Lunar Eclipse by Kristen Fox
In This Issue:
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily by Bob Makransky
Reflections by Nardine Neilson
The Road To Elmira: Chapter Two by Richard Kendall
BLONDIE'S by F. P. Dorchak
Rain Haiku by John J. McNally
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
by Bob Makransky
"Someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman - how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed. …
"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou." - Chuang Tzu
"The self dreams the double. … Once it has learned to dream the double, the self arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes that it is the double who dreams the self." - Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power
"Indeed, perhaps what is now the REM state was the original form of waking consciousness in early brain evolution, when emotionality was more important than reason in the competition for resources. This ancient form of waking consciousness may have come to be actively suppressed in order for higher brain evolution to proceed efficiently. This is essentially a new theory of dreaming." - Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience.
The basic tenet of magic is, that it's all just a dream; that waking consciousness is but a more highly evolved and specialized facet of dream consciousness. Dream consciousness came first evolutionarily, and waking consciousness is an outgrowth of dreaming. Although we tend to believe that there is a vast difference between being awake and dreaming, the fact is that this is indeed merely a belief - a belief which enables us to focus our attention on waking - to isolate it and solidify it - to the exclusion of dreaming.
We make a big deal out of the difference between waking and dreaming, but the distinction between the two states isn't as clear as we usually imagine. When we run past life regressions; or even just listen to music or dance - any time we are so absorbed in any activity that we lose all sense of self perceiving self and are operating on pure "flow" - we are actually closer to being in a dream state than in a waking state. The less we are consciously controlling what is happening, but rather just letting it happen by itself, the closer we are to dreaming. The act of "going to sleep" is just a thought form we use to convince ourselves that we're not dreaming half the time anyway. We use the acts of "going to sleep" and "waking up" to separate out the two modes - to make a distinction where in fact little distinction exists. It's like two people who have been living together for years finally getting married - it's a symbolic thing, there's not much objective difference between the two states. It's as if we made up some sort of distinction like "write with your right hand on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays" and "write with your left hand on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays". If we got everyone to do this and make it an automatic habit, then after a few centuries the human race would have invented another distinction in consciousness (indeed, this is in fact what different cultures do). People would find that life on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays was very different from life on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But it's all an artificial distinction.
Ancient humans were doing what we would consider dreaming as their everyday state of mind. There wasn't as sharp a distinction then between being awake and being asleep. Then people slept in snatches, as infants do, and they alternated hunting off and on with dozing. Most of their hunting was done in a state of mind that we would call sleepwalking (a trance state). They weren't just wandering around aimlessly looking for game to hunt: they could sense what was out there and could project their consciousness forward into their prey telepathically and so anticipate the prey's movements. We moderns can still do this now and then, as for example when on the prowl for sex, or when we sense a business opportunity, especially when we feel lucky; but our hunter forebears relied on this intuitive faculty to eat every day. In other words, ancient hunters were more connected to their world, more psychically attuned, than we moderns are. They were able to pick up information from their environment which eludes us. But on the other hand ancient humans had less sense of a self at center than we do, just as we moderns have less sense of there being a solid, separated "us" there when we are dreaming compared to when we are awake.
Waking consciousness is something which evolves; which can be seen to evolve even between human generations. That's why people "back then" seem so naïve to us - they were dreaming more than we moderns do. We're more awake than our forebears. Consider too how wide-awake First World societies are compared with most Third World societies: First Worlders living in the Third World tend to find the natives to be "irresponsible" and spaced-out, when in fact all they're doing is dreaming more in their everyday waking lives than hup-hup First Worlders do.
The point is that there isn't as hard-and-fast a difference between being awake and dreaming as we are accustomed to believe. It is exactly that belief (that what we do when we are awake is more important than what we do when we are dreaming) which maintains the rigidity of wakefulness - the persuasiveness of the lie that what is happening to us when we are awake is "real" - that is to say, that there is some separated "us" to which things are happening - rather than that the whole shebang is just our projection. That "us" is symbolized by the thought forms of a body, and an outside world in which things happen to that body.
When we are dreaming, we have a body also, and a world outside of it. That body and world seem perfectly real while we are dreaming, but when we wake up we realize that it was all just a dream. The interpretation that we have a physical body when we are awake is also merely a belief, exactly like the interpretation that we have a body while we're dreaming is merely a belief. While we are dreaming our dream bodies operate with all five of the usual physical senses. Therefore, we really don't have any objective criteria for deciding, at any given moment, whether we are awake or asleep. In precisely the same fashion, our body when we are awake and the world surrounding it are just a dream. There is no objective difference whatsoever. That's what other people and our society do for us: assure us that we are indeed awake and that what we are experiencing is "real".
Ancient humans were more magical than we are (not as separated). They permitted dream material to freely intrude into their awareness, whereas we moderns have mechanisms in place to immediately repress any such incursion into our reality. When dream stuff intrudes into waking consciousness we get moments of discontinuity. Any sudden start or shock or fright is a rift in our sense of continuity - or better said, a mad grab for our sense of continuity to mask such a rift. We have to say that discontinuity is unreal, and that people who experience discontinuity are crazy, or tired and overworked and in need of rest. We have to get everyone to validate this pretense - to pretend that they're not experiencing discontinuity, in order for society to exist. Society and waking consciousness are just two names for the same thing: in dreams, we are basically alone. In point of fact we're just as alone when we're awake, but we stupidly believe that we are sweating and puffing and bleeding as part of a team. Thus being awake can be defined as the pretense that we're not alone (that we are part of a society).
The reason why the dream state is so mutable is that there is little sense of separatedness in it. It is importance - the sense of urgency, of being driven, of being uptight - which stabilizes attention. We are able to focus our attention when we are awake because of our interminable, self-referent inner chatter every second we are awake. Waking consciousness is a clenching up within oneself - a moment-to-moment flinching from death - embodied in a socially-conditioned striving and intranquility within ourselves that keeps us awake. By contrast, the attention we have in dreams has little importance to it because we don't think so much; but as a result we can't control what we will pay attention to (what will happen next) as well in dreaming as we can when we are awake. What we experience when dreaming is far more immediate, vivid, gripping, and intense than in the ordered waking world. It all happens so fast that we can't separate ourselves from it as we can and do in waking life. We don't get weekends off and two weeks paid vacation in the world of dreams, and there's no TV to watch - no way to make it stop happening or pretend it's not happening. We must either be on the qui vive every instant; or else stand there in a stupor; but we are inevitably so caught up in the dream, so much a part of it, that although we are experiencing our feelings in symbolic form in dreams, there is little sense of separatedness there. Mind exists, but it's not developed.
