Lillooet, B.C. December 17, 2021
Dear Readers and Logical Bobcats,
It turns out that some of the biggest adventures we can have do not even require getting out of bed. Remember this next time you are pondering that neighbour, friend or relative who seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time horizontally while you are busily chasing your tail. I have heard this truth spoken and have seen it written many times and I also have experienced very meaningful things while perfectly still and absolutely sober. The most recent time was only two days ago, as the calendar bird flies.
I have been meditating earnestly for about four months. I am so thirsty for the particular teachings flowing from to this practice that I have, as is my way, concentrated my focus as near to total as can be done and still function in my relationships and responsibilities. I have been blessed with tools never before shared with me, by folks I have chosen to trust. The early stages of this process have been shared already and what I am about to relate is, in my opinion, the first milestone of major significance.
I will state here that for me, at sixty-four years old, the impetus for this exploration of my own interior began very young and always led me in circles back to myself. I am stubborn and would always gather myself again and forge ahead in another grand circle. Trying all the while to transcend things so inchoate, I lacked the vocabulary to properly ponder the landscape. My most recent breath of inspiration has come from the birth of my first darling grand-child and seeing my first-born son happily and peacefully living with a loyal, loving young woman, who also has taught me much from her stance of daughter. My other son has come forward and opened a communication that goes truer and deeper than ever before. We showed each other our wounds simultaneously without wasting time by letting our egos wallow in embarrassment.
Another important force playing a role in my current psychic state of openness to tuition, are the convulsions being felt by all of my species and indeed, all life on our planet. I include the trees, plants, animals, rocks, sky and waters in my use of the word “life.” We are in a cyclic event according to my reckoning. A time of plowing under and of destruction. A time of unearthing what was hidden and confronting it in the light of day. It is a “Plutonian” sort of energy, if you will allow the term.
From the compost will grow brand new beauty, as yet unseen or imagined. As above, so below and as exoteric, so esoteric. Most creatures will avoid strenuous undertakings unless acted on by a force that demands they do. Herein lies the simple incomprehensible truth of human geography and the deep pulses of the extremes of our species as a whole. Herein lies the conflict between plenty without and want within. Herein lies the irony of external austerity and internal imaginative cornucopias.
All these things are because the brain makes them so. The world is simply a dynamic reality. Our bodies are in the world and subject to it. Our minds have evolved to experience themselves in such a way that they behave as if they are subject to neither. Hence, a great movement is gathering momentum as maybe never before, using the leverage of mass communications. A very necessary, albeit, very ancient movement. That of the training and coming into healthier relations with our most exquisite instrument, the brain. Hiding under paywalls for far too long, those modern, educated, scientific individuals with the twin powers of the laboratory nourished by ancient knowledge are beginning to realize that the tools they have kept close may be our best overall chance at survival if distributed widely.
Very much is sick in the world and has been for a long time. There are no good old days that anyone alive could allude to or yearn to return to, in my opinion. Time to move forward, trust our humanity, open to truth and walk away from insane games. Our table has been set since we walked upright and our hostess would still be forgiving and generous if treated with respect. Most people have misdiagnosed maladies and the fact that their food, water and air are all tainted has to play a massive role in their “disease” as does the rape of our planet and the genocide of our fellow humans. It is perceived to be difficult to fix what will seem to many like a “going backwards” with all the negative connotations those words have.
The answer, as I have stated before, is to realize that a measuring tool needn’t be a rigid stick, nay, a tailor’s cloth tape-measure bent into a circle serves reality far better. Shifting to a better part of a circle is far simpler. It is so simple, like good mental hygiene habits and exercises; that many will fight to their last breath against it because their pride cannot accept the fact that they didn’t think of it before. In this complication lies the benefit, in my opinion, of what I and many others are doing by documenting and freely sharing their experiences on the road to better cognition. If you get better, I am better off when we cross paths and so are you. Why wouldn’t I help you?
