Walking in the Dark

OK.. Here we go.  Walk this way.

Opening Remurk

I’d originally intended to talk about some of my experiences with the people of the celestial realms and perhaps introduce you to a few of my favorite friends and contacts there. Instead I’ve decided to share a little about my recent travels.  Memory is a tricky thing for me. Some things I remember in fine detail and others, no matter how important, effacing or aggrandizing just slip into that place where quarters flee, forever unaccounted once they slip out of the pocket, then between couch cushions , and where socks vanish from the dryer, never to be seen again.

Of What Use Am I?

Honestly, I feel that if I make even one person’s day a little brighter, I have fulfilled my purpose.  Yeah, low quota.  I know.  I would say that makes me a cheap high, except I’ve been the recipient of such fortune myself and have cause to value such…and I also know how hard it can be for me to get my engine started to leave the cave, taking enough responsibility for any potential moodiness to sincerely deliver such a payload. It aint always like fallin’ off a log. Fortunately, for whatever reason, by the time I take a few steps, get out among people, no matter who they may be, I feel pretty good about letting a little peace out to anyone available.

Now I’m not a Pollyanna about it, I know that sometimes you ask people how they’re doing and you’ll get back some version of ‘not so good’; and I’m OK with that, because I’m just beaky and curious that way.

So, when I go on one of my treks, I’m willing to meet whoever is there.  8 out of 10 times, I’m pleasantly surprised.

Why Trip In The First Place?

It seemed to come up fairly suddenly.

I have been working on manifesting for myself for the past couple of years. I make the distinction “for myself” because I have done pretty well manifesting for others over the years yet find that I have a checkered record in doing so for myself. My wife, often tells me that I’m busy doing all kinds of stuff for others…but what about her, what about the family… hell, what about me? I sometimes think there may be something to what she says (yes, that’s right, the jury’s still out on this, so far as I’m concerned.) However, to the extent t hat I get that there’s merit in what she’s saying, I recognize it may be an imbalance in myself.  Heck, I am just not that different from anyone else, to warrant such a different treatment in this regard.  So I rallied the team for one of my internal safaris, to sniff out and subdue the culprit(s).

Who I eventually found there was my old friend, Fear; though it’s never enough to identify him by surname alone…one must be specific to confront; and perhaps to cure.  Fear of being homeless, destitute, alone in some frozen isolation left to die of exposure to the elements, or from hunger and starvation. Corny, I know. Yet it’s an old friend…very. very old…and will come when summoned.

Whenever possible, I find moving toward my fears, rather than choosing the path of avoidance and hasty retreat, to be a method of substance in dealing. I know that some fears are well founded in the present…and that count (‘some’) is very few. I note that roughly 95% of all that I fear (or even worry about, for that matter) NEVER COMES TO PASS. What a waste of good angst.  So by intentionally and consciously wading into it (read: confronting it) I usually dispel such devilishness, at least.  In the best case scenarios, I win those shadows as allies.

One example of this that recently came to mind (IE – popped out of that memory cold storage we talked about earlier) occurred during a walkabout in Europe and the UK, some years back.  I’d been tromping about the Continent for a couple of months and decided to hop up to England to get the real culture shock experience. On my way out, I stopped by the Stonehenge (when you could still walk in it and sit on it), Stratford on the Avon and then hightailed it for Plymouth where I was facing a tight deadline to catch the last ferry out to Roscoff in France.  My bus arrived in Plymouth with under an hour to find and catch a local transit to the harbor and then locate the ferry terminal. The bus driver indicated that indeed I had found the correct bus…but he could not say with great certainty where I should catch the ferry at that time of night. OK…Now,  like “The Great Race” – it’s on!

The driver dropped me at a darkened location with the assurance that this was, in fact, as close as we’d come to the ferry terminal. With few attractive choices, I got out and trekked straight to the gate, finding it open but sans anything that remotely looked like a bustling ferry boarding. Peering across the moonless dark of the harbor I spotted a lit point about 1/2 or 3/4 mile away; too far to be certain of the specifics of the sighted activity… If I can only get there in time…  My back pack is heavy, nonetheless  I start to run into the space between myself and the light. But that in between was larger than at first it seemed.  The space between the lights out here on the docks was long and far between. In fact, after passing the latest cone hooded lamp, I can’t see two feet in front of me. Head for the light. I hear the water lapping to my left and right; and this is my best guide for footfalls.  Then a sudden vision of stepping off the pier with full pack strapped to my waist.  I see myself flailing as I sink to the bottom of the harbor with no one to witness, struggling to release the pack, while winded from the trot. Just keep moving…walk into the dark…into the true unknown.  Could this be any more frightening? Wait. What’s that…who’s that up there? There, top-lit under the next dim cone, Manchu beard and deep sunk eyes shadowed beneath his bald pate which, settled on a huge frame that looked to tower at least 6 1/2 feet above the base of the lamppost, a still, monolith of a man faced me.  Shit! Well, can’t stop now. Determined to meet this fate, whatever it was, I thought  “I’ll meet it before it comes at me.”  I shout, “Is this the way to the Roscoff Ferry?” He bellows back, “What?” Me, louder, “Is this the WAY to the Roscoff Ferry!?”  As I close the distance he returns, “Are you from Chicago?” Damn it! I’m ready to charge with all my modest weight in the next moment if necessary…What? Wait…what did he just say?  I, “What?” He repeats, “Are you from CHICAGO?” – (Huh?) “Yeah.” (?!?!??) He – “BROTHERMAN!” and with that Mr. Clean, this giant Djinn, picks me up, pack and all, in a (literally)stunning bearhug…then puts me down and in a most amicable and very American accent (Chicagoan, no doubt) explains that the ferry is not until 6am the next morning, and that I’m in luck because he’s here for the very same himself and he’ll make sure I’m on it, etc, etc, etc we go on, for the next several hours to come.

