I was alone with myself in the shower this morning (maybe that’s why people sing in the shower….one of the few places where we can be alone with ourselves) and I was musing on the death thing. Again; or maybe that’s “still.”

I was reared Catholic, in the old blood-and-guts Latin modality. Went to parochial school, with Draconian Franciscan nuns in attendance. Not their fault, the Draconian-ness; they had no choice really, stuck in a mode where women simply took orders from men, those men being in direct contact with God and having the last word in all of it. In retrospect I feel sorry for them, trying their best against overwhelming odds. My first grade class had 60 students and one Sister Anthony. I heard she had a nervous breakdown a few years later; not surprising.

The Christianity I learned from the nuns had to do with stories of how the Communists would cut out the tongues of children who dared speak of Jesus; would puncture their eardrums with chopsticks if they dared listen about Jesus. There was a lot about martyrdom and how that was the best you could aspire to. Becoming a Saint was of course the very, very highest, but martyrdom was the most direct route to sainthood. I knew I could never be so perfect, as all of us, and thus the struggle to be perfect enough to avoid burning forever in Hell.

The Catholic focus was on the Crucifixion, all the blood and cruelty and the dieing for us; not about the Resurrection, which should have been the message. No wonder that so many people of that era describe themselves as Recovering Catholics. I’m sure the Church has changed somewhat, not that I’m there to hear about it. Sometime in high school I rejected it completely, baby and bathwater combined. And so I rolled along until The Great Cancer Scare in my mid-forties, and the quest to find out about death ensued.

Now we’re back to the shower this morning. I realized that despite the last fifteen years of reading, seeking, meditating, taking workshops to meet my Higher Self and my Guides and my Spirit Helpers and whatnot, I have not really budged my core belief decided upon in high school, that when you die, you’re dead. Kaput; gone, pfft, lights out. You see, during my innocent years in grade school, while I was still swallowing the church line, I believed; I tried; I talked to Jesus; I asked for forgiveness; I begged for some clue. But I got…nothing; not even in a dream, no message from Jesus that He actually did love me as I had been taught. So in high school I decided I had been deceived and none of it was true, based on evidence.

What is there if not evidence? Everything in your core beliefs comes from the decisions of what evidence to believe. The Materialists, even if they were to have the World’s Most Outstanding OBE, would likely still decide that the experience was merely interesting electrical activity in the brain. The people who are Saved (well, the ones who aren’t afraid of death, and they are rare) have decided to believe what they read in the Bible as sufficient evidence for them.

And I….well, I thought I believed in an Afterlife, but based on this morning’s shower it appears that I don’t, really. And I don’t know that there is anything that could budge that belief if fifteen years of trying has not succeeded. I’ve reached a point where I find it amusing when I express doubts to my believer friends, because of the entirely predictable reaction. It’s along the lines of “just relax and you’ll get some results” or “do this meditation exercise and you’ll get results” or whatever. Well, you know, I’ve HAD results. I just don’t believe them, despite my best efforts.

Now that I’ve figured out how to post pictures, there will be more of them! This is a picture I took a couple years ago, with my then-new digital camera, of the desert about a half hour from where I live. There is snow on the mountains, and it reminds me of how stunningly beautiful the desert can be.

This is Squirrley, who despite the calm look fits her name very well.

This is Pepper, love of my life.

I realized recently what the source is of my ongoing depression and unhappiness. I’ve sold out, in some very big ways.

“Selling out,” back in the day, was the term used for musicians who decided that they needed to make money more than they needed to be loyal to their craft, with the result that they performed “popular” music instead of straight classical.

But the application of that term means that you’ve stopped following a path with heart. At work….I’m there for money; it is not a path with heart. It takes a lot out of me. In music…I think I’m not so far off of where I should be except for the fact that my job takes up the vast majority of my energy that otherwise may have been applied to composing. So that’s #2. Number three is my relationship, which has been over for quite some time but I don’t want the hassle of breaking it up, because I have to see him in musical groups, or the loneliness I’ll suffer without his being around, or the lack of having someone to house sit the cats when I’m gone.

That’s a lot of selling out; basically my entire life. Even the fancy house is something of a sell-out; not who I really am. Who I really am could live in a house trailer and be happy. It is a symbol of the entire “prove I can be a successful person financially” thing. Something I needed to do, but its time is done.

Still waiting for retirement and hoping that my sellouts don’t do me in before then. And planning to change locations and start over, with people who only will know me in a not-sold-out frame of mind.

RLS Update: 8-13-08 My symptoms were escalating again a few weeks ago, and I had taken note that almonds were tasting “better and better” to me. In the past, I have found that when I have a particular liking for a food, chances are 100% that this is an addictive allergy (google it) and I need to stop eating it. So…regretfully I stopped eating almonds, and my symptoms dropped back to their former level. I suspect that I have this brain-allergic reaction to all protein, and that short of giving up all protein I’m stuck with the RLS symptoms until I figure something else out. If you are someone who, like me, develops allergies to anything you are in contact with for any length of time, you’ll need to develop some sort of rotation diet in order to be able to eat at all.