With that short preamble, we will dim the lights and settle into our chairs. Several days ago, my wife, Nisa, rose at about two AM to go to the washroom. Not unusual and all the attendant noises were normal as I lay half-awake listening. Suddenly, after a few quiet moments there was the sound of glass hitting porcelain and a loud metallic crash.
I jumped out of bed and ran to the tiny bathroom. There sprawled on the floor was Nisa. A bottle of green liniment from the Philippines was in the sink and the camphorous concoction was burbling down the drain. Other than the dropped bottle, I had experienced the exact situation last Winter, also in the wee hours of a cold night. I was at a time when Nisa hadn’t yet been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She had passed out and luckily hadn’t struck her head. She had been ill with a terrible tenacious high fever for weeks. In a fraction of a second I noted that former occurrence and became fully present.
I gathered her in my arms and she was conscious and remembered who she was, where she was and who I was as well as the date. There was a dent in the metal face of the clothes dryer situated a few feet away from the sink where she had been standing when she blacked out. There was no mark or sore spot anywhere on her body to be seen.
I settled her into her bed and decided to wait until morning to drive her to hospital as she was able to move her neck, albeit with some soreness but deeply in need of sleep. The emergency visit and subsequent x rays showed no new injury but did show bone spurs and a very worn out upper spine. Overall, it was a horrifying experience in its resemblance to the onset of my wife’s illness. The meditation tools I had learned helped me remain grounded and not to fly off into the land of “Why us.”
Both of us noticed a strong magnetic/electronic field in the house the rest of that day and that night. It would almost overwhelm me to the point of blacking out when I held my head at a certain angle. I have felt similar but lesser such sensations after a particularly hearty crack at the chiropractor’s office. Or standing at the edge of a chasm of water. A pronounced augmented gravity. Very unpleasant and akin to nausea. As is my current practise, I did several guided meditations that night before sleep after laying down for the night.
One of the lessons was about the beauty of not knowing. It was a teaching of techniques to deal with the over-inquisitive, over-active mind at times when this is a hindrance to rest and peace, be that for sleep or in the middle of a normal day. I look at is as gently taming a wild horse, without “breaking” it. I haven’t heard a better analogy yet. I want my horse to be fully capable of running when it serves me. I don’t want it stomping all over other folks or myself or damaging itself running in circles around a corral. I want it to abide in peace without fencing so it becomes a respected, useful, dignified presence within the body that also houses my spirit and soul.
The technique revealed was a simple but profound “labelling” of the questioning mind with the words, “Don’t Know.” Words to be said in a gentle, firm inner voice with no trace of anger, disrespect or judgment. It was made abundantly clear in the guidance that one doesn’t strive to quiet questioning permanently, rather, one must learn how to temper the need for questioning in order to give the mind a rest. The mind does its best work in the subconscious anyway.
I finished my meditations for the night and lay back in the dark feeling thankful for everything that I could see, hear and smell in that present moment. I know I had a slight smile on my face and a bigger one on my heart, which was wide open, as it should always be but seldom is. As I drifted into sleep, I came to the liminal field of experience. Not asleep and yet not awake. Asleep with full consciousness, or fully awake inside a dream. You may take which ever model you are able to hold in your mind as you read.
I heard a very distinct voice without tuning into it because I was seeing a fast-motion film-like reel of a street I couldn’t recognize, sidewalks and such. They were urban and I couldn’t place the location because the vantage point was so close to the ground. Only a few feet off the ground and the “camera” never looked up. This gave way in time to the voice and I began to hear myself replying to it. Loudly and clearly but without logging what was said. The tone was loud as if shouting over a distance, but not necessarily angry.
I began to sense a presence in my room and before I knew what to make of it, I sensed the presence in my bed and right beside me. There was a faint, musty odour and the word, “sepulchral” came to mind. At this juncture, I turned onto my side in physical reality and felt around the blankets for a body. I felt it! It was very much smaller than me and had a soft, squishy human form. I strained too see it’s face. Feeling frustrated at this unannounced invasion, I became determined to find out what or who it was.
