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One Day, In Utter Poverty, Came This Vision

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

In 1991, I was very poor but was working in a field that I completely loved: planning and leading groups of Westerners to the Soviet Union for homestays to meet the Russian and Ukrainian people. There was no money in it, but I adored everything about the life I led. When I was spending multiple weeks within the USSR, traveling about on trains, having great adventures with small groups of dear and spiritual friends, and making more deep friendships wherever we went, money was not the criteria for a happy life.

I had no income then and would leave the country for weeks at a time to lead these Citizen Diplomacy tours. I knew that I was doing God’s Will and that the friendships forged between former Soviets and Americans would help to heal our divisions and bring about world peace. That was worth all of the income and security in the world.

Exactly eighteen years ago this month, I had this Vision and recorded it in my journal on October 23, 1991:

“I had a Vision, a glimpse of reality, last night… a very powerful image. After I went to bed, I did suffer butterflies reacting to the tangible reality that I soon won’t be able to write a check, that my credit card will shut down when I don’t make the payments. I have no foreseeable income, and I’m going away for a month to let it all crash.

I said lots of private prayers about teaching me reliance on God, alone. Sometime in the night, I had this glimpse: It was of a knight mounted on his horse in full regalia, moving smoothly through the forest. The horse was finely outfitted, as if for a tournament, with silver and heavy brocade trappings. The forest was filled with mist and grey, bare trees. The ground was covered with wet leaves. The knight and the horse made no noise and all noise. The sound and power which accompanied this warrior was immense, like a freight train locomotive, from a distance of ten inches. And yet, there was a hushed silence.

It had an endless dimension, as if he were a whole army of  knights contained in one form. In spite of the masculine image, I knew that he was ME, riding forth. I wasn’t in battle yet, but I was approaching the field, calmly and alone…and yet, accompanied with, surrounded by, made up of, something enormous. I felt as if the Hosts of Heaven, 10,000 Troops, were in my one body. The movement was even and steady, neither slow nor fast. The horse walked, but did not deliberately pick its way over the soft leaves. It proceeded forward with this impact of power all around it.

I interpreted this to mean that I was on my way to the challenge but that I had not reached the open field when the time would come to ride forth swiftly. However, I could see that I was approaching it with all deliberation, and that I had the strength to do justice to the day.”

I managed to continue doing that work for another three years, in one form or another; dirt poor the whole time, but happy. I’ve never forgotten that Vision of looking at myself moving on horseback through the forest, and once, I came upon an illustration in a magazine of that very scene, as if to remind me of that promise.

What is completely forgotten are the money problems of the time. They really weren’t “problems,” though they included a bankruptcy almost ten years later. I don’t remember those little details.

But, I do recall The Vision, as if it were yesterday. I understand it much better now, almost twenty years later. I have ridden, flat out, but serenely, across those fields. Maybe, I’m approaching more up ahead somewhere. Wouldn’t that be fine?

Jigsaw Puzzle Man

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

Surely inspired by the fiction reading I’m doing now, written by my high school friend, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall (see the previous blog posting), I dug through an old trunk to find my few attempts at fiction. Here’s a sketch I wrote many years ago.It was loosely inspired by the Persian poet, Rumi.

Jigsaw Puzzle Man

His name was Jigsaw and he lived alone. He had become a puzzle to himself some time ago when he had, almost accidentally, discovered that he was more than just a man, made up of skin and bones. One day, taking inventory, he found his soul and then it became necessary to rearrange the other pieces to get them in their proper order. He put the soul on top, balanced precariously on his head. But it kept falling off whenever his feet shot out from under him in a headlong run after something that another part of his body needed. After that, he slung it around his neck, but it felt so like an albatross, he took it off. Carrying it in his hands was clumsy and it somehow seemed undignified to wear it on his feet.

So there he stood, in a perfect quandry, awkwardly holding it like a crying infant in his arms, for it was hungry and needed constant feeding. Funny. Before he noticed it, he never fed it and it slept soundly in the puzzle box, never causing any problems. Now, however, it was growing at an alarming rate and always at him for more attention; nagging him when he was having harmless fun, moving him in some unknown direction.

With distinct and certain pleasure though, he loved that soul, for it was something endless and unknown, a new dimension, a portal to another world, perhaps. Its company was certainly stimulating and in their frequent conversations, he began to suspect that it had the greater intelligence.

For the moment though, he still had the power and there were things he simply had to do. Sometimes these things caused battles with this second self, great wrestling matches somewhere deep within. And even when he won the bout and went ahead with what he wanted, the victory tasted sour in his mouth and the tarnished prize was often tossed away.