Mind cannot develop until there is a clearly defined sense of separatedness, which gives mind a pause, a moment's rest or leisure, in which it can reflect on itself. It's that moment's rest or lull which gives birth to a sense of time and linear continuity.
Although waking consciousness originated together with multicellular life on earth, the invention of agriculture was its apotheosis as far as the human species is concerned. As compared with hunting, the invention of agriculture brought order, regularity, sleep 8 hours at night and work 16 hours during the day. Humankind had outgrown dream consciousness; it had found dream consciousness - the consciousness of infants and animals - too unstable, too ephemeral, and therefore too limiting for its free expression. Therefore humans literally constructed, piece by piece, thought form by thought form, over the surface of dream consciousness, the floating edifice of waking mind. Humankind began to think and reason.
Separation of quotidian life into 16 hours of wakefulness and 8 hours of dreaming - forcing our bodies to stay awake for such a long stretch of time - is a stern discipline, a way of clenching up, which helps block the intrusion of dream material (magical events) into wakefulness. Ancient humans mixed the two together in their awareness - waking life was as ineffable as dreaming, and everything was a source of wonder and mystery. Native cultures, such as the Mayan people of Guatemala, maintain much of this thought form structure to this day. We North American-European-Asian moderns have learned to tone down our sensory impressions, to separate ourselves from our environment by taking everything around us for granted, by not paying attention to anything except our own incessant mental chatter. This makes our lives utterly boring and meaningless, but nonetheless provides us with our ability to focus our attention, to be methodical, concentrated and deliberate. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were unable to focus that much attention. They had no need to.
Along with heightened focus comes a decreased sense of connectedness; a greater sense of separatedness. And along with the heightened separatedness necessary to focus attention in the waking world comes a heightened sense of isolation and anguish. In other words, suffering is an intrinsic component of waking consciousness. Without suffering, the constant self-pinching, we could not stay awake.
When we are awake we say "I am suffering!" That "I" is made out suffering (self-pity in the parlance of shamanism). To gainsay Descartes, "I suffer, therefore I am." Just as the waking "I" and the "suffering" arise together, so too do they dissolve together. If "I" ever stop suffering, the disconnected "I" dissolves too. The main cause of our self-hatred, the chief reason we are all so neurotic and out of kilter with our world, is simply because we've been awake too long.
The point is that waking consciousness is not something which is intrinsically different from dreaming, but rather something which evolved and developed out of it; which became more focused and intense and uptight as it evolved. Waking is merely a way of imposing a semblance of order and control (mind - things making some kind of sense instead of being wholly ineffable) on at least a portion of the dream. However this is a falsehood: NOTHING makes any sense - EVERYTHING is ineffable. In other words, waking consciousness - and the society which supports it - is a complete and total fabrication.
Waking mind is like the insouciance of a drunkard staggering across a battlefield where bullets whiz by all around him but who is somehow protected from it all by his blissful indifference. That is waking mind. It is so totally a fiction (the sense that we are separated from everything around us) that it can only be maintained by the constant validation of other people (our sense of being part of society). Only by all of us reassuring one another that we are separated individuals - by constantly picking at and annoying each other, just as we constantly pick at and annoy ourselves to stay awake - can we jointly uphold the fragile structure of waking consciousness. Our society assures its continuance by setting its individual members upon each other like ravenous dogs.
When society dissolves because of e.g. war or disaster, everything becomes like a dream, since it's out of control. Waking makes for more control than dreaming, but with a concomitant loss of awareness and joy. Over the next century, as the environment and civilization deteriorate, society will collapse and everything will spin out of control. That is to say, waking consciousness will dissolve back into the dream from which it emerged at the time of the invention of agriculture. The human race isn't going to be able to muddle through this one, as it has always done. Nor will there be any miraculous salvation: no one is going to be raptured up into the clouds to sit next to Jesus; and December 22, 2012 isn't going to be any improvement on December 20th. And certainly the corporations, governments, and materialistic scientists who got us into this mess aren't going to get us out of it. Each individual human being will then be at a crossroads: either lighten up and enter into lucid dreaming as your everyday mode of awareness; or enter into a nightmare.
In the same way that waking consciousness grew out of dreaming, lucid dreaming - that is to say, dreaming in which the dreamer knows that he or she is dreaming - is an outgrowth of waking consciousness. Lucid dreaming is humankind's next step in the evolution of consciousness - New, Improved, Lemon-Scented Consciousness. It's also our only hope for survival as a species.
Lucid dreaming allows us to take a pause for reflection on the dream plane: to make it stop happening for a moment to critically evaluate and redirect the experience, instead of being wholly caught up in it, forced to be constantly shifting and adjusting ourselves to it, as our hunter forebears had to do. Hunters had to more or less go with the flow, and they were better or worse hunters as they were able to be flexible and quick to see and grasp opportunities and avoid pitfalls as they arose. They were nimble, but not very capable of planning, organizing, or thinking things through. If there was an easier way to do something, they probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out (not enough separatedness).
What happens in lucid dreaming is that we preserve the thought forms of waking consciousness, but without the importance. That is to say, lucid dreaming is waking consciousness without the driving urgency, the constant uptightness, the sense of a separated, suffering succotash of a self. We still have a self, symbolized by a body thought form, while we are lucidly dreaming; but that body is a great deal lighter and less separated than our waking body. It can fly, for one thing.
The point is, as all lucid dreamers soon realize, that the thought forms of waking consciousness can be activated in the dream state once they have been cut loose from their importance. Lucid dreaming is what waking consciousness could be (and will be) like when we get rid of our importance. To do lucid dreaming consistently we will have to come to a general conviction in our daily lives that nothing is all that important.