Inches from the face in the pitch darkness, I gripped under it’s jaw and twisted it’s face toward me the way some adults in my childhood used to do when giving stern lectures. The being was incredibly strong and this was a huge task for me. I had eaten a box of cookies and many cups of tea with huge dollops of honey that day earlier and I think now that perhaps some part of me had foreseen this meeting and the need for lots of energy reserves.
With all my might I wrenched the jaw around to face me. In a dark pool that had to be the location of the face, I leaned down until I could sense it’s lips without touching them.
I remarked in a softened voice, “Your mouth is very small.”
The being replied in a hearty voice with what seemed to me a tinge of wit, “It’s just about the right size for yours.”
This reply infuriated me and I bellowed, “What is your name?”
The answer came in a loud, clear voice, “HAWES.”
I could feel and sense stagnant breath, so close were our faces. Before the vibrations of the word subsided, with a rapidity of response I take no credit for, I expelled a huge pent up exhalation with the force one uses in kung fu or karate practice, a kiai. In effect, I blew the word and the thing away like a handful of dust.
After my blowing out, the entity ceased to exist in the room and I sat wide awake, fully conscious and without a racing heart, without sweat and feeling very calm. Dusty the cat was asleep in his usual spot by my feet. That is when my mind started to conjecture, using everything I had ever read, heard, thought of or seen as starting points. Could it be the spirit of an ancestor? Was it the ghost of my father? Was it a clever demon? Was it an aborted fetus? Was it an auditory hallucination? Was it a very small piece of myself that was splintered off by ill-treatment and circumstances and left wandering behind me and not daring to trust a full-reunion? Was it a random lost child soul with big ears? Was it the memory/corpse of my own hi-jacked childhood that I had dragged along ever since? On and on at light-speed.
On and on but with this difference. Not too many stations down the track of those inquiring thoughts, I simply hopped off the train and watched it go by. I pet Dusty and I could tell by his demeanour that nothing harmful was in the room with us. I phoned a loved one next day to discuss in a general way what I had experienced. The lesson I had just meditated on came to my mind in all its glory. DON’T KNOW. DON’T KNOW AND THAT’S OK. I will add to that mantra, I DON’T KNOW IN WORDS YET, BUT I DO KNOW IN MY HEART WHAT HAPPENED THIS NIGHT. It was a good thing, it was right on time. It was not unique in form but very much so in detail. I feel at peace and grateful for having had the experience.
The next day, Nisa and I went walking along the river in a stiff cold North wind. We were bundled up but had the minimum required to keep ourselves warm enough not to get a chill. I was telling Nisa about the mental/spiritual component of one’s susceptibility to cold and heat. I turned to walk backwards to take the brunt of the wind on my back to illustrate my point. (smile) I saw a young man walking at a pace that would soon overtake us. He had a spring in his step and wore only a sweat-shirt, long pants, no hat and no gloves. It was minus eleven degrees Celsius with the wind-chill. He smiled and we exchanged greetings in the form of remarking about the harsh wind, blinding snow-glare and crystal blue dome of sky.
As I turned to walk forward again I saw a huge dusky shape come off the snowy slope ahead and wobble on the white road like a bear rubbing it’s back. I couldn’t tell what it was but it certainly could have been an animal. As we drew closer, a huge gust of wind blew the object right past us. It was a massive tumble weed and had two smaller companions tumbling along beside it. We watched them bowling down the river road until they disappeared.
We arrived to the car and the fellow who had overtaken us was walking so fast he was far ahead by the time we drove out. As our car passed him on the steep hill leading back to town, we saw he was dancing backwards up the hill. I rolled down the window and asked if he would appreciate a ride to where ever he was headed.
He smiled a genuine smile and said, “No, thanks. It’s all part of the training.”
“What training?" My inquisitive mind silently demanded.
“Figure skating,” Nisa said aloud.
“We don’t know,” I laughed aloud, for his smile, tone and demeanour told my heart what he meant. I didn’t need any words to know it was a good thing. Had he wanted to give us his story, I would have danced beside him backwards up the hill to listen and felt privileged to do so.
fin