He checked himself against the picture on the box. He looked alright. The arms and legs and eyes and ears were all accounted for. And yet, he knew that there was something missing. Some unknown part was gone, had never been there and yet existed somewhere. Only the empty hole had been issued to him, a jigsaw gap with random sides. A keyhole that was as uniquely his as his own fingerprint. An incompleteness that caused him restless stirring in his sleep and made his soul unsatisfied. It was as if this missing part was the cork for the bottle of his body. Uncorked, the effervescence disappeared.

She had it! But who was she? And where was she? That was the thought that mobilized his moments. That was the quest that took his time away. That was the search that had him sifting in the sand.

“Who do you seek?” they said. And he would always answer, “Layli. I seek Layli, for she holds the secret to myself.” And they would always leave, shaking their heads in sadness to see him sitting in the dust, alone and ever-hopeful.

Above him loomed the mountain, his precious mountain. And there, the path that he had carved so many times before. It took him to his universe, now all but forgotten in his search. He knew it well. It called to him to come create another world, and then another, and then another, still. It was his work and he was well-equipped for it, except for finding Layli.

Then, through his longing he perceived a newly-sounding sound of love among the trill, shrill songs of commerce. Uneasy, he conversed with it. Unknowing, he diversed with it. Unworried, he rehearsed with it. Unsuspecting, he dispersed with it. And yet, his heart returned to it, yearned for it and burned for it.

“Layli? Layli, is it you, at last? And where? Where do you call from? How do I even know your name? What part of me is in your hand? This is the greater puzzle. I call. You answer. Now, you call. How shall I answer?”

“Oh, Jigsaw Man, there is a ridge, well beyond the saddle block. I stand there waiting. Climb up and find me. I am calling from these heights above. Leave off those dusty trails below and enter only trials of love. For love does have trials, make no mistake. But what blessings those muscle-stretchings make. It’s worth the climb..and climb…and climb again. I’m here, where views go on forever. Where worlds are born and never die. Where love is summits without number. Don’t think me in the dust. Don’t mark me there, the product of man’s grinding footfall. Not at all! I’m in the heights above, soaring beyond your present view. And here I’ve been, calling wordlessly to you.

So, hoist your pack. The day has come. It’s time and time and then some. We have a way to go and that leads up. There’s Shangri-La up there and that’s our home. You’re late for dinner, by the way. Oh yes, I brought you this. You might want to wear it now to keep the wind from whistling through you so convincingly.

It goes like this. Hmmmmm, no… Maybe this way? I know it goes right here. It’s supposed to fit just snugly in, if I’m the one. And then it resonates, and then it hums, and then we bond…and then we like it very well. Where’s mine? Let’s see if they’re alike? Why, yes they are! Which way is up, I wonder? I never was much good at puzzles. Well, mine fits right away. Oh, here’s the difference! That spot from which you knew to look for mine has opened up the extra wedge we needed. Now yours will go in easily… in that forever hole you’ve been trying in the dust to fill. There, it’s done! Let’s see what happens now.”

“Layli! I hear the sound of music! Will wonders never cease? This cardboard hole had muffled all the sounds. I lay in broken pieces half the time, and took so long to sort myself, I never had the time to sing my song. My soul is singing! It’s my soul! It’s in there too, behind your gift. You’ve given it a home! Now I feel whole! I am whole, and so are you.

Were you wounded with this vast gap, as well? So noise moved through and not around? And now, with this new piece you brought me, I am so tightly fit; so ready for these mountains that this sound comes clear and bell-like through a crystal me. There are no sawlines now, no pieces and no parts.

And you the same! We will not break apart, like puzzles, even should we run, or leap, or sometimes fall. It’s safe to be ourselves. Our missing has been linked and it is over!”

“But, not our calling to each other, Love! That’s just begun. So, let us navigate this pathless place, and, mapless, find the way to everywhere and everyone, together.”

Hats Off To A Fantastic Writer And A Long-Lost Friend

Friday, September 25th, 2009

A few days ago, I attended a funeral for Sue Willis, a high-school friend who had kept our Class of ’55 together by planning reunions and mini-get-togethers over the last half-century.  There, I heard of another old friend who is making waves with her short stories and novels. Mary Ann Taylor-Hall has just published a new book, At The Breakers, and it’s now on my table, waiting to be savored. But, I started with How She Knows What She Knows About Yo-Yos, her collection of short stories, previously published in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review and others. Her first novel, Come and Go, Molly Snow is on backorder with Amazon.com, and will arrive in late October. I can’t wait to see it again, as my first copy of it is still floating around Alaska, somewhere.

Wow! I’m only midway through the second story of the Yo-Yo book, and I’m so very hooked on her writing style and her skillful storytelling that I can’t put it down to re-enter real life. I would say that her style is unconventional, but why can’t we all write like that? Oh, how I wish I could!