Also recently I decided to do a gluten test; I do “tests” on a regular if not frequent basis, to make sure that what I think is going on is in fact going on. After eating gluten for a week or two, I noticed that I was in a constant state of itching, scratching about everywhere all the time. Just as if I were allergic to my laundry detergent (which has happened in the past.) However, the usual places where I’d expect the most reaction (like where I put pressure when sitting) were not any worse than the middle of my back, and I decided that it wasn’t laundry detergent. So…I stopped the gluten again, and in three days the itching was gone. There is a little-known skin condition that sometimes goes with celiac sprue, labeled, as is celiac-sprue, as an automimmue disorder, and that appears to have been what was going on. In all that time I had no intestinal reaction whatsoever.)

A friend of mine, who also abstains from gluten, has the symptom of mental fogginess on eating gluten. I don’t think she has any other discernable reaction, but this one is profound for her. Her reaction also appears to be a brain allergy.

It’s always interesting to see what goes on in my Garden. (Changes occur in the Garden that either reflect or predict changes in your physical life.)

Last night I was once again having trouble going to sleep, and I went to my Garden to have a look. My Garden Guardian has changed form….now that the previous one is all set up in the tepee, clearly waiting for me to tune in enough to receive instruction, I have a new participant: a Knight in armor on a well-decked-out horse, just like the medieval ones. My Garden is very well guarded, indeed.

EBH

Last night I had a long dream about one of my friends who moved to California. Before we even met in person, I had had a vivid dream of this half of the partnership, and there was no doubt it was him because when I met him, I had already seen him in the dream state clearly enough to recognize him in person. Anyone who thinks there is no precognition simply has yet to learn that it exists.

In a previous post I lamented at the loss of my friends, also from a dream. In my dream last night, we had gone to San Franciso together, but we got separated. I went and did everything I wanted to do, noting the absence of my friends but not being terribly upset about it….just went on with my stuff. There was a continual “we missed each other somehow, where are they?” and some interaction with J., but the essence of the dream was that we got separated and I was doing ok by myself.

So that shows a mental resolution and acceptance on my part, of the way things have gone.

EBH

Progress is so slow; it appears to go in millimeters but I have to accept that this is my rate given where I am.

Work has been a tremendous burden the last couple of months, with a huge project not working and having to be started over numerous times because of flaws that I found in it. Sort of like doing a dissertation….if you get part of the theory wrong, you have to start over and do all the work again with the modification to the theory. So I have not been doing any drumming and have not had even many insightful dreams; all has been work, even weekends, because of deadline pressure.

But two nights ago as I was again trying to shut up my brain enough so that I could sleep, it occurred to me that I should drum. So at 11 PM or whatever it was I got my drum and sat crosslegged on the bed in the dark. As I started to drum and went immediately to my Garden, a wave of peace flooded over me. It was such a relief to be there! I perused my garden, noted that some flowers that had been there were no longer blooming but were just tall green plants, sort of like irises when they are not flowering. Not bad, not wonderful. Then I saw my Garden Guardian, a native American whose tribe I don’t know (yet.) Then I thought of making some kind of dwelling place to sleep in, and a teepee appeared; incongruous, because the location of my Garden is sort of northwest coast USA…and there were no teepees there. But there it was, a very standard-looking Plains Indian type of teepee. It was white, but the rest was as expected. Inside there was a bed of furs for me to lie on, and a fire circle in the middle, surrounded by rocks. And my Guardian was inside too. As I looked about I realized that he was not just a Guardian….he was a medicine man, a shaman, with many bundles and tools of his trade in the teepee. I further realized that he had answered my request, some time ago, to be a Helper. The only thing that has been missing, and is still missing, is my own ability to perceive his presence, help, and communication.

Millimeter steps are better than no steps.

With gratitude to my Guardian, Helper, and Friend, and my Aloha to all.

EBH

Frank DeMarco refers to his guides as The Guys Upstairs, or TGU. I refer to mine as my Cosmic Committee, using the nomenclature of my shamanic teacher Hank Wesselman.

Last night I clearly had a visit from my CC, in a dream. I was asleep in bed, in some kind of apartment, condo, large hotel suite, or whatever. A maid-type person opened the door, while I was still asleep in the morning, and let in a fairly large group of official-looking women who wanted to interview me about some kind of position I had applied for. I asked who gave permission to let them in like this, and the maid said, “Mr. Kookooberra.” I asked who he was, and she said “the Prime Minister.” All this in a British accent. I said “I’m American” as explanation for not knowing who was PM. I excused myself to brush my teeth and said I’d be right there, but I woke up.

I’ve thought on this one as to what it means (I have a hard time sometimes with dreams, forgetting that the symbolism in them is usually pretty direct, because I am pretty dense) but decided that it was once again somewhat literal: my CC wants to talk to me about something I’ve “applied to do” but I’m asleep and they can’t get through. They were sent in dream form by the PM, or the Head Honcho, because they’re not getting through when I’m awake.

My life has been extremely intense the last couple of months due to an exceedingly heavy load at work; I’m working straight through including weekends, until the project is done, and clearly I am “asleep” in terms of listening to my CC. Don’t know how to fix it other than quitting my job.

 

video

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