It is the purpose of the practice of magic to make everyday life more like dreaming - to release the fixation on a separated, suffering self. This is accomplished by cultivating the practice of lucid dreaming while we are asleep, and by going to trees or nature spirits every day while we are awake. The doorway out of wakefulness into lucid dreaming is what magicians term sensory thought forms, and what cognitive philosophers term qualia: that is to say, shifting attention from thinking to feeling the world around us. This entails quieting down our minds and listening to sounds, feeling the breeze on our skin, seeing the plants and the clouds. It's what mystics refer to as "suchness" or "thusness"; but really all it involves is just shutting up the constant stream of mental chatter long enough to see - hear - feel what's going on in the now moment - i.e., to do what we do when we're dreaming while we're awake. The "Following Feelings" chapter of my book Magical Living describes how to do this. The practice of recapitulation (to be described in a later Magical Almanac article on William Butler Yeats' theory of reincarnation) is also extremely invaluable in releasing the obsessive fixation of waking consciousness; releasing our obsessive grip on everyday life and the people around us.
The goal for us as individuals is to merge dreaming and waking - to be as light and unencumbered while awake as we are while dreaming; and to be as rational and clear-thinking while dreaming as we are when we are awake. The goal for us humans as a species is to make lucid dreaming our everyday awareness, in the same way that our hunter-gatherer ancestors made waking consciousness their everyday awareness at the time that agriculture was invented.
The purpose of Buddhism - at least insofar as I understand it - is to get a few exceptional people fully enlightened. The purpose of the practice of magic is to get the mass of people somewhat enlightened - i.e. enlightened enough to save the human race and the earth. No major upheaval in present society would necessarily be required to make this shift, unless humankind stupidly proves to be incapable of responding short of a total crisis. There are probable realities which go either way, which we as individuals can choose or decline to participate in, by believing what we choose to believe. All that's required to save humanity is for most people (not necessarily all) to lighten up just a little bit. We don't need everyone to don sackcloth and ashes and take to caves and become enlightened; nor do we need everyone to fall in line and believe as we do. All we need is for most people to become just a tad less greedy, selfish, suspicious, intolerant, closed-hearted and shameless. Just for most people to lighten up a teensy bit is all that's required for the human race to enter into lucid dreaming together.
In the state of lucid dreaming everyone instantly knows the truth, so pretense is impossible. By contrast, most of what transpires in waking consciousness is a pack of lies: people are talking about one thing, but what is really going on under the surface is something altogether different. It isn't like that in lucid dreaming - what we see is what we get. There's no room for phoniness because those importance coverings don't exist in lucid dreaming - that agreement is more important than truth.
Yes, Virginia, Truth does indeed exist. All that's necessary to find it is to cut through all the yada-yada nonsense of our decadent, degenerate society and listen to what our hearts are telling us. We magicians do this by going to trees and nature spirits for validation rather than to our fellow humans.
To enter into lucid dreaming from a position which starts from being awake is the same thing as astral projection. Talented dreamers have a facility for astral projection, and this can be the quickest way for them to go. But it would take most people too long to learn astral projection; it's easier for them to come at it through lucid dreaming. This is a better path for people who think too much, since it minimizes thinking. We have to start from being asleep, and then beckon our separatedness thought form to come to us without its covering of importance. If the covering of importance comes too, then we wake up. That's why so many of us find it difficult to maintain ourselves in a state of lucid dreaming without waking up: one must be calm in a lucid dream, otherwise one tends to beckon importance.
Lucid dreaming is not something essentially different from waking consciousness, only we get to it from a position of being asleep. When we start out from a position of being awake, we call it "everyday life". What do you suppose the horseless carriage is? Or the radio, TV, airplane, space rocket, computer? They are all wild, crazy dreams. A hundred years ago that's exactly what we would have considered them. And that's all they are - dreams. Humankind just incorporated that dream material into waking consciousness. That's the sort of thing waking consciousness is good for: to originate dream material of that sort. That kind of business requires slow, patient development over generations; and the dream plane is too unstable and mutable to do that kind of stuff on. The dream plane is too here and now. Since dream consciousness is more timeless than waking consciousness, it doesn't allow for the detachment that a sense of past (history) and future (planning) can give. We need a greater sense of separatedness to be able to do things that slowly. That's why it is so difficult to do things like dial a phone number or read a sentence in a normal dream - these activities require a greater degree of separatedness than normal dreaming affords, to be able to bring that kind of minute detail into focus.
That's the genius of waking consciousness: we lose scope and agility, but in return we get focus and a methodical way of getting at things. Waking consciousness is much more clearly focused and delimited than dreaming, even if we all become extremely myopic and uptight in the process.
The practice of magic is about turning our everyday waking lives into lucid dreaming, cultivating a somewhat "altered state of mind" as our everyday mindset. As we do this much of our sense of separatedness dissolves and we feel more inner peace and oneness with our world. Spirits start talking to us, as they did to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Our everyday life becomes more like dreaming - i.e., more magical. This is the road that each of us must travel as individuals; and which the human race as a whole will have to follow if it is to survive and prosper. It is the road of entering into a state of lucid dreaming from a position which starts from being awake (instead of asleep, as usual). This means understanding that waking consciousness is lucid dreaming; and the only reason we can't see that is because we must keep up the pretense that what we're doing is "real" and important. Therefore we can't see that it's all just a dream.
At this writing there don't seem to be too many lucid dreamers out there; but there are lots of people merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily dancing a jig on their descent into the coming nightmare. It's time now for everyone to wake up.
(excerpted from Magical Almanac Ezine, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac
Copyright © 2007 by Bob Makransky. All rights reserved).
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About the author: Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, programmer, and professional astrologer. For the past 30 years he has lived on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest, runs an eco-hotel for travelers, and is head of the local blueberry growers association. His books, articles, stories, cartoons, free monthly astro-magical ezine; complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions; free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software; etc. are available at: http://www.dearbrutus.com.