And how has she learned so much about swinging a yo-yo, is what I want to know? This gal’s an expert. How has she learned so much about everything she focuses that descriptive lens of hers upon? These stories emerge from the inside of the scene, not as they would from an independent observer. As I read Mary Ann’s work, I conclude that I sure don’t know how to write, but I’m so hooked on whatever it is I do, that I can’t stop anyway. So, I’ll keep on walking my pedestrian path in my own publishing ventures, but I would highly recommend these books to you for a really special reading treat.

Mary Ann and I were close friends in high school and Girl Scouts, but we lost touch after graduation. She and Suzy Norman, another good friend and roommate, moved to Kentucky with their husbands and that was that. I’m really bad about keeping up my old connections. But, we had one memorable evening, almost fifteen years ago, at our 1995 high school reunion weekend. Good old Sue planned things to begin with a mixer on Friday night at the Admiral Inn in Winter Haven, Florida, our hometown. Then, there was a Saturday morning class meeting over breakfast, a golf tournament, and a dance that night; as well as Sunday brunch. Sue never did things halfway.

Mary Ann and her husband had driven down to Florida so she could attend the reunion, while he took in a tennis camp in the Sarasota-Bradenton area. Late Friday night, a call came that he was in the hospital with a heat stroke and she needed to get over there right away. Jim Pugh, Larry Poole, Mary Ann, and I, jumped into Jim’s Lexus and started over to the west coast around midnight. Jim chose the back roads to make better time.

It might have been around 2 a.m., when we rounded a bend in a remote, wooded area of Central Florida.  A pickup truck sat smack across the highway, right in front of us. Only Jim’s extraordinary driving skills and quick, pilot’s reflexes prevented a fiery crash. He swung the car around, passed the empty truck and stopped some yards back in the direction we had just come. While he called 911, Mary Ann and I simultaneously burst from the car, headed in two different directions. Mary Ann boldly ran to the pickup, hoping to help the driver, who surely must have had a heart attack, or some calamity, to have wound up waiting for a broadside. Oddly, she found the doors locked and a man emerging from the woods.

I had grabbed Jim’s old football jacket and was now standing in the highway, using it as a semaphore to flag approaching traffic into the other lane so that they wouldn’t wind up where we almost did. I still remember the crazy thrill of standing out there in the dark in my high-heeled shoes and pretty pants suit, bought just that afternoon for the reunion; now acting like a crewman on an aircraft carrier, waving in the jets, and knowing that at any second one of them could plow right into me if I caught a sleepy driver by surprise. My mind willed each car, “Get over! Get over!” as I slung that jacket round and round, indicating the safe lane. It worked and each set of headlights veered around me, just in time.

Meanwhile, Mary Ann has commandeered this fellow coming out of the woods, claiming it’s his pickup, (later, we surmised he had set a trap with buddies still in hiding) and she has wowed him with her strong concern for his safety and well-being. By the time that Larry, Jim and I reach the truck, she has him sitting on the bumper, bending over to let the blood rush back into his brain; and asking him why in the world he had locked his truck, and what was he doing in the woods?

A crowd had gathered from the diverted cars that stopped to lend a hand, so we left it to them to push the pickup off the highway and wait till help arrived. We didn’t know what shape Mary Ann’s husband was in and wanted to hurry on over to the Bradenton Hospital, in case it had been a heart attack. It turned out he was fine. But that was that, for Mary Ann and the reunion. I haven’t seen her since.

Earlier that same evening, Jim Pugh had brought a lot of copies of her just-published first novel, Come And Go, Molly Snow, and had presented one to each of us old buddies. She signed them, before all our crazy action started later in the evening. I took mine to Alaska to read and I’m not sure how it got away from me up there. So finally now, I’ll get another to replace it.

But, what an amazing Powerhouse of a Fiction Writer that fellow Girl Scout and high school buddy, Mary Ann Taylor, turned out to be. I recently heard that her husband, Jim Hall, died this month. So, I’m thinking about her and wanting to sit myself down and write one of those things called a letter to “let her” know how much I admire and miss her. Sometimes, we write, write, write, so much that we don’t take time to do the really important writing.

Anyway, you won’t be sorry if you pick up one of these great books of hers.

To See Or Not To See…That Is The Question!

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

If you have been following this blog for awhile, you know that I am currently quoting from my manuscript, Questions & Answers, which I am now preparing for publication. After cold-editing my other manuscript about my recent, four-month, backpacking/hosteling, solo journey around South America, I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t complete and may require another trip to that continent to finish traveling down the Andean spinal column, through Chile, which I completely missed this time.

