7sf4

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Watch out for all the vendors promoting their own version of healing while supporting spiritual bypassing of the major emotional work necessary for healing. We just can’t heal, without doing the WORK.

If we don’t squarely and honestly face our woundedness, and the traumas that we have experienced, we will remain pilloried to the past for the rest of our lives.

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Oh marionettes dancing image on the  screen of the world’s mind

With unhealed beliefs in control, what freedom can you find?

Release yourself from all your broken heart’s entrapping strings

And prepare for wisdom that a healing heart’s Intelligence brings

You ever wonder what the source of most of our mental illness is? I don’t!  Our society has an auto-immune disease, attacking itself with divisiveness, insults, racism, misogyny, homophobia, guns, insanity, and fools created through cultural toxicity and many innocent victims are falling by the wayside.

THE AMERICAN FOOLS ( written while in Cedar Hills Hospital, 1985)

I know who you are, there is no need for your name

You have many different faces, but inside you are the same

You vacation on ego trips, and play very strange mind games

You always strive for material success, with  its dubious fame

You chase the disguised nightmare called the American Dream,

You never stop listening to those financial touts, who endlessly scheme.

You forget what is important in life, thinking Capitalist dirt is life’s cream.

You wear the Emperor’s New Clothes, naked, and clothed in illusion it seems.

You are yet another graceless soul, blending into life’s darkest mass

You keep affirming your uniqueness, yet you are stuck in the same class

As those with delusions of grandeur, and appearances of an ass

Always steering clear of self-awareness, Oh your transparency of glass!

Spewing questionable words of wisdom, at times with a rabid dogs’ bark

Acting like you have a good life, but on life’s script just leaving another shit mark

You say that you have seen light, so why are your perceptions so dark?

You need more purifying inner flames, but you keep snuffing every divine spark

You think that you have blossomed, yet you do not yet possess Love’s flower,

You want to be carried by the river of sweetness, yet you still wade through the sour

You don’t yet realize that, over life, you hold very little lasting power

You try to avoid the reality of a dark life, often living in a white supremacist tower

You fear bringing up life’s rear, and you think that you should be first

You want all of the best, while making sure others unlike you gets the worst!

You think that your life should be more blessed, making sure others stay quite cursed

You have become an overblown toxic gas bubble, just waiting to be burst!

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On The Turning Away (Pink Floyd)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojf18wT_Xtk

.On the turning away

From the pale and downtrodden

And the words they say

Which we won’t understand “

Don’t accept that what’s happening

Is just a case of all the suffering

Or you’ll find that you’re joining in

The turning away”

It’s a sin that somehow

Light is changing to shadow

And casting its shroud

Over all, we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown

Driven on by a heart of stone

We could find that we’re all alone

In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night

As the daytime is stirring

Where the speechless unite In a silent accord

Using words you will find are strange

Mesmerized as they light the flame

Feel the new wind of change

On the wings of the night

No more turning away

From the weak and the weary

No more turning away

From the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share

It’s not enough just to stand and stare

Is it only a dream that there’ll be

No more turning away?

Our addicts/alcoholics, mentally ill, homeless, mass murderers, and suicide victims are all canaries in the gold mine of modern day American culture. The culture needs to be in the Intensive Care Unit, needing immediate healing and  repair. and Its victims need compassion, understanding, and forgiveness.  Are you still turning away? Why?

.Oh mental marathoner, only on Life’s treadmill you now stand

Culture’s secondhand words and thoughts make you just an “also ran”

Forever chasing in vain Love’s All-Knowing Voice

So be still, for with your run’s end, you will find cause to rejoice!

People change for two main reasons:

1. Their hearts have been broken
2. Their eyes have been opened

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Watch out for so-called spiritual greats who diminish the value of your ego, and attempt to demean your thoughts and feelings. These are your sacred creations, filled with energy, and they are the food that we feed upon within our cocoon, until our own enlightenment allows us to burst forth, and fly to the heavens on our own.

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Mischievous thinking at full throttle. God did not create this oxyMORONIC reasoning, so-called “religious” thinkers did.

White Jesus Approved—–White Jesus sure became the symbol for white supremacy, gun ownership, and oppression, if not genocide, of all non-white cultures.

Jesus is about to return: LOOK BUSY!

Churches are a magnet for those seeking community, and tribal support. Churches are NOT a magnet for attracting a more enlightened understanding of the powerful issues affecting most human beings today.  Church attendance continues to dramatically decrease, as the next generations express their opinions as to what serves their Spirit the best..

Humans, however, may roam about the countryside with no insight or adult supervision, as long as they are accompanied by their dogs.

Time to find our underlying Spirit that is buried under the external appearances of our life.  We can unleash our true self through a new creative understanding.

We can use our stories to keep us down, or we can use our stories to lift us up.

Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire?

Tis only champion of a dream world to which you would aspire!

Stop resuscitating those dead illusions with those mental pugilist blows,

To reawaken the peaceful mind of the One, who in the now, Knows!

THE DREAM (from a dream I had when I was eight years old, perhaps a view from another life)

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.

Lake Titicaca Peru-Bolivia-South-America

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!