Reflections
by Nardine Neilson
Time reflecting brings me light tuning finely inner sight
seeing such a full bounty of the wealth inside of me
The life I’ve lived loved and shared with everyone for whom I’ve cared
has brought me to this glorious place from which all joy I do embrace
To begin to count the spirits who have helped me see my life anew
would take me back to Heaven’s gate and all the pacts we did create
To support affirm encourage too by healing me I’m healing you
‘cause separate we may seem in part but we’re united heart to heart
As I’m touched by your essence within me I feel the resonance
lives we’ve shared love exchanged learning from our wisdom gained
I celebrate All I Am and recognise my fellow man
is love and light and ever new and here I be reflecting you!
The Road To Elmira (Chapter Two)
by Richard Kendall
A Door Opens
The town of Elmira is located in the Southern Tier of Central New York State. It is built almost entirely in the flood plain of the Chemung River, which flows eastward through the city. A Civil War prison camp, called Hellmira, is part of the city’s history, where approximately twelve thousand Confederate soldiers were confined, with almost three thousand of them dying there due to disease and poor sanitary conditions.
On the brighter side, Elmira served as home to Mark Twain, the American author and humorist. In the 1870’s, overlooking the valley in Elmira, Twain penned some of his most famous works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And one final note; according to official statistics, the last Labrador Duck was seen in Elmira on December 12, 1878.
How one verifies such a fact I don’t know. Perhaps the very next day some local farmer doing his early morning chores sighted yet another Labrador Duck, or for all we know, it could have been the same duck sighted the day before. But the record has been written and I highly doubt it will be changed. I’d also like to say to any historians who specialize in duck sightings that if I have offended you in any way or said anything politically incorrect please forgive me. I have nothing against ducks, Labrador or otherwise, and to be honest I’m not sure I’d recognize a Labrador Duck if it landed in my soup.
In any event ducks were not my major focus this morning, but planning my sojourn to Elmira was. The distance from New York City to Elmira was roughly two hundred forty miles each way. The highway that would take me there ran for the most part along Route 17. How ironic that seemed to me. Route 17 evoked some of the happiest memories of my life.
One of the towns along this route was Wurtsboro, New York, home of Camp Lakota, the sleep away camp I attended for many years. My first summer there was like discovering a whole new world. My counselor’s grandmother owned the camp which gave me an edge from the start. With our days built around athletic activity, and having been a natural athlete from the time I was very young, my popularity was assured. But most importantly, my counselor for whatever reasons informally adopted me. His kindness and caring was something I have always remembered.
Also along Route 17, about fifteen miles from Wurtsboro sat the town of Monticello, with the Catskill Mountains rising in the background. This was where my family used to vacation at various bungalow colonies when I was very young. Passing Wurtsboro and Monticello for the first time in many years reminded me of those relatively carefree days, and a part of me wished I could return. But on January 4, 1972 my thoughts were focused on arriving at 458 West Water Street, in Elmira, New York by 7:00pm, when class was scheduled to start.
Jane and her husband, Robert F. Butts, rented two apartments within an old Victorian home, with the Chemung River chugging quietly along a short distance away. I climbed the flight of stairs that led to Jane’s living room and as I walked in the first thing that struck me was the people who had gathered there. I was used to interacting for the most part with my friends, who with their long hair and hippie attitudes would view most of the folks in Jane’s living room as part of the establishment, a phrase that was used at the time to depict those who followed traditional paths and held traditional beliefs, which were exactly what us hippies were trying to escape from.
Among those in attendance were schoolteachers; nurses; a fourth generation Elmiran who ran a shopping mall; a former nun; a number of local housewives; all in all not quite what I had expected. I thought these kinds of people weren’t the type who would question the nature of existence, or question anything for that matter, but my stereotyped vision was soon to be shattered, and many more times over the years as classes continued.
This one woman, who I more easily imagined out food shopping for her family than attending this kind of a get-together, promptly came up to me and told me she was picking up various things about me. She said I had been a high-class prostitute and spy during the American Revolution and my name had been Suzanne or Suzette. According to what she “was getting,” my lover at that time was a current friend of mine whose name back then had been Grimidly. She then informed me that Grimidly was an officer who I used to funnel information to. At some point he thought I had betrayed his confidence though in actuality I hadn’t, but nonetheless he shot me in the back of the neck because of my supposed transgression. She also said she was having images of me and some of my cronies as Greeks or Romans dressed in togas with wreaths around our heads.
Not quite sure how to respond I thanked her for the information and parked myself in the back of the room near the large bay windows.
A few minutes went by and then Jane walked into the room and placed herself in the handsome wooden rocking chair I had seen pictures of from her book, The Seth Material. Jane was casually dressed, with jeans and a loose fitting long-sleeved top. One of her first acts was to light up a cigarette and pour herself a glass of wine. So much for stereotypes of mediums. She started talking about some recent developments involving something called Sumari. Sumari was described as a psychic family or guild of consciousness, whose members worked together through the centuries to help mankind. There was also a Sumari language, though not a language in the usual sense since it was not spoken verbally by any group of people in our history. Despite that fact Jane had recently begun conversing in the Sumari “language,” and singing Sumari songs as well.
While class continued to discuss this Sumari stuff, without any warning Jane took off her glasses, placed them on the nearby coffee table, and began speaking in a loud deep masculine voice. Her eyes seemed to be darker and her entire demeanor changed dramatically. Her facial structure in a subtle but definite way rearranged itself as if the muscles themselves were somehow more alert, more focused. The most striking change however was within the eyes. I had never thought about it all that much, but at that moment it really struck me how there is an intangible quality within the eyes of every person, stamping the uniqueness of their identity, and distinguishing them from all others. For all intents and purposes the personality that was now gazing out from what a moment ago had been Jane’s eyes was not Jane.
That other personality, however one decided to label it, started speaking about how the Sumari were gathering together from near and afar. I wasn’t sure if traveling two hundred forty miles was considered afar enough, but this whole Sumari concept certainly sounded intriguing. As quickly and easily as Jane had gone into trance she came out of trance, put her glasses back on, took a sip of wine, and asked class what Seth had said.