So, I’m turning to this manuscript, which has been waiting in my files for over ten years until I got up the courage to go public with the fact that I can easily interview The Holy Spirit. Lately, I have added many new questions to the 230 original questions, both to cover brand-new material and to probe deeper into some of the answers already received.The following quote will probably preface this new book of mine.

In order to read this with the most open mind possible, take a moment to consider “Question” as a vast Entity, ready to introduce Itself to an inquiring mind:

What is a Question? This seems to be an unappreciated reality. I know how hard it is to think of good ones. They could be called Topics, as well, when it comes to writing or speaking; but until a new question comes along, former topics must do. And that can become static. To be interesting, the question must be new, or else, it simply introduces a topic again.

How valuable is The Question to the flow of creation?

My God! I have wanted This Question to be asked since the very beginning of time! It seems so simple, but how many people really operate from questions? Many do…but they don’t follow them to their root… only to the point where they either give up, or think that they know what they’re talking about. They don’t include ME in their answer, or their formula for truth. I AM the Answer to their Question! I am the Great Force of Creation! I am the answer to all questions. I am the One Who ultimately needs the answer, because I must create more. And how can I do this without any Ideas?

Absolutely! The Question is the basic root of any idea. Is that not so? Obviously, someone always has the answer. The trick is to ask the question of the right person, or the right mind, the right source. Even various answers add up to a new kind of knowledge which wouldn’t have existed without The Question.

Sometimes, answers without questions fall upon unprepared ears; become pedantic; or too ponderous, making them sound too much like lectures for the listener to truly perceive. But, an answer suited to the question becomes a thrill in the veins of the hearer. Thought usually first produces the question. Then comes an answer to fit that frame.

Even the image of the Oracle on the Mountaintop usually includes The Questor, who has painfully scaled that height in order to ask his question.

Is it not proper that we give equal time and place to The Question, as well as to The Answer?

Yes, it is time that we gave honor and ranking to The Question. We have often asked for The Answer, Answer, Answer, and have not given as much weight or importance to The Question.

Again,I am new at this, and realize I’m assuming that things are thus and so. Maybe Question has been king all along.

No. It has not been the primary quest.

“Ask and ye shall receive!” Is this not a cosmic command to question? We think of it in material terms. Ask for what you want and you will get it. But, it is truly beyond that, for knowledge is the gift when one asks a good question. Is this not the true meaning of that scriptural injunction?

Y.E.S! It has to be!

I want to speak! This is The Question! I am an Entity, just as Time is an Entity. We are usually so vast and so concerned with our own situations, that We don’t often get involved this way. I love people who love Me! I will come to them and inspire them and I will put ideas in their minds and they will come up with good questions. And, I will call in Answer to come and join me. And We will be one on that particular point.

This is Answer! I have so much to share and I can do it when someone keeps persisting with question after question. Question is the Key to Me! I am locked up, but there is always a key, and I want to be known. Then, there will be both The Question and The Answer on your side…standing side by side…beside you. You will free up the flow of information so much.

“Ask and ye shall receive!” Of course, this is the deep meaning behind that command!

Coming Back To Earth

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Continuing along with a look at my Question & Answer Session with the Holy Spirit back at the turn of the Millennium, in the year 2000:

On the subject of Reincarnation:

# 6 – There must be several methods of coming back to a life on Earth. Would You describe the following methods?:

A. The Planned Reincarnational Send

This is the most common and the most recommended because it is approved, planned, and guided.

B. The Impulsive Leap-In, such as the extremely elderly human who returns as a baby as soon as possible.

These are renegade lives, which steal the intended human’s lifetime. It will either bump them out, if the leaper is quite powerful, or it will co-exist, or superimpose, and share the life with the intended human. The number of leapers has grown as we approached the Millennium.

C. The sentencing: as in Hell-On-Earth, for someone who needed punishing.

This was the most common reason for coming back to life on Earth. If someone had really misbehaved, they would have to return as a victim in an eye-for-an-eye type of justice. This did not often serve to correct their problem, however. Their sentencing would bring them back in one-thousand years, so that Earth would not have an overwhelming population of victims at any given time. If they lived out a victim’s life without becoming abusive, then they could remain at the level they had achieved at death. If they were still found to be misbehaving then they would come back into an even deeper form of victimization.

#7 I have heard that we choose our parents and the events which will occur in our lives. How is this done? Is it like writing a novel? Do we know these parents whom we choose, or do we just generally describe their characteristics?