Our emotionally encoded painful memories, and our pre- conscious tissue embedded traumas, keep us tethered to the past, and to the whipping post of our past suffering, when ignorance of other perceptual options were not available to us.  When our thoughts are controlled by suffering from our past, the movement of our thoughts are controlled by those painful memories, which are time dependent, and in the dead past.  In the seeing of this disturbing truth, we may find freedom.  There is a timeless awareness available,  only for those who have found freedom from those time based “knowns”.

I release my parents from the feeling that they have failed with me.  I release my children from the need to make me proud, so that they can write their own ways according to their own hearts  I release my partner from the obligation to make me feel complete. I lack nothing in myself.

I learn with all beings who surround me through all time.

I thank my grandparents and ancestors who met so today I breathe life.  And I release them from the faults of the past and the wishes they did not fulfill, aware that they did their best to resolve their situations within the consciousness they had at that moment.  I honor them, I love them, I recognize their innocence.  I bare my soul before their eyes, and that is why they know that I do not hide or owe anything more than being faithful to myself and my own existence walking with the wisdom of the heart.

I am aware that I am fulfilling my life project, free from visible and invisible family loyalties that may disturb my peace and happiness, which are my greatest responsibilities.

I renounce the role of savior, of being the one who unites or who fulfills the expectations of others.  And learning through love, I bless my essence and my way of expressing, although there are those who cannot understand me.

I understand myself, because only I lived and experienced my story because I know myself.  I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it.  I respect and approve of myself

I honor the Diversity in me and in you.

We are free.

A Traditional Nahuati Prayer

Grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary in 1980.  Wayne, Me, Donelle (front of me), Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Pam, Carla, Caryn, Brian

Dad and Mom

Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Wayne

Grandma Elsie, Grandpa Beryl( that Brute, as my father called him), Aunt Susie Paullin circa 1948

Uncle Ed, Aunt Susie, Dad.  On his death bed, Uncle Ed remembered my birthday.  On his death bed, my father could not remember 5 seconds past).

Pam, Great Grandpa (Mom’s side), Bruce

My wife Sharon (left), and my aunt Susie (my deceased father’s 93 year old sister)

Grandson Mitchell with Sharon, Sorrento, Italy 2021.

Graceland Chapel 2004 Las Vegas 2nd wedding for us. June (3rd from right), Sharon’s son Brad (not in picture), Dawn (Brad’s wife-second from left), daughter, Hayley (2nd from right) and our 3 grandsons (Mitch, Tony, Jasper on right) were there to help celebrate. This family, like for most families, has been a series of hard lessons in letting go, and forgiving, for us

I am hopeful that this photograph from March of 2022 belongs here. Perhaps a healing occurred that allowed for Brad’s wife Dawn to embrace us again, after banning us from her home over 10 years ago( umm, she is also a professed Trump loving “Christian”), so any long term solution may be out of reach.

Sharon’s daughter Hayley wrote a 200+ page book ragging on everybody but herself. It was a hurtful work, characterized by a lifetime of resentment, misunderstanding, and poor, or creatively derived memories (Lying). She is a sad, unhealed soul, who has yet to enter upon a healing path. In the meantime, she holds her world hostage.  We may never see her again.  Mental illness can be healed, with a willing participant.

.

Fly—Jerry Florence and Alliance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciwlzv6WIRA

.

Please wake up to Love’s Voice, sweet somnambulator

And realize the eternal Truth, that I within every “You” is greater

Than any mental image you could ever form or learn

And then your world will reflect back to you the One for which you yearn.

.

Collecting together all of the alienated/disowned parts within ourselves is quite the enlightening work

There is always healing work to be done in our evolutionary adventure. If it is not for our individual self, it is for our collective self.

Wholeness is our potential.

The Stairway To Heaven (12 Steps as interpreted by me)

1. Through our own extended suffering, we finally found the desire to want it to end. We admitted that when we become self-destructively habituated to any substance, situation, or relationship, we lose our freedom of choice, bring unnecessary trauma into our lives, and into the lives of others, and, thus, fail to achieve any lasting sense of inner peace and joy. We finally realize that our lives have been lived unconsciously, and have become unmanageable as a result of that neglect.

2. With our new found hope and openness for change, came the desire to begin to awaken to higher possibilities for our lives. We realized that, in our essence, we have an interior, though neglected, power that will heal us and restore us to balance, if we pursue it in earnest. We now realize that we have not been living up to our full potential as human beings.

3. We made a decision to turn our will, and our lives, over to the care of our higher interior power. We become open to the possibility of embracing a new Truth for our lives. We want to access the power to continuously evolve, and we want to cultivate our heart to be more loving to ourselves and to others. We decide to let go of ANYTHING that impedes our progress towards happiness, healing and wholeness. We realize that without the deepest of desires, and intentions, to change our behavior, we will not be transformed.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We have lived a life without a high sense of self-esteem, and we have made unfortunate choices because of the scarcity consciousness that has resulted from it. We realize that when we find the blocks to our evolution, and become willing to remove them, our new found insight will guide our paths with precision to the Truth of our existence. This is our entrance onto the path of mindfulness and higher consciousness.