After a brief description of Seth’s comments Jane went back into trance, but instead of Seth coming through, Jane started singing. The words did not correspond to any language I was familiar with so I figured this must be the Sumari language class had just been speaking about. The sounds sprung forth with a distinct clarity as Jane hit high notes and low notes with the true pitch of a trained opera singer.
I say Jane, but now it wasn’t Jane or Seth, but an entirely different personality looking out through Jane’s eyes. The sounds began bouncing off the walls and at moments it seemed like the walls themselves were vocalizing on their own in perfect harmony with the notes that “Jane” was singing. When the song ended various class members described their reactions and then Jane called for a break. She got up from her rocker, walked across the hall to her other apartment, and it was understood that the fifteen minutes or so she spent across the hall during class break was also her break; i.e., do not disturb.
During this time out class members spoke in animated fashion about dreams, coincidences, out-of-body experiences, topics that one would categorize today as new age. As Jane reentered the room after break the atmosphere was still buzzing with lots of discussion, laughter, and a feeling of camaraderie, though some of us were only meeting each other for the first time… or were we?
Fred was a pleasant looking young man who appeared both friendly and intelligent as he participated in class that evening, so it was rather surprising when one of the class members asked out loud to no one in particular: “Why is Fred on trial?” And then the same question was repeated but the “no one in particular part” changed to someone very in particular, me! I was then asked why I was feeling all this anger toward Fred.
I began to squirm. My instinctive reaction was denial though in fact each time Fred spoke my anger toward him began to rise. In the next moment Jane was back in trance singing in that Sumari “language,” and while still in trance motioned for me and Fred to stand up and walk over to her.
We got up, stood on either side of Jane’s rocker, and while Jane remained seated and still in trance she reached out and took Fred’s hands, took my hands, and clasped them together. With our hands entwined, Jane continued to sing in Sumari and as she did so I could feel my anger toward Fred beginning to fade. I then smiled at him as if to say, okay, all my anger for you is gone. Secretly however, (or so I thought) I was still holding on to some of that anger. While continuing to sing in Sumari Jane shook Fred’s hands and my hands which were still interwoven. With that gesture all my anger toward Fred truly dissipated. Fred and I laughed, released our hands, and Jane ended the song.
Before we had time to barely blink Seth came through, looked at me and said, “Let that be a lesson to you!” He did not say it in a mean spirited way, (no pun intended) and I didn’t feel put down or demeaned in any sense.
When Jane came out of trance she and some other members of class stated that as they were listening to the Sumari song they had images of a trial, with me being the judge and Fred being accused of some form of adultery. As the judge I cut him no slack for his misdeeds and meted out a very harsh sentence, which in effect relegated him to the role of outcast in society’s eyes.
I later learned that one of the purposes of the Sumari songs was to conjure up memories of past events, whether from this life or other lives. Jane, as well as others in the room, also picked up that Pete, a friend of Fred’s who was in class that night, and Jeffrey, a friend of mine, were witnesses at this trial. Bee, one of the local Elmirans who regularly attended class and was there that evening, was supposed to have been the scribe at this trial. At this point I was now able to admit that I had indeed been feeling anger toward Fred since class began and conceded I was just being defensive when called on it. Jane simply said that we all try to deny what we are feeling at times and that it was no big deal.
Class ended at about 11:00 that evening and though I should have been pretty tired by now I was more awake than I had been when I got up early that morning. Those few hours in Jane’s living room were like stepping off a plane into a foreign country and my mental antennae were still buzzing.
As we drove back to New York City, Jeffrey told me how amazed he was when I started singing along with the Sumari while standing in front of Jane.
Singing with the Sumari? I honestly had no recollection of this, but at that point if Jeffrey told me that the couch levitated and circled the room I don’t think I would have doubted it.
Few cars traveled route 17 this time of night. The trucks however were good company as headlights played tag with each other, passing, falling behind, and then passing again. Highway diners reared their dimly lit heads like strange road creatures coming alive for a few moments, and then falling back into their dreamlike state.
As I passed Wurtsboro, New York, I thought of my twelve year old self at summer camp, contentedly sleeping after a long day of sports, swimming, and getting into whatever mischief he could find. I wondered how he might have reacted if I told him about the journey he was going to take one day. I decided to let him rest in peace.
BLONDIE'S
by F. P. Dorchak
Rain crashed down in severe, impenetrable sheets, as if the anger of the gods were being visited upon me. It was deafening, thunderous. I punched through it, tears blinding me. A midsummer night's dream, I mused. Some dream, indeed. It'd been some time since I'd last been through Iowa, a lifetime ago, for all practical purposes, but all I know is that whatever I did, whomever I was with, it all paled in comparison to her. I've never met anyone like her, before or since, and though we barely talked, had never really even held each other, I never stopped thinking about her. This, of course, didn't sit well with my girlfriend at the time, but, as I said, that was a long time ago....
Maybe the gods aren't angry...just sad. Like me.
I remember that midsummer's trip as if it were yesterday. I was with Grace. We'd been making a marathon drive back from her parents' home, and it had been raining hard then, too. We'd taken two cars, because I'd met her directly from a business trip, and we were driving back to North Dakota. It was somewhere between midnight and three in the morning when the rain slammed down so hard we could barely see, and since Grace was in the lead, I followed her as she pulled off onto some obscure back road that wasn't on any map.
We pulled off and found shelter beneath an overhang to an ancient gas station. We sat there for some time--I had gotten out of my car and gone to hers. It could have been a beautiful setting, could have been quite romantic, if it hadn't been for our fight just before leaving her folks.
We'd been dating for about two years then, and Grace had brought up the idea of marriage, but not just marriage--marriage and children. Why do people feel the need to bring more souls into the world? I may be a bit unconventional--or unreasonable--but I feel that there are quite enough bodies already populating the planet, thank you. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I loved her...then. I wasn't so adverse to taking her as my wife as I was against having kids. I was young, still a bit wild, and had no intention of being tied down to a family, let alone children. Anyway, we'd left her folks under somewhat strained circumstances. She'd even snapped at me that maybe it was a sign we drove in separate vehicles. Things weren't going well, and let's just say they didn't get any better.