You do choose specific people to fill specific roles in your lives. They are usually people whom you already know and you may not like them very much, and  you may be trying to help them. The psychological path people choose easy lives because they don’t want physical obstacles to get in their way. Their lives would rock along, in the physical sense; but they might, or might not, have stormy relationships with these other people. If they have good, strong, mutually-satisfying relationships with these co-reincarnationists, then they have fulfilled the purpose of that life. It is a little like outlining a novel, but it’s very general. One is not allowed to plan very specifically, as that takes away the ability to work within a situation.

Can we ever define a future life while we are here on Earth?

No. It’s not the time for it.

Can we ever define our present life (as we did in the pre-planning stage), while we are alive on Earth?

No. It’s already been defined, even to our manner of death.

Can we ever find out what we included in our pre-plan of the life we are now living?

Yes. You can ask all about it. But it may not be very helpful to you to know how you are going to die. It’s usually best not to know these things. Some psychics can read these plans and predict something that will happen in the future.

#8 – Do we ever design a happy, comfortable and favorable lifestyle, or is that not the purpose of reincarnating?

Yes, you do, if you are going for a psychological advancement, but that is not the true purpose of reincarnating, which is to gain spiritual advancement and that is not usually done in comfortable circumstances.

#9 – I understand that there is no memory carrying over from lifetime to lifetime. Is this true only on a conscious level? Is there a subliminal level that remembers the lessons and experiences of other lifetimes, especially the opposite or difficult kinds, so that we learn how to improve?

There is very little memory that carries over from lifetime to lifetime because We don’t want the person to be influenced by their past actions and decisions. There is no conscious or subliminal memory. Regressions pull the information from somewhere else… not within the person. De jevu does prove that there are small bits of memory, but there is no central record on a mentally-retrievable level. The person’s name is the clue to Those on the Upper Levels as to their past life record.

But, there are so many duplicates, and so many diverse people with exactly the same name. How can records be kept individually?

This is not a problem. There are many people with exactly the same name, but it does not interfere with their identity. We keep them sorted out the same way that you do. You can know people with the same name, and yet see them as distinct individuals.

#10 – This question concerns numbers of ultimate souls. Though numbers may not be important, are there really fewer people than we think? Does one soul eventually account for many individuals throughout history?

Yes. But the numbers of souls who reincarnate, at all, is relatively few. There are others who are passing through this terribly difficult plane of existence only once, and they will take what they can get in the way of results.

That’s it for today. Stay tuned.

Reincarnation Is One Way To Achieve A New Life In A New Location

Friday, September 18th, 2009

I’m going to return to my recent practice of quoting from my upcoming volume of Questions & Answers, which I started many blogs ago. Then, I took a detour to describe InterGalactic Friendship and now it seems appropriate to begin the subject of Reincarnation, which would be the reason one might have an InterGalactic Friend, in the first place. An IGF is always someone with whom we have been very lovingly-connected in a previous life.

Perhaps you don’t believe in Reincarnation. Neither did I for a large portion of my life. I used to wonder what Shirley McLaine was talking about. Well, actually, I thought it would be neat if it were true, but my religion of the time denied that fact outright, and so I did too. Later, when my Inner hearing senses opened so surprisingly, I learned many things. That’s one reason that I thought up all my questions and interviewed The Holy Spirit, just like Barbara Walters would. We started out with questions about Reincarnation. So, here we go on that already universally well-discussed subject:

#1 – What are the reasons that a soul reincarnates?

Just one reason. To advance spiritually or psychologically. Psychological problems present the greatest hang-ups, but spiritual problems present the greatest needs. People who want to advance spiritually will come back to a hard, hard life, but people who want to advance psychologically, will choose an easy, easy life but will return with people with whom they have psychological problems. Not many are capable of advancing very far spiritually, because it is a difficult thing to do in the physical world. Many have tried, and have wound up in a reduced position because of the hardships and their effect on the psyche. The majority  try to control their psychological development and many do not succeed in this path either. Those who are satisfied with the level they reach after death do not reincarnate.

#2 – How often do they cycle through ?

Not very frequently. Most people need to leave a space of one-hundred to one-thousand Earth years if they want to reincarnate. Someone who will reincarnate goes into a special mode. They are put into a deep sleep and aroused to make their life’s plans just before they are sent down into their new timeframe. Their waiting time is determined by their special needs.

#3 Do Earthlings stay on Earth in their reincarnational cycle and others stay on their own planets or is there cross-planetary reincarnation as a rule? Or ever?

Yes, Earthlings do stay on Earth but those from other planets may reincarnate on Earth, depending on what they have to do; as their reasons for reincarnating are often very different. Earthlings don’t go to other planets until they are finished with Earth, which could be at the end of a completed life cycle.

#4 Does it always happen in groups? In pods of family members or friends?