5. We admitted that we were not being truthful with ourselves and with others, and by talking with another who we may trust, yet not be beholden to, about our errors in judgement and in actions towards our self and others, we can better deal with the shame and self-judgement that so often arises from the deadly secrets that we once felt that we must keep. Just by honestly talking with someone else, our burdens can be lifted. Our secrets need no longer keep us imprisoned, and mentally ill. When two or more people come together in the spirit of truth and honesty, mutual compassion and empathy also become part of the gathering.

6. We became entirely willing to let go of our attachments to unhealthy attitudes, behavior, and people. We wish to see clearly, without the limitations of our past, of our family history, and of our cultural conditioning, with all of their embedded trauma.

7. We open our hearts through humility and the willingness to change to embrace a new possibility for our life. Our new found sense of connection with our higher interior power inspires us to become more grateful for the gifts that we now have, and we are now spiritually preparing to finally give back to the world in a meaningful, positive way. We want to finally let go of all of the emotional charged memories which keep us trapped in a dead past. Rejoice, for the old demons are being transformed into the new angels!

8. While we were unconscious to our higher potential as human beings, we brought emotional, spiritual and perhaps even physical harm to other innocent beings, and we want to try bring healing and peace to those who have suffered from the effects of our ignorance. We realize that through the mirror of all of our relationships, dysfunctional or otherwise, we are granted a view into how we truly see ourselves. We want to see through the eyes of Truth, and not through the pain and suffering that unfulfilled relationships may have brought to us.

9. We made direct amends wherever possible to all people we may have brought harm to, except when to do so would bring further injury to them or to others. Our guilt will not be assuaged at the expense of others. We make full application of our new found wisdom, and our renewed desire to bring no harm to any sentient being. We want our world, and our own personal sense of self, to feel safe from further attacks from us, and our honest disclosure of our mistakes to those impacted by our errors in judgement will continue to support that intention.

10. We continued to take personal inventory, and, when wrong, promptly admit it. We have become honest with ourselves. We practice mindfulness, and continue to develop our capacity for insight into ourselves. We now know ourselves, and we now know many of the potential impediments to experiencing and expressing the Truth of our being. We no longer solely abide in old modes of thought, and now we are more focused on the beauty of the present moment.

11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Truth of our being, praying only for knowledge of Truth, and the willingness to live within its infinite domain. We now understand that this whole process of recovery is a meditation on life, and that the evolving, healing life that we are now experiencing is our living prayer. Each time we drink from the deep interior waters revealed to us by meditation, more of our painful dreams are dissolved. We finally realize that the capacity to change, to evolve, to grow in our infinite spirit is the whole point of our human existence. We are now traveling upon new paths of consciousness.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to carry our message of recovery to our world, while continuing to practice these principles in all our affairs. We have finally become whole, and are now conscious, caring human beings. We have accepted full personal responsibility for our lives, including healing our past, and keeping our present balanced and harmonious, and we no longer blame others for who we are now. We are now experiencing prosperity on many levels, and have witnessed the healing of ourselves. We have saved the world—from ourselves. Our life is now our truest teacher. We realize that we have no power to bring salvation to others, yet, it is our responsibility to point to the way of healing for others who may still be suffering, and who may finally become interested in overcoming their own limitations.

Excerpt From Book #2

I was no longer separate from that which I was viewing.  Everything revealed itself as an extension of myself, of my own true nature.  For the first time in my existence, I could see that, as far as I can see, all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is my self.  Then, with a sense of all of my thoughts now being my own, I asked myself “how will I see myself today?”  I saw that all of humanity was my true family.  I saw that everybody was either my brother, or my sister, in this new, true nature that was revealed within me.  I looked within myself, and for the first time in my life, I only saw peace, as well.  The third person monologue had stopped!!  I held my hands out before me, and my hands, which usually shook so bad that I could not even write my signature clearly, or use a spoon to eat from a bowl without making a mess, were steady!  Peace had finally found me on a mountain peak, and I had finally found my true self.  And, I had finally found that life, that TRUTH, I had been seeking since I know not when.

And, I had finally found what real recovery is.  It is not just stopping drinking alcohol and using drugs.  It is the decrease, and, ultimately, the elimination of all patterns of thought that keep me from caring for this world, and for all of the life upon it.  I can’t be alive, and live life fully and holistically, without loving my fellow man, and all of the rest of the life upon our planet.  Think of the love that we have for our newborn baby, or our favorite pet, feel that love completely, with no reservations at all.  We spare none of our hearts or souls, do we?  Now think of that family member or acquaintance who is causing us so much distress, so much anger, even hatred.  Can we give the same love that we would for our baby to that person who we are distressed with?  If we can’t let go of those negative emotions, then that is an example of our separation from God, or Truth.  I don’t have to travel to the underworld again to find that truth, or to look for somebody who might listen to me.  A question exploded in my mind:

“WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE?”

A miracle is trying to happen! Don’t quit until you see the miracle!!!

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD

Our essential spirits have “good bones”. We are born with with what Thomas Merton called the “True Self”, Quakers call “The Inner Light”. But then life happens—trauma, tragedy, loss, illness, grief, burdens that arrived as legacy from our ancestors, an unkindness or injustice that echoed for years. All these experiences have put pressure and stress on the good bones of our internal system. It is no wonder that life will brings us moments when we wake up from our sleep and notice our peaceful space is getting challenged. Granted, sometimes with love and care healing can happen without tearing apart our entire life. But there have also been times in my life when I needed to trust my spiritual good bones, tap into trusted inner and outer resources, and start the messy work of attending to what has been stressed or unduly burdened. The process of new growth and healing is ever present and always possible. I believe that. But working with what’s been stressed or harmed can require time and it can be surprisingly messy—–Carrie Newcomer

Happy Birthday to me!