So, I'm in her car, the downpour still mercilessly pounding the countryside, and we just sat there. The sound of the rain was curiously soothing for all its furor, even hypnotic. The night hung thickly over us like a heavy blanket--and the fact that it was three in the morning was even better. Have you ever been awake at that hour? I mean, really awake and experienced the fact that others--most really--were still tucked away snugly in their beds, dreaming? It's quite cozy, like living film noir.
At any rate, Grace broke the silence first. She wanted to know what I wanted out of life. I told her I didn't know, that I was just busy living it. Well, didn't I want to live it with someone? Of course I did, I told her, it's much more fulfilling and enjoyable when you can share things with one you love. Don't you love me? she asked, of course I do, then why won't you marry me--it's not about marrying you, Grace, it's about the kids part, the kids' part? what does that have to do with anything--everything, dammit, I can't explain it, but it's scary and there's too many people in the world and why are you trying to pressure me I thought we'd been through all this already....
It wasn't long after that that Grace burst out of the car and into the downpour. I went after her, of course, to find her standing and sobbing out in the middle of the muddy road we'd just come on down. I tried to hold her, but she wouldn't have it. I felt my life ripped apart--after all, I loved her--I didn't want her to go, but something wasn't allowing me to accept her proposal. Then I looked to her and saw she was staring at the building we'd parked alongside. It was kind of funny, because I, too, got caught up in whatever was going on at that moment. We were parked between some of those old-time gas pumps and the building.
Slowly, Grace began to walk away from me. Again I followed. Totally ignoring our vehicles, we went to the building. Above the awning, or roof, we'd parked under, was a sign we could barely make out through the downpour: "Blondie's," it said. Instantly intrigued, we forgot about our problems. Grace got to the door first. She reached out for the screen-door handle and pulled, then worked the inner doorknob, which opened into a darkened interior. A dry, darkened interior. We both just walked on in....
It was the strangest experience I've ever had. There was an immediate calmness that befell us--and a deep, emotionally powerful...something. I don't know what it was, I just know I felt like crying. I looked to Grace, but she was already looking at me. I couldn't tell if those were tears in her eyes or remnants of the storm. We just stood there, looking at each other.
This time it was my turn to make the first move. I flipped on a light switch. Partial lights flickered on. I broke away from Grace, and began to take in the place. It was an old-time gas station-restaurant, like in those old forties' movies I love so much. Even had that musty, nostalgic, smell, and creaking floorboards. I immediately fell in love with the place. But where was everyone? Sleeping? Then why was the door left unlocked? I mean, back-country Iowa or not, most businesses I knew didn't leave doors unlocked over night.
"I'm gonna look for a bathroom," Grace mumbled, and went off in search of one.
I walked about the room, listening to the rain not only pounding the building, but my soul, and found myself falling deeper in love with the place. It really was quite quaint, and I immediately wished we'd found this under different circumstances. Grace was in the rest room for some time, so I sat down at a table in one corner of the room where I felt particularly drawn.
There were old, polished-but-quite-worn-out wooden tables, two of them, a Wurlitzer, display cabinets that were now empty, but could have, at one time or another, been home to candy, pies--whatever--but, what really piqued my interest was an old calendar tacked up on the adjacent wall. It was dated 1944, I remember that, and there was this picture of a woman on it, but over her picture was tacked an old black-and-white photograph. "Varga Girl" had been scratched out beneath the calendar's picture, and beneath that was scrawled "Blondie."
I smiled. Someone else was in love...at one point, anyway. Someone had stood where I now sat, and put up their wife's, or girlfriend's, picture over this Varga Girl. I reached up and removed the black and white, and looked at it. Though a bit faded, I was instantly shocked by the emotional intensity of this woman. She was quite attractive, and was staring out across the boundaries of time...at me...pleading. She wanted something, but what? The longer I stared, the more I wanted to kiss her, to hold her. She seemed lonely, desperate. I placed the photograph on the table before me, and folded my hands beneath my chin. I couldn't pull my eyes away from her and just...stared. Into her eyes. Large and dark. I wanted to feel what she was feeling at the time of this picture, feel her thoughts, her lips, her--
"What are you looking at?"
Grace had returned, and to my utter amazement, I had all but forgotten about her. Embarrassed, I pushed away the picture.
"Who's this?" Grace asked, picking it up. "She's pretty." She put the photograph back on the table. "Did you find anyone?"
"No. It seems a bit weird, but I think whoever owns this joint forgot to lock up. Lucky us."
"Yeah," was all she said, turning away.
Grace walked off toward the checkout counter, but I remained seated. I couldn't take my eyes away from the beautiful face in this picture. What had this woman's life turned out like? Had she fought with her boyfriend? Her husband? Have children? I was caressing the edges of the picture when Grace called out to me.
"Nolan, could you come over here, please?"
Reluctantly, I got up and did as requested. "What?"
"What should we do? It's still pouring outside, I'm cold, I'm hungry. No one's around--"
"--well, that's not exactly so," came a voice from behind. Both of us turned to find a woman standing, in a bathrobe, arms crossed, at the entrance Grace had used for the rest room. "You're welcome to wait out the storm, here, if you'd like."
Grace and I looked to each other for a long moment. "Y-your door was open, and--" I began, when the woman again interrupted.
"Some of us tend to get complacent out here, especially us few remaining optimists. The offer still stands. I've got coffee brewing in the back."
Just then we smelled the rich, elevating aroma. "I hope we didn't wake you," Grace added.
"Oh, no, it wasn't your fault. I haven't slept...well ...in a long time...and when you used the bathroom, the pipes...they have a life of their own, if you know what I mean. Why don't you both have a seat--or stand, as you prefer, I know you've probably been on the road all night."
The woman disappeared into the rear.
"Guess she lives here," I said, as I directed Grace back to the table.
"There's something weird about her," Grace said, sitting.
"I know, I felt it, too." Once again I reached for the photograph.
"She's very pretty, isn't she, the woman in the picture?"
Startled, I hesitated in my answer. I felt embarrassed, like I'd been caught in an affair. "Y-yes, she is. I keep wondering what her life must have been like--"
"Hard." Two cups of coffee were place before us. "She was my grandmother. She and her husband started this place."