Now some say I should have been wary at that point; after all, he’s still a lone giant in the middle of a dark place. But actually… I KNEW ….somewhere in the hug, that everything was OK.  As I said earlier: “I’m willing to meet whoever is there (and)  8 out of 10 times, I’m pleasantly surprised.” Now, really, I just put that at 8 out of 10 as a conservative estimate… I may have forgotten a few times where things REALLY didn’t work out; remember what I said about memory. But to stay with the truth I have to say, by and large, I find people to be a miraculous surprise…even those one might consider, at first glance, to be “Bad” people.  The worst I can say about this is that sometimes I wonder about my capacity to judge character, when I find that I accept people who, by their own admission have done some pretty reprehensible things.  I think that’s because the thought crosses my mind that I too have done some pretty reprehensible things – but here, in this moment – I am not that guy.

So maybe, in THIS moment, it’s all forgivable, for me and for them. Maybe I don’t know enough to make that judgment call. Maybe if I’m just present, in THIS now, I may find my way to be…who I can be – now.

OK… so back to the latest trip.

By the end of the afternoon, I found myself in snow country…but mostly in a car, warm and toasty. By the evening, I had been gifted a meal in a darling Lake Woebegone restaurant in Weed, CA beneath  the mantle of the great Shasta. And by that night I would again forge forward into darkness and the unseen in a fresh frozen Oregon zero visibility blizzard. Only this time I knew how to take this leap. I knew we would be fine despite the blindness.

I left home with $30 and change. After a little more than three weeks I made it to Seattle, WA with stops along the way, and as far south as San Louis Obispo,  a bit north of Santa Barbara. I’ve gained a little weight, had my fill of some of the finest wines the whole west coast has to offer, been to four parties and one banquet, hiked up a volcanic cone (that is so alien NASA trained moon walkers there), participated in the Eagle Watch (though I refrained from joining in the Native American dances), seen several bald and golden eagles up close and personal, a lynx, a bobcat and returned home by train (and bus) through some profoundly beautiful natural scenery.  I participated in yoga sessions in two states and sat with a Buddhist sangha several times and engaged in countless conversations about Mind and the nature of who we are. I was even the fortunate recipient of a Reiki treatment that yielded quite a successful outcome.

All compliments of a simple break in routine.

In the process I met a wonderful lady who struck a great conversation with me ranging from family, to soul ages, to health and the miraculous.  She turned out to be one of those rare attorneys who managed to maintain a wonderfully close and vivid family life, the first time around, as well as her practice.  Actually, quite a few people wanted to delve into layman’s conversations about quantum physics,  or talked about what I call, the Apocalypse or Gate (all history by now.) Several had a good bit to say about celestial interactions or interventions and so many had much to express about topics infrequently if ever, found in the news. Yep, people are a miraculous surprise.

I returned to the homeland with about $35.

I have learned more things than I can consciously access right now. Though I can point out one major lesson learned that has substantial grounding. It is that I will never go homeless, be hungry for long or die of exposure to the elements in some horrible fashion, by accident. That can only become mine, if I choose it. I will live with that perspective, now. I have other ‘fish to fry.’

I found out that more people than I’d ever imagined are quite interested in so many of the (what I’d thought were obscure and unusual) topics that rattle around in my tiny brain. Concern averted.

Oh… yeah… I took care of another resistance while I was at it. I went downhill skiing for the first time in my life.  I’d always seen this as a crazy thing to do… downright foolish; and have seen many casts to validate that point of view. But I thought, while I was walking into the unknown, and dispelling fears (btw, ‘dispelling’ is an accurate way to state this) I might just as well have some fun putting that one to rest.

I didn’t make the blue runs, that first day…but I had a hella good time.

Next time I’ll make those introductions.

Today’s closing number: 222

Today’s recommended podcast: Faye Lane: Fireworks From Above

Today’s Factoid:

Q. Does the Great Pyramid at Ghiza have 3 or 4 sides?

A. Neither. The Great Pyramid at Ghiza, Egypt, has 8 sides.  In 1940 a British Royal Air Force pilot, while flying overhead, took pictures of the monumental ancient structure. The photo showed a rare sight. From the air, the sun cast shadows that revealed an 8-sided and ever so slightly concave shape,  until then unnoticed in modern times. This is a light show visible only from above, only at sunrise and sunset, and only, as it turns out, on the vernal or autumnal equinox.  Creating this effect absolutely requires the most extraordinary mathematics and engineering, by today’s standards.