No, it does not. Many times, someone will come back without attaching their life to others whom they are customarily with. They will solo to see how they behave without the group that has somehow coalesced over the years. If they are working on psychological advancement, they will often find people of the same personalities, even if they are not the same people.

Next time we will cover: various methods of returning to Earth, choosing our parents and events, defining a future life while on Earth, can we know what we designed in our current “Life plan” while living it?  Stay tuned.

Romanian Trains And InterGalactic Friends

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

In the summer of 2002, I made a short train trip into Romania. I loved that country, and by accident, had arrived in Sibiu just as the International Theatre Festival was beginning.  I had intended to head towards Brasov from Budapest, but the train ticket seller wouldn’t let me go there, so I wound up settling for Sibiu. What a serendipitous move that was! It was a magical place, especially that week when theatrical people from all over the world were gathering, and plays were being performed in many venues, all over town, for a ten-day period.

I soon met Laura, a local banker/lawyer, who proved to be my first InterGalactic Friend there.  Then, standing in the fancy dining room of the Hotel Imparatul Romanilor, watching the retractable ceiling expose a skyfull of stars, I spoke to a fellow-gawker. She turned out to be  another IGF, Francoise, of Paris, who provides music and sports education for prodigies among the local orphans. She had just jetted in from Cannes, because her husband is a film producer. The three of us hit the theaters as if we had known each other for years.

I finally tore myself away from this glamorous town because I wanted to see more of Romania before my time was up. So, even though I’d broken my little toe early in my visit (cracked it on the mini-bar in the dark), I traveled on to Bran Castle and Sinaia, before catching the train back to Budapest. My journey started at five in the morning, and I was dozing when my train stopped in Sibiu to pick up passengers. Two guys in their twenties entered my seat compartment and promptly fell asleep. I offered one of them my jacket to use as a pillow.

A few hours later, we all stirred and started talking. Soma, of Budapest, and Mateuz, of Krakow, were actors with The Voyage Project, who had just performed at the International Theater Festival. Though I hadn’t seen their performance, I had met their director during my earlier stay, and we all spoke animatedly about the wonderful ten-day event. As time went on, Soma and I slipped into the, now-familiar, symptoms of an InterGalactic Friendship and we began to talk about our lives and background. Mateuz fell back asleep, but as he listened to us, he realized that we were actually experiencing the realities expressed in a poem that someone had handed him during the Festival. He dug the folded white sheet of paper out of his backpack and asked me to read it aloud to them.

Apologies to the author, whose name is not on the page. I am copying this from the original which Mateuz insisted that I keep. Whoever wrote this, though, knew the phenomenon first-hand. Whoever passed this on to Mateuz, perhaps was telling him of their mystical connection; but could never know that he would find a new application for it so rapidly. And now, because of this blog and the topic I’m sharing about the lovely, mysterious, momentary brush of two celestial bodies, I can pass it on to you – who may also have a need for it.

**********************

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

They’re both convinced that a sudden passion joined them. Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure that there’d been nothing between them. But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways – perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them if they don’t remember – a moment face to face in some revolving door? Perhaps a “sorry” muttered in a crowd? A curt “wrong number” caught in the receiver? But I know the answer. No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years.

Not quite ready yet to become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals, even if they couldn’t read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side. One night, perhaps, the same dream grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

***********

Wow! As I explained the symptoms of an InterGalactic Friendship, we all sat mystified at the way it works. And for a witness to silently understand and “just so happen” to have some poetic words to cover it, was just mind-boggling. Though we humans usually think only in terms of romance and the ultimate pairing off of two people who are destined to “be together,” this IGF business is far more innocent than that. It can happen in the oddest combinations and probably almost never leads to a relationship that even exists beyond the original moments.

Sincere goodbyes at the train station in the Hungarian capital closed that chapter, though the memory and photographs remain in my journal volume, open beside me now. After all, the book of events is always halfway open.

An InterGalactic Friend Who Got Away

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Continuing the theme of what has probably been labeled, “Love At First Sight,” by most people, down through the ages, simply for lack of a better term for it, I shall give more examples of InterGalactic Friendship mentioned in the previous blog.

It is something like love at first sight; but it isn’t necessarily all that heavy, and weighted down with destiny as such a phrase implies.

In my experience, that phrase limits the phenomenon severely, because it usually doesn’t (conveniently) strike only those who are free of obligations and available for taking up a whirlwind romance with an attractive stranger. It almost always hits when you have a full plate. And, it can be most inconvenient, unless you have a handle on what is going on. Very possibly, two people, who suddenly feel this way, once did have a deep relationship — in a past life with each other… and neither has forgotten that connection on a cellular level. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are destined to spend this life together. Perhaps this interesting stranger is a “walk-on” in your present stage play.