"Is that who tacked this up there?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, looking to the calendar, "it's remained up there all these years--until you took it down."
"Oh--I'm-I'm so sorry--"
"That's okay," she said, smiling warmly, which actually kind of unnerved me, "you didn't know. Sometimes change is good, you know? Do you mind if I sit with you?"
"No, go right ahead, I mean, we barged in on you," Grace said.
I looked to our coffee and found they each already contained the cream and sugar we both took in them. "Thank you for the coffee," I said. The woman smiled.
* * *
It almost seemed like another me, then. Another life. As I now try to navigate through this downpour I recalled all the other times I'd been through here between Cedar Rapids and Grand Forks. I've been through countless rain storms, always searching for that one, unmapped, road, and never have I found it. But I feel closer each time I come out in search of it, feel irresistibly drawn to it, like metal to a magnet. I've tried to explain this feeling over the years, but eventually just gave up. I tried to explain all my failed relationships and lonely nights, my failed employments, but in the end gave up, merely trying to cope. A pipe dream. That's all it was. A futile attempt to keep my life going in spite of all the failure I'd created: never staying at one job long enough to get on a first name basis; never staying in relationships long enough to consider marriage--and always wondering how Grace's life turned out. Always wondering if maybe, maybe I should have taken her offer....
But that night remained with me forever. As that woman stayed at the table with us, I felt something about her reach out to me--like her grandmother's photograph. Once or twice under the table, I felt her leg brush against mine. I said nothing, thinking it just one of those unseen beneath-the-table moments, but I felt her touch on several occasions, and soon became extremely uncomfortable--not because of the contact, but because I wanted the contact--and found myself irresistibly attracted to her. This went beyond any purely physical attraction, because, and don't get me wrong, she was beautiful, but it went deeper. Like we knew each other on some level I couldn't explain--and didn't necessarily want to. I was enjoying this mysterious bond, but was also hoping Grace wasn't picking up on it.
But within a short while, I found myself doing the unconscionable: I found myself trying to touch this woman as I sat before my girlfriend. I'd place a foot just so, a leg or hand in a certain position. I couldn't believe what I was doing, and all along this woman showed no hint of our hidden interplay, carrying on a perfectly normal conversation with my girlfriend and me.
Then it happened. After all the coffee this woman had been serving us, Grace got up to again use the rest room. As soon as Grace had disappeared into the dark, the woman turned to me. She never said a word, but my excitement grew. I shook with anticipation, and, yes, embarrassment. She smiled and gently took my hand. Oh, her warm, soft skin...the feeling as we finally held hands out in the open was indescribable.
Gently and lovingly, she caressed my skin. I felt as if I'd known her forever. I pictured us making love--not a mere fling, but feral, passionate, love. I took in everything about her, her expressive yet not overly full lips, the wisps of loose hair about her quietly beautiful face, the depth and loving of her intense scrutiny. The softness of her touch, and of how profoundly her touch moved me.
I don't know how long we carried on, but gradually my uncomfortableness gave way to pure, uninhibited adoration. She lifted my hand to her beautiful lips and kissed and nipped at my fingertips; turned my hand over and kissed my wrist. I nearly died. I squeezed her hand, took it within both of mine, and kissed hers, realizing that at any moment Grace would return.
I tingled with bizarre excitement and reached for her face--what was I doing? We came in closer. I could feel her warm, moist, breath upon my skin. She parted her lips to meet mine, her eyes hypnotic and yearning. I closed my eyes...and our lips touched. It was electric, like a spiritually arching jolt. We both locked in this unbelievably metaphysical kiss that lasted an eternity--when she broke away. I heard Grace's approach and hurriedly wiped my mouth, but the woman didn't. Again, she smiled.
"Miss--oh, I guess we never got your name--the light burned out in the bathroom--"
"I'm sorry--I'll fix it immediately--"
"Oh, don't bother now, it's no big deal, it was only the dark, you know. I don't think I'll have to use it again, anyway. We should probably get going," Grace said, as she turned to look out the windows.
I suddenly realized that the rain had let up enough that it no longer battered the building like boulders. I looked to the woman beside me, who was already looking at me with searching, painful eyes, eyes that literally scared me, because I felt I'd seen them before. Her face had somehow changed as well, in a deeply terrifying way I couldn't explain. It was like she was beginning to emaciate, but it was an emaciation I found I was very much attracted to--
"Nolan--what are you doing?" came Grace's sudden, fierce, outcry.
Immediately terrified, I looked to her.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
To my utter astonishment, I looked to the tabletop--and found myself clutching this mysterious woman's hands. My blood chilled, and I shot to my feet, quickly removing my hand from hers.
Grace stared at the both of us. She said not one word, but inside I knew every thought that raced through her mind: is this what he'd been doing while I was away--how could this be, we'd never even met her before...maybe marriage wasn't such a good idea....
Still without a word, Grace turned. The look of hurt that had been on her face tore my soul from my breast. As I reached out for her, Grace never turned around, but thrust an upraised hand before me like one pissed-off traffic cop. I was stopped by the force of her silent command and stared back. Grace quietly opened the doors, and went out into the night. I again made a move toward her when the woman grabbed me.
"Please..." she begged. More images flew through my mind, about us living happily together--but they were more than mere images, they were as if I had actually lived them for one long, luxurious, moment. I took the woman's hand into my own, and gave her my own pleading look. I didn't want to leave her, and I couldn't explain it. What was going on here? How could I do such a thing in front of my girlfriend--a woman I could have married? How could I feel such emotion for a woman I'd never before met? Grace started her car, gunning the engine.
"I...have to go--I don't know you. Don't you see? I don't know you, yet want to stay with you. Can you understand me? I can't. I have to go...with her."
I broke free, and rushed from the building, out into the storm.
Once outside, Grace had already left the store, and I saw her taillights disappear into the darkness and rain. Quickly, I got into my car, brought it to life, and left the pumps. As I spun out into the rain and mud, I looked into my rearview and froze. The building that we had taken refuge in had melted from sight. I'm not saying that the rain had again become so thick that only yards from it it had been made to appear that way--no, what I'm saying is that as I looked into my rearview, I actually saw it melt into nothingness as the rain pelted it.