LEC Course In Miracles Weekend handout—-My first date with Sharon!

The Turtles—Happy Together (1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCe5L1imxg

.To be in realization of Truth, Is to find God’s High Mount to be an illusion to climb

Created by fearful, desirous minds caught on the merry-go-round of time.

The unilluminated, restless mind is bereft of Love’s Rhyme, and Truth’s Reason

Chasing after mirages, until it sees the movements that are guilty of treason

Let’s fly united in our potential for healing!

• • 

    Wedding ceremony back yard 1994

    

    On the Italian island of Capri

    

    Amalfi Coast, Italy

    
    

    

    Mt St Helens

    

    Sharon is younger at age 72 than when she was 40.

    

    Sharon on a Greek ferry, 2018

    
    

    

    Grandson Mitch

    

    Ginger and Rocky

    

    Cycle Oregon 2016

    
    

    

    Grand Canyon 9 day rafting trip

    
    

  • LOVE’S REUNION

    I stumbled over the frozen wilderness for oh, so long!

    With a hole in my heart that life could just not fill

    Until I stopped to rest, and heard a gentle voice singing a long forgotten song

    That promised of my release from this winter world of painful chill

    Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom

    And the release of shivering minds from darkness’ frozen, fearful hands

    She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers

    And prepared me for the walk back to Love’s now awakening lands

    Her warming presence melted the icy hardness that I used to know

    Inspiring within me the courage, to myself and my world, to say

    That, to all of my past memories’ barren trees of lifeless knowledge, I now refuse to go

    I will now accept only the lessons learned along Love’s Infinite Way

    Yes, she met me while I was with the dark companion

    But it was to her pleasure to take me home to share her loving lights

    And give me the shelter of Love’s never setting summer sun

    She changed my cold mournings into happier, heavenly nights!

    By freely offering of herself and all of her sacred charms

    She moves me through life’s clamorous valleys unto its silent peaks

    I can now retire from a life of fruitless wanderings

    To live in the Source of Peace of which mankind forever seeks

    Her life is resplendent with Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty

    For these are the robes with which she clothes her being

    The gift of Love now disrobes before my inviting eyes

    To reveal her ecstatic vision, which is now all-seeing

    My search for Truth and Love Sublime has finally ended

    For, I now fill my empty cup from her joyous running streams

    I have reunited with my eternally fulfilling lover

    And, her healing waters dissolve all of my painful dreams

    I only seek to remain within her all-embracing arms

    While through all life she extends her ever unfolding surprise

    My first waking breath each morning brings the certainty

    That, from my bed, joined as one, we again shall arise

    My broken heart and shattered life is finally mending

    And, wedded to her life, I now call her my faithful bride

    Life no longer has a fearful road ahead to travel

    For, One with God, on Love’s lighted path, I now gratefully stride

    .

    

My information is relevant to all health and well being seekers, though it can be perceived to be esoteric to those who have yet been touched by Spirit’s infinite healing hands.

Michael Sutton, co-creator with Diane of the Empowerment Center and Community, at a celebration of life gathering for him prior to his death in 2014.  Sharon and Jeanette in background.

Reunion at our home of The Empowerment Center and its Community in 2016.   We are working towards co-creating a new world order of peace, healing, collaboration, honoring of all life forms, and spiritual evolution

We don’t need more mediators of the Spirit, we need more people willing to listen to themselves, and find their own measure of connection, and healin

Don’t fear me, I am a vegetarian! No teacher brings salvation, we each must work it out for ourself. If we claim someone else’s grace, we have only further imprisoned our self

The Sound Of Silence (Simon and Gunfunckel, sung by Disturbed)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrZGefl-3y4

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
Then the sign said, “The words on the prophets are written on the subway walls
In tenement halls”
And whispered in the sound of silence

My father’s consciousness lives on through the collective consciousness. As I am part of the collective, I will love that part of myself that appears unsupportive, or disinterested in me.  When pointing out to others the errors in behavior and/or reasoning, it is imperative to present the big picture of which we are all a part of, and show the role each of us are playing, whether conscious, or unconscious, of our participation.  That way, the ego’s defense mechanisms will not overrule the individual’s innate capacity for insight and self awareness.  In the seeing is freedom found.

 

People Need People—–Michael Franti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JwI2R8P_-M

We have lost so many friends and family to death. The pandemic really shut down our free spirited association with many acquaintances. Fakebook, I mean Facebook, is SUCH A POOR SUBSTITUTION FOR REAL SOCIAL INTERACTION.  People need people, PERIOD.

My experience has not generated a whole lot of respect, love or attention for my version of recovery and healing, especially on Facebook.  I respect the needs of others, while I respect the needs of myself.  Wow, what a  dynamic, healing tension!

 

Sheila Hamilton came to our home for our book club in 2016 to support her book. I was inspired to share my story as a result of her sharing. .