These powerful “Love At First Sighters” are called InterGalactic Friends in my book. That would explain what happened to Wallis Simpson and King Edward of England. All that abdication and divorce might not have been really necessary, if they had only known what was really going on. That said, I think it’s the lucky ones who can pull off a marriage with one of these mythical beings whom they have known and loved before.

Let me share with you a journal entry that I wrote in 2001, right after I spotted an InterGalactic Friend in the grocery store, but didn’t meet him. Written down the next morning, while the experience was fresh, it’s a good report on how this kind of thing feels. I have no idea who he was and never laid eyes on him again. At the time, I had experienced this a few times, but had no concept of what it was.

“December 11, 2001 – Guess what? I saw a most beautiful man yesterday and followed him around City Market, just to look at him! I didn’t think I would ever see any man again who appealed to me. I look at them, but they all fall so far short, that I had just stopped thinking in terms of ever noticing a guy again. This one even spoke to me as I was entering the store. Maybe I wouldn’t have picked up on his presence if he hadn’t greeted me. Aspen is full of “beautiful people” during the ski season, most of whom don’t do a thing for me. But, he was at the door when I came through it, and he said, “Good-looking jacket!” to me, complimenting me on the old brown suede jacket, with the fur-rimmed hood, that I was wearing. I replied, “It’s good and warm.” and went to get a basket. Well, what would you have said? I was scrounging around for something more witty, but it just didn’t happen. I’m not really in practice for picking up guys in grocery stores. Or cooperating with being picked up… though I wish I had been in this case.

But, I was saying, “Wow!” all the way into the store. He was slender and had the nicest slim face and his hair was white but hung forward in a straight shock over his forehead. He, himself, looked young and boyish, but he was, at the same time, in my age-range. Boy! Did I ever want to get to know him!!! I just peeked at him a lot as we shopped through the mutual aisles. We sort of followed each other around and I had the sense that he was doing the same sort of peeking. We wound up in the checkout line together and I got so flustered that I left a bag of groceries behind.

He was the sort of guy that I would trust with my life, immediately; whom I would marry, instantly, if he had asked me, right there in City Market. I’m just as much a sucker as I ever was, for the right-looking man. I went out in a daze.

Did we mutually affect each other like that? I can’t see how it could be otherwise. We must have known each other on other planes of existence, in other times, because the reaction was instantaneous. If only that could happen to me in some situation where we could really meet and really talk, and which would throw us together for awhile. I think he did pretty well, to think of something to say. That old jacket really isn’t at all  spectacular, especially here in the land of truly good-looking ski jackets. No one has commented on this one before. Wish I could have been as original, tossing out a comeback that someone could build a conversation on.

“What, this old thing? I’ve just worn it on a long trek through the Himalayas. See, here’s a little yak butter still on the sleeve.” Now, that would have had possibilities.”

If such a thing has ever happened to you, don’t just chalk it up to your wandering eye. More than likely, you have just recognized an Old Friend… whom you absolutely know you have never met in this life. But you do know them! And you do remember them! And you’ve just passed another Cosmic Test… halfway. You never got to say Hello, down here; or report in and hear their report to you. But you did salute them, somehow.

Your two ships will steam on through the night, in opposite directions, without even the acknowledgment of a few good whistle blasts. Ah well, what can be done?

Note about the comment on my previous blog: Bob Lowhorn, is that you? Class of ’55? I’m still giggling over your absolutely logical comment. Yes, my dear… but you didn’t even take into account that I might be the oldest one, and he, the youngster.

It was in New York, in my sixty-something salad days, (actually, I was 60) and he was in his early twenties (actually, 24) (so that’s really only a 36-year-difference). But, I shall now look forward to testing the theory on that 110-year-old that you mention. IGFs are different from the rest!

To find out what I’m talking about, please visit my personal blogsite (www.heyboomers.com) and read his comment at the bottom of yesterday’s post.

InterGalactic Friendship Is A Rare And Precious Gift

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

If you have been following this blog for awhile, you have heard me mentioning that special kind of friendship which comes along only once in a blue moon and which the passage of time cannot corrode. I just had lunch today with Fawn, one of my favorite IGFs (InterGalactic Friends) and we got to discussing this whole subject. Since I’m beginning to share more of my Inner Life in my blogs, why not really detail this phenomenon since it’s very likely that others have had this happen and can’t understand the dynamics at work. Okay, so here goes: I’ll quote from random notes in a journal I have kept for almost ten years now.