GOOD BYE.
And so I've thought about it all these years and still come up with the same questions. Had she been a ghost? Had it all been an hallucination? Had we ever met before?
No, I'd never seen her before in my life.
Every map, every person I'd ever talked to had no recollection of that road, or building. Of that woman. No folklore, no legends, no nothing. So what'd happened? Something had to have occurred, because Grace saw her too, had seen us holding hands, for chrissakes. Grace'd never stopped after she'd gotten into the car that night, except for gas, and when she had, I stopped, but she turned and gave me that same murderous glare and silent command. It was over. I didn't even try. We both knew this was the end. No longer had it been about kids, if it really had ever been. I let her go, and watched as her taillights again left me for the darkness. Forever.
Ever since, I've failed at everything. I got fired from every job, never had second dates, and after a while, not even firsts. Got evicted from apartments--lost my mortgage--you name it. I finally admitted to myself what I needed to do. I had nothing holding me back anymore, so where was the harm? I'd gotten into my car, filled it up, and headed into rainy oblivion.
And here I am. I've gotten pretty good, over the years, of driving in the nearly undriveable. Learned the back roads pretty well. But I'm tired. I need to find what was, all those years ago. If I can't, well, I don't know what I'll do.
So the rain pounds down upon my windshield, cursing me for all I've done, and not done. Bursts of thunder and lightning jar my senses. I take one more turn up ahead, and slide down a small hill into a dip. The rain seems angrier here, and I have to slow down still more. I look to the speedometer and see that my speed barely registers. Why am I even driving?
Because I need her.
I'm exhausted. I peer ahead, looking for a place to pull over, and uncover the sleeping pills, so many, many, of them, beneath my crumpled jacket on the front seat. I briefly look at them. Enough of everything....
When I spot something up ahead. I get closer and try to make it out--and what do I see?
An ancient gas station. A roof covering gas pumps.
I brake, and my car slides into a muddy and crooked stop before the pumps. I get out, deafened by the roar of the rain, wincing from the force of the storm, and stand there, looking to the building. I can't believe what I'm seeing! There's a light on. Legs weak and shaky, I approach the screen door. It's solid, all right. Grasping the doorknob, I open it. I enter the room and see a shadowy figure slumped over at one of the tables in that far corner. Her head hangs low. I am without words as I approach, for I know it's her. Sure, I've aged some, as I know she has, but what's right is right. I get to the table, and see an old black-and-white photograph still lying on the table where I'd last left it. I look to the woman who still sat in the same chair I'd left her in. I place a hand to her shoulder--cold at first--but soon feel warmth. She lifts her head, and I come around and sit beside her.
"I've waited for you for so long," she whispers, in a wavering, tortured, voice, tears draining down her cheeks.
Heart in my throat, I look into her eyes and see the same woman I'd seen all those years ago. Exactly the same. I'm not sure how I know this, or how much I believe it, but it makes sense. She isn't a ghost, at least not in the conventional sense--no...she's a wish.
"I'm Blondie," she whispers, "I'm the woman--"
"I know. In the photograph."
She smiled. "It's hard to explain, but I've always loved you, just as you've always loved me. We're two people of the same hunger. Both of us wanted something neither had, but reached across time to find. There are other...lives...we all live, some in dreams, some not. When you looked into that photograph, you created all of this--"
"But how could I? We got here before the picture--"
"Desire has a way of warping time. I can't explain it myself, only know my want, as do you. However it happened, we know the reality of the outcome. Can we live in more than one reality? I don't know. I only know that I didn't want to live in the one I had been in up until that picture. I had to leave. The moment you read my need, desired me, you took me out of that life and brought me into this one. That's all I know, all I care about. I'm no longer where I was."
"And me?"
Again, that warm smile. "Your choice. You still have that choice--"
"No...I don't. There is no choice, can't you see? I've always been with you since that moment--everything else I've ever done, or tried to do, has left me; never had I anything since I left you that day."
She smiled, and we both knew. Why try to know and explain everything? Why not just live the moment and leave the explanations to Who, or Whatever, runs this crazy ride.
I reached out to Blondie and took her hand, and immediately felt a lifetime younger--older?--who cared. We were together and I would never, ever, again abandon her. We had both found what we so desperately sought--and it was just that--we both needed to need it...desperately.
The rain continued to pound, relentlessly, but it wasn't angry, not in the least. And as our building and pumps melted away, as did my car and the remains of my previous life, I realized that there had never been any anger in the rain--only tears of joy.
Rain Haiku
by John J. McNally
The rain falls on me
but water touches me not
Which one is unreal?
Announcements, Links and Shopping
The 7th Annual COLORADO SETH CONFERENCE
12-16 September 2007
THEME: "THE UNIVERSE LEANS IN YOUR DIRECTION"
"So ... What is Your Direction?"
NEW LOCATION !
THE MARRIOTT GROUP OF LONGMONT
3 Hotels with Spacious Suites and Rooms to chose from:
(within steps of one another)
Spring Hill Suites
Residence Inn
The Courtyard
BEFORE DATE RATE:
June 15th $300
Aug 1st $325
Sept 22th $350
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SEE: http://ColoradoSethConference.com
SUMARI SHOPPING
A collection of products and services offered by Seth fans around the world.
If you have a product or service you'd like to see listed here, feel free to contact us at
SNJ@newworldview.com
Explore the works of Visionary Artist Shirley Hadley!
The photographs you see below were created by Shirley in her studio, and not through electronic manipulation. Each photo is available in 5x7 or 8x10 and includes a poem that goes with the photo.
Entrance to Awareness
The journey of the self is
to see without using your eyes
to hear but not with your ears.
Listen to your inner voice, it will lead you
to an awareness of new ways to view your
selves and the world you live in.
Rainbow Dimension
Mysterious shadows suspended in the sky
rainbows connected, self-awareness is reflected.
Shades of color and dimensions of light,
holographic images, illusions of night