September 9, 2017. Sharon, Marty Crouch, and me, the day before Marty chose Oregon’s Death With Dignity. Marty and I attended the Men’s Cancer Support Writer’s Group at OHSU for most of the summer of 2017.   Without Marty’s encouragement, and Sharon’s incredible support, I never would have exercised my creative right to write. 8 books and numerous blog posts have resulted.

I Looked For My Soul (by William Blake)

I looked for my soul,

But my soul I could not see.

I looked for my God,

But my God eluded me.

I looked for a friend,

And then I found all three.

Q

Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil is pure denial.  It only leads to continued propagation of ignorance and its first cousin evil, and the negation of the power of our vision to bring healing to any situation.

 

Finding my voice was nearly a fatal process for me. For me to silence myself is now a fatal process, too. No, I will no longer shut the fuck up.  Can you hear me now, father, in whatever form you now take for me?

Craziness and creativity orbit around each other. To be caught in the gravitational pull between them is truly transformative

Susie and Dad at Sharon’s 70th birthday party

One of our family vacations, to Costa Rica 2004

Dick Jamison, Dad, and Mom on a trip to England

Our last two dinners out with Dad, August 2017. This one was at Stone Creek

Dad and Rocky, Kerr Island 2015

Ed, Dad, and Misty

In the year 2000, The Parents’ Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Luau on Maui

Dad, Mom, Eloise, and Roland, at the Roaring ’20’s Nightclub during happier days

Uncle Ed and Dad

Mom, Dad, and Pam, circa 1955

Ed, Susie, and my father

EPSON MFP image

What does the results of forgiveness look like?

Had my father survived, he would have been 95 years old. And, it would not have been a very happy birthday, because dementia was really taking a toll on the poor man.

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, 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 preparation of my father’s body. I return to father’s house, after meeting my obligation to Marty. The whole family is then traumatized again, subjected to spiritual assault by the police, and the medical examiner.

I then let them “HAVE IT”, like only my father, and now myself, could do. That ME came around to where he should have been, at the beginning. The police left without further incident.

Wow, in life and in death, my father really knew how to place his unique stamp on my life!

Sometimes, it takes nearly an entire lifetime, to learn to unconditionally love and accept a father.

That is my story. And, I have written eight books, in my own unique effort to bring healing to our fucked up world..

Is my father in a “better place”?

Everybody has a theory.

I am in a better place, that I know for sure!

All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king

by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

That’s How LIfe Reminds Us We’re Alive—-Michael Franti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOMTVAoIwd8

(note, addendum as of November 28, 2022)

My first love, and first wife, died on the day of my birthday, November 20, 2022.. I just confirmed it this evening after our return from the beach,

We knew each other since 1972. Married in 1979 after living together for four often times troubling years.. Divorced in 1985 after repeated so-called “nervous breakdowns”.

She lived a tragic, heartbreaking, life.

I lost touch with her after the death of her real father, Don Flick, in 1996. HE WAS A GOOD MAN, though he had his own unique issues..

Childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse, is the wound that weighs a soul down for the entirety of one’s life, if left untreated. Donelle was abused by her mother’s horrific negligence and the alcoholic Bud Barr’s evil behavior.

She was a beautiful soul deserving the best life had to offer.

I often struggled to give her adequate emotional support during her breakdowns,

Her genetic family often gave her the worst support, but they were quite spiritually limited.

I have only wanted to bring the greatest harm to two people in my entire life–Bud Barr, the sex abuser that Marlene eventually married after leaving Don, and her mother Marlene.

I grieve for Donelle, and for all traumatized souls.

Click on the picture if you have a strong, curious, willing heart, and are interested in my description of mental illness, Donelle, and some of our life together.

I have written eight books trying to tell our story, the story of all traumatized souls, and our potential for healing.

Is anybody listening to me?

Is anybody listening to the so-called healing experts?

Does anybody really care?

I think, hope, and pray that we do.

My life was forever changed by my relationship with Donelle, while she presented me with a unique life, love, and growth experience.

If suffering is our ticket to heaven, God, the Creator, Universe, Grandfather Great Spirit, or whatever name we give to that which brought us here must have a wonderful place saved for you, sweet Spirit, Donelle.

You earned it!

This place many of the abused, victimized, and traumatized occupy within American family and society can really suck.

Now, for every year, and, perhaps, every moment, that I live, until the day I die,

I will associate death with my birthday.

From the 2500 year old ruins of Paestum (50km south of Salerno, Italy), this is the famous and enigmatic painting on a tomb showing “The Diver”, which represents the mystery of entering/diving (fearlessly?) into our eventual death. Whether we accept the fact, or not, the end date fast approaches. Splash, or splat? Tuck and roll??

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

(The following excerpt is from Book #1)

No, Father, in whatever form Father may now take for me, I will never “shut up”

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

We all have had problems listening to each other. We all have had problems listening to ourselves. Yet, our stories must be told, and we must listen to the “other’s” story, with respect and compassion for ourselves, and for the other. Every good story has an ending. And, so do our bad stories. What value is a story, if it is never told? What value is love, if it is never shared? What is the value of speaking, if nobody is even listening? What is the value of writing, if there is nobody left to read?

We all have infinite value, whether it is ever recognized by another, or not. Discover, enjoy and celebrate INFINITY, rather than the limitations thrust upon us by the deafness of our culture and of our families of origin.