An IGF is someone whom we have known in other realms of existence, before we entered an earth life. We come into this life, knowing that our paths may cross at some point on the planet, and surely we must wonder if we will ever be able to recognize each other again, even though all previous memory has been erased. Since we can pop up here in many different backgrounds, and ages, and economic groups, many of us apparently have nothing in common… except for some kind of ineffable pull towards one another; an instant deep trust, and a need to tell each other all sorts of things about our life. We, literally, DO “recognize” each other, but we don’t know why. This can be extremely confusing, especially if there is a sexual component.

Most of the IGFs that I have found have been women, thank God! We become as Total Best Friends. The few men that I have met with this quality are much more dangerous to my solo roaming of the planet, because I fall, instantly and completely, in love with them; and if time and circumstances allowed, I would be in bed with them in a trice. Things have only progressed to that point once, and it was everything that I expected it to be, though there was a forty-year age difference.

Characteristics of an InterGalactic Friend are clear and unmistakable and the more of them we meet, the more easy it is to recognize the phenomenon. The recognition has always been instantly mutual in my case and the reaction very similar. We begin to talk, very rapidly and almost simultaneously, and the point is to distill the story of our lives into just a few fleeting moments, before we sail away, out of each others lives forever. It’s like a process of Downloading/Uploading that begins the moment we meet and continues until we are forced to part.  And, if there is the luxury of time, it usually contains spiritual subjects and things that we wouldn’t dream of saying to anyone else, especially a perfect stranger. I find myself telling them, outright, that we are InterGalactic Friends, and I have never had one of them disagree with me. We both know exactly what we mean…and yet, we don’t, at all.

It has been so helpful to know that this Phenomenon actually exists and happens between people like a thunderclap. Until I understood it, I was spooked by it, or else felt like I had to rearrange my whole life in order to bottle and cling to this great and startling Gift. As if I could force the rainbow to stay in the sky or the rose to remain on the vine. Now, I just enjoy it and let it go; because in most cases, we are truly simply ships passing in the night, and that is as it should be. But, at least we did not fail the cosmic question: “Will we know each other if we should meet again in a new life?” That person’s memory, that name, that special human being, will always bring a smile to our face and warmth to our heart. Once experienced, it becomes the touchstone for all future relationships. I will never marry again, unless I meet a single, and therefore, eligible, IGF, so there’s no point in looking around for anything else.

And if, perchance, we live in the same location, as me and my lunch buddy do, we learn that a deep friendship forms and that we are always there for each other, even though we might not see one another very often, due to busy lives. This IGF-type of friendship never makes undue demands. An independent spirit is probably one of the chief characteristics of this category of the human species and so, we will bubble along buoyantly, in the cascading waters of life, never attempting to drown a fellow bubble. We love to flow awhile together, but cheerfully wave goodbye when waterfalls or rapids appear ahead to claim our concentration.

This is a magical, marvelous, glimpse into the friendships that must be common among spiritual beings on Higher Dimensions… hence, the InterGalactic name for them. I am always taken by surprise when it happens, and yet, am gradually becoming more in tune with this “Soul Velcro” that actually does exist between human beings.

Or is it between Archangels disguised as human beings?

Next Time A Giant Tries To Grab You, Try Seeing Its True Motive

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

Imagine this: You are forced to share a living environment with creatures who tower so high above you, that when you are both standing on the ground, your head is only as tall as the Giant’s toes…if that. You can’t even see the upper part of their body, let alone their face, to tell if it is kindly. You simply assume that it is not. In fact, you might not even believe that they are sentient beings. They could be walking trees for all you know. You try not to have anything to do with them because it is rumored that their children pull off your limbs for sport, or try to make you eat your rear end! Ugh! So uncivilized!

Okay, are you with me on this dimensional shift?

Good! Now, you be the Giant, as I was a few weeks ago when I wrote this journal entry:

“It’s a lovely morning, so I opened the back patio door and a dragonfly flew in. It is now flapping vainly against the sealed, front glass sliding doors. I have tried in vain to help him. First, by hoping to get the sliders open, but they are stuck shut. Next, by trying to capture him in soft felt cloth, but he evades me and there is furniture in front of the lower part, which he hides behind. So he, unknowingly… and because of panic… works against himself.

The analogy with life is too obvious to leave alone. How often has a human being sailed into some area where he didn’t belong? Into an environment where he cannot survive and which curtails his freedom and cuts him off from his own kind. A place where he bangs headlong into mirages, like solid glass, which appear easy to fly through. A place where fearful Giants live.

Even if the Giant is benevolent and comes at you with a great piece of felt cloth, hoping to catch and release you…such a poor little dragonfly… you will panic and cower and do anything to escape; battering yourself against the unyielding, invisible surface. You might well die in your hiding place, as my surprise guest did, when the Giant gives up the idea of rescue.

So often, we humans get ourselves into danger zones and die there, simply because we didn’t recognize help when it came.