Sing your song, like your life depended on it, BECAUSE, IT DOES! All of our lives depend on each others stories. Those who will not listen to our story, and in turn, will not share their own story with us, are still stuck in their own story of repression and oppression. They are still unconscious participants in the Conspiracy Of Silence.

The sun shines, and the artist interprets its light upon the beautiful landscape, and paints a classic piece of art. The wolf howls in the lonely, cold, snow-covered wilderness, and, miraculously, another wolf a great distance away howls back at him, reassuring both that each other is still there. The bird sings alone in the forest, yet, a hiker stops for a moment, listens, and her heart begins to sing and soar with the bird. The divorced and lonely man sings in the shower, and the salesman at the door hears him, and is so impressed by the man’s voice that he encourages him to try out for a local band. An isolated man stumbles upon the miracle of silence within his being, and a resultant bridge of words subsequently connects this sacred silence to his latest writings, creating beloved poetry and healing balms for all.

As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery.

I have penetrated the Conspiracy of Silence, and I have lived well beyond my expiration date.  My “miracle experiment” continues in earnest.

I now shoot for the moon, and the stars beyond.  My world will NEVER be the same.

How about yours?

All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self. How we see our Self determines the quality of our lives. Do we see our Self with compassion, love, and forgiveness? Then we will see a world infused with magic, beauty, and love. And we will finally see our Self for what we truly are—-Spirit Incarnate. Through the hard work of healing of my traumatic wounding, I found my better day.

It is what it is, but its not what it seems—–the voice of intelligence and spiritual discernment

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free–Jesus of Nazareth

The Truth is free, but ignorance will cost you Everything–Elisha Scott

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”—Edgar MItchell, astronaut.

I have been asked, if I could condense my entire works down into one or two paragraphs, what would I say?  Is that not the equivalent question to asking me if I can capture lightning in a bottle?

First of all, I would say that to answer this question is counterproductive. The reader will assume that by just reading these one,  two, or twenty paragraphs that they have the message, but it will just slide on through their minds like water through a sieve, like all of our other cultural and religious soundbites, and nonsense. We will not find our greatest good in just reading biblical scripture or other supposedly sacred texts, daily 5 minute meditations, or in practicing yoga, while bypassing the profound inner healing work necessary.

Be prepared, as my answer is considered heresy, extremely secular, and even satanic by certain “religious rhinkers”, an expression that is all to often just an oxymoron.

 

 

But since you have made it so far through this vast work, I will offer this much to you.

I like to use two mythological narratives to assist in my presentation of our spiritual potential, and our often times failure to achieve it.  The Old Testament story in the Book of Genesis, and the later Greek myth of Theseus, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur serves me well in this regard.  Both myths offer much more to the discerning reader than typical interpretations available through standard channels of literary or religious  indoctrination.

When mankind mythologically left the Garden of Eden, we became entrapped in the labyrinth of the human mind, which means that we have lost our way through the agency of our knowledge (of good and evil, and all things in between)..

That is what knowledge does for us!  Knowledge is a tool used in our vain attempts at reaching the absolute truth of any issue, or even pursuing the divine, or infinity.  Knowledge is formed from an abundance of words.  Knowledge can be what we really know, what we only think that we know, what we don’t know that others may know, and what we don’t know that we don’t know, and nobody else knows, as well as other clever variations on this theme…  And, psychologically speaking, knowledge becomes our armor to protect us from the threat of the “unknown”, which, in fact is the same substance of which comprises infinity, or even the divine.

Knowledge becomes the web which has trapped us outside of our Garden of Eden. And knowledge is created through our inspired attempts to use words intelligently.  The “word” is a container for potential energy, and is not innocuous, but instead through its formation in the mind instantly creates a division between the “knower” and the “known”. And, our unenlightened self is that very division, and may become totally steeped in unreality, illusion, and delusion, if it does not understand the limitations of our mind, and its so-called knowledge.

The profound implication here is that the “word” literally creates an awareness of our ‘self’, with its almost infinite subject/object associations, but it can divide us into fragments, and imprison us  All of our knowledge has created the great labyrinth, or, to use another metaphor,  winds a great web, or cocoon around this now limited self awareness.

There is always a Minotaur awaiting in the labyrinth of our minds, seeking to feast on all of our creative natures. The Minotaur symbolically represents the marriage of our divine and our unilluminated animal, or biological nature.  Until the Minotaur is slain, or transformed back to its original noble nature, humanity remains doomed to wander lost in the ignoble kingdom of their own disfigured minds.That Minotaur also can represent the understanding that unhealed wounding and trauma received through our family, religion, culture, and Mother Earth’s sometimes deadly feedback can keep us from reaching our exalted nature.. Our internal kingdom is awaiting the resurrection of its rightful king, or queen.

Mankind, through its collective and individual mind, creates perceptual walls between itself and others, and even between itself and its SELF. The mind, being what it is, weighs and measures EVERYTHING and creates more words by naming and defining, and creating concepts.  Yet, the “finger pointing at the moon is never the moon”, as the Zen truth states, and this metaphor points to the great lie that we have collectively created and lived.

Through our minds, we fix, merge, or forge a dynamic process which we have witnessed with our bodily senses and transformed this energy of infinity and eternity into mortal concepts, which are forever limited and stuck in time, and thus foreign to our timeless hearts, or to Truth.. Through this process of creating these conceptual walls, the mind becomes inspired to create ladders over the walls, to try to reach others, and even to try to reach back to  itself. It even creates religions to bridge the gap between the Divine, the Universe, Mother Earth, back to its own limited sense of self, which it also created through its own misunderstanding.

How then may we escape the labyrinth, defeat the Minotaur, and return to the Garden of Eden?  When will the rightful King, or queen, return to the throne?

WE MUST HEAL FROM OUR WOUNDED PAST

WE MUST STOP CREATING PERCEPTUAL WALLS.

We need to take an honest look at the whole of our life.  We need to embrace the fact that we have been carrying the effects of a collective, and an individual traumatic life experience, and are experiencing their often times destructive effects in our bodies and minds.  We need to understand how patriarchy, toxic masculinity, misogyny, racism, and other destructive cultural hypnotism has damaged our dignity, and created and supported false images and narratives of our self and each other.  We need to create a new narrative and a healing image for ourselves that carries our infinite spirit better, with a loving mutually honoring perspective. Enlisting the aid of a trusted therapist, spiritual advisor, shaman, or even accepting the assistance of indigenous plant medicine is helpful in sustaining a healing momentum.

 

The perceptual walls can start tumbling down through slowing down the verbal and perceptual creation mechanism within our minds, which has been subjugated by habituated stimulus/response patterns inculcated into us during our development as human beings. We have stored much misinformation within our minds, and, through traumatic influences, stored unconscious matrices of disordered energy within our bodies, as well. If we can heal our wounding, and find and cultivate this gap between thoughts, we can regain control of our minds through insight and mindfulness.

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Otherwise, darkness will continue its predetermined course..

• Ignorance,
• stupidity,
• resentment,
• hatred,
• divisiveness,
• Fear of death,,
• Grief,
• Suffering,
• Alienation from peace of mind,
• The faulty connection with our body and with Mother Earth

Do not readily give way to love and sanity.

The oppression and thought control exercised over us by our wayward family, religion, and culture will attempt to keep us from our greatest good, while promoting the idea that by practicing culturally and religiously disempowering dogma we can find the way out of our dilemma.

Here are the top six regrets from people who are nearing death (from a collection of hospice nurses).

1. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
2. “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”
3. “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
5. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”
6. “I wish I had done something of significance in my life.”

People who

• Do not find their real voice,
• Can’t deal with death, disease, loss, or other harsh realities,
• Do not try to bring compassion and healing to life,

devise new and unhealthy variations on religion, politics, and misunderstanding.

The lies spawned from a life

• Devoid of empathy and compassion, and
• Characterized by the denial of our shared essence,

inspires all manners of evil.  This darkness runs in herds, and creates lemmings out of unaware humans.

Stop following other politicized and/or religious minions.

All that we see, or will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self, whether we are still steeped in our egi’s illusions and delusion, or now seeing from a less limited perspective from a higher perspective.

The illusory and hypnotic quality of our thinking makes us believe that others are responsible for our own perceptual errors, yet as a collective consciousness, we all share this dysfunction.. The very self that our culture, our religion, our family, and our politics attempts to create for us is a lie, and while we practice that misunderstanding, we will never be a real person.  Our culturally and religiously inspired Geppetto is always churning out new Pinocchios.

Who wants to be just another Pinnochio, or a marionettes dancing image trapped on the movie screen of our corrupted world’s mind?

When we stop trusting the thoughts that create walls, judgements, religions, and false bridges back to our SELF, our humbled minds will finally  find a measure of peace.  And, a sense of humor may be accessed, after we have finally seen the collective nonsense passing for knowledge for what it really is.

Who wants to be just another Pinnochio, or a marionettes dancing image trapped on the movie screen of our corrupted world’s mind?

When we stop trusting the thoughts that create walls, judgements, religions, and false bridges back to our SELF, our humbled minds will finally  find a measure of peace.  And, a sense of humor may be accessed, after we have finally seen the collective nonsense passing for knowledge for what it really is.

Focus on that peace, extend it out as far as possible, through

• meditation,
• contemplation,
• prayer,
• walks through NATURE,
• yoga,
• Pilates,
• tuned breathing exercises,
• communing with other spiritually minded souls,
• watching a sunset by oneself.

Listen intently to the whispers within our SOUL.

There WILL BE A TIME, when the Universe, God, Love, Truth, Peace will speak to us.  We are not quite home yet, as a division still exists.  If our wounded self is not sufficiently healed, confusion and delusion will still be our companions. We feel acutely our insignificance, and the unreality of the self that we have created.  We are still susceptible to creating false Gods, and deluded prophesies, as a protective mechanism against this ego threatening Truth.. However, if we have been truly humbled, and If our suffering has been healed, we are ready to take the next step of our spiritual journey.

When we finally learn to entrain ourselves with this SILENCE, it will speak through us, and then we are home again, healed and whole, and abiding in our own unique spiritual garden..

This is our spiritual heritage.

This is our starting point, and this is our destination.

Jesus or the Buddha will not work out our salvation for us, unless our name is also Jesus, or the Buddha.  Our salvation is dependent upon our intentions, personal work and understanding, and our own movements back to our SILENCE. If we live in the pseudo-Christian fantasy world of the rapture, or playing a harp in heaven with Jesus, we might want to get a little more grounded in reality for this work to have any positive impact upon us, but it is up to each of us as to what to believe.

Never forget, even creating and nurturing the idea of “God” creates yet another subject/object relationship, and objects, no matter how revered, get exiled within our infinitely fragmented mind.  The ancient Jewish tradition was correct in admonishing its spiritual adherents to never speak the name of God, or Yahweh, for that very reason.

The TRUTH has never left us. We just let our minds, our past, our traumas and wounding, our hubris, and our social dependencies upon others’ points of view overrun its eternal music, and replace it with our perception driven  noise. When we let go of the controls of our parents, our culture and our wounded history, we can stop thinking damaged thoughts, and travel upon the enlightened new paths of a healing, spiritualized consciousness. We can practice gratitude for who we are, and settle into the mystery of our unique identity, as well.  There will be moments when only awe, wonder, and gratitude fills our minds, and our hearts.  Love will become the stream that carries us into eternity.

There can be a new Conspiracy Of Silence within our humanity, where the SILENCE conspires with our memories, knowledge, and insight, to create a new reality, and a wider sense of wholeness within our self, and within our world. When our civilization allows the evolution of its Common Knowledge Game to fully embrace collective dignity, love,  and freedom for all,  our world will be a safer place, and humanity will finally reach its potential for greatness.

Remember, because of the way our brains are wired, and programmed,

WE FIND WHAT WE LOOK FOR,

whether it is good, bad, or a complicated mixture of both assessments..

We are the very emanation of that God for which  we so vainly seek through our misunderstanding.

Are we looking for freedom, for liberation, and for INFINITY? 

We all have to see the entire matrix of the illusion that we have become imprisoned within, to find our own unique clue for exiting it. Our narcissism and self absorbed reality can finally be replaced by a more collaborative, Earth and humanity saving reality

Cease this fruitless search through knowledge and religion,  and settle into the truth of our true self.

Our infinitely patient Self awaits!

In our true essence, we are spiritual empaths, and mystics.

When I look at my world, if I am viewing through just verbal imagery, etc all that I see, or will ever see. Is consciousness and its evolutionary journey, as it creates and also attempts to more accurately represents what is.

There is another possibility, however.  If the “what is” that is our essence is what looks out, and it only witnesses “what is”, then once again all that is seen is seeing itself, through an infinite variation of itself..  I am that seeing, in whatever measure that my mind will quiet itself enough to allow for an enhanced apperception of reality.

That, my friend, is a mystical state.

We will find all of the support we will ever need once we have returned home.

“My kingdom is not of this world”

Words, and our misapplication of them in defining ourselves, and each other, has created the mess that we now live in.

We are this very Universe that we live in  experiencing itself in human form.  We have the innate capacity to elevate our vision, and our understanding.

May we all find our real Kingdom.

Silence is golden.

I AM (poem)

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 I am the ever-evolving life that regrew.

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

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

I am the blue sky, I am 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, I am the warm soothing breeze,
I am even our cold’s most raucous cleansing sneeze.

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

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

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

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

I am the Sanders and Pelosis, I am the Putins and Trumps,
I am love’s warriors, and I am also hate’s chumps.

I am the Christian, and the Hindu, I am 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, I am the movement towards health,
I am the healing balm that works mysteriously in stealth.

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

I am your lifetime, I am your 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, and I am 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 all 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.

“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

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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 memories’ imprisoning 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 resuscitating those illusions with those mental pugilist blows,

And reveal the peaceful mind of the One who, in the 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!”

“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!”

Blessed Longing,

by Goethe

(Translated by John O’Donohue)

Tell no one else, only the wise

For the crowd will sneer at one

I wish to praise what is fully alive,

What longs to flame toward death.

When the calm enfolds the love-nights

That created you, where you have created

A feeling from the Unknown steals over you

While the tranquil candle burns.

You remain no longer caught

In the penumbral gloom

You are stirred and new, you desire

To soar to higher creativity.

No distance makes you ambivalent.

You come on wings, enchanted

In such hunger for light, you

Become the butterfly burnt to nothing.

So long as you have not lived this:

To die is to become new,

You remain a gloomy guest

On the dark earth.

PERFECTION (written during retreat with Eileen Bowden, 1993)

Perfection lies

Behind and beyond all eyes

Those who look within themself find

The Sublime surprise

Of which the all of Life does comprise

The Divine Self of all Mankind

We have made our healing choice

And with One Free Voice

Call to our Eternal Source Supreme

We will no longer roam

WE ARE COMING HOME

We are awakening from all suffering dreams

With courage drought

From fear and despair made naught

We move from temporal shadow

Towards Eternal Light

The Kingdom once sought

Is now the Vision Caught

Whosoever accepts its Truth

Now sees with unhindered sight

In us its growing

Through us its showing

With the Divine

We may walk hand in hand

In us its glowing

Through us its flowing

Bringing its light to all

Between space and land  

With our hearts entwined

And with One Soul Divine70’s

To our worlds

We may become a blessing immense

Though we pass this way

But for one short lifetime’s day

With this experience

Would you dare dispense?