ENERGY

"Let us clarify butter... no no no. Let us clarify energy. When I say energy, I do not mean the E of E=mc² and I do mean it. The E is one expression of energy; it’s the energy expression of your physical world. But it is only one facet of energy. It is the energy which makes your physical world physical. But, just as there are infinite levels of complexity, so, too, there are infinite types of energy... or I should say... ‘don’t say should’... ok, I could say, different expressions of something which you experience in part as energy.

“Your experience is only a part of the whole, and if you think the third harmonic of the electromagnetic wave of higher energy is a key, you aren’t getting what I’m saying: The whole, of which your experience of energy is not just a hybrid of your experience. Higher vibrations don’t take you out of your paradigm. But higher vibrations do help some explore the limited realities of your physicality. But you are, by being at your level of complexity, stuck with just one face of what you call energy.

“It’s not something we totally understand at any level other than whole. When you get the whole picture, you’ll get it. Until then, you only get the energy, so to speak, which makes your experience possible. Does that mean that even now and there other facets are existing? Now, yes. There, no. Over there, yes. But the one over there is not here or there, but only over there. Each experience of a portion of the whole has its own facet.

“And it’s not called energy at every experience. Energy is only a metaphor, which seems like a fact in your world. In fact, hehehehehe, until you are one with All That Is, every fact is a metaphor! Ponder that.” (9/6/2007 - R#98)

LIVING and ENJOYING

"A lesson: If you wait for a full glass, you may die of thirst. Life is rarely--if ever--full, but always abundant. But people mistake one for the other. Say you have a gallon of wine. Does it matter if each wine glass is filled once full or twice half full. If one looks for fullness, this is an example of scarcity thinking.

"That's what a lot of people do. It's like couples who say their wedding was ruined because the cake was the wrong flavor. If the measure is completion or fullness or totality, scarcity is the motif. But if quality and process and faith abide, then abundance is the motif. Two people at a table: one eats everything he can; the other eats simply but complains that there wasn't enough, or he thought there won't be. The gourmand, despite his excesses, is a believer in abundance, while the other focuses on scarcity. Just listen to people and hear what they say. You'll start hearing which is which.

"The question should not be is the glass full, but rather what's in the glass. Get it. And not the volume in the glass. Your scraps of near nothing can be a feast for another; a plate full of shit is just a plate full of shit. And a grain of hope can change the world." (12/8/97 - O#20)

LEARNING and REMEMBERING

"So, how are you. No, don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. So many people, when asked, give an answer of immediacy; but the real answer is--like so much more--a sum total. So, one might answer, 'I'm learning to deal with my fears of separation' or that 'I'm dealing with prejudicial thoughts.' See, it's not about how tired you are after a midterm. How do you expect to tap into larger values and meaning when you focus on the small stuff.

"On any given day, the answer to that question usually given about 4 days before will be forgotten already; but a real answer will stay with you. Like, 'What were you doing on June 11, 1996.' Don't know, do you. But if I asked, 'What were you working on bigtime in June, 1996,' you would know because it would be part of the larger picture. So if it isn't going to add to the sum total in a remembered way, why mention it; unless you are looking for sympathy or praise... and why are you looking for those points to the real answer. Heavy enough. So don't stop the idle chit-chat, but don't mistake it for the real stuff.' (10/26/99 - Y#35)

GRIEF, DEATH, and the AFTERLIFE

"What do you think all those past lives are for. To learn and remember. When we move on in synthesis with our true entity, we carry all the past with us. The future can't be the future without a past. The present contains the future and the past. It is the living interface with past and future. It is momentary; it is instantaneous; it has no substance of its own. By the time you speak of the present it is already passed.

"If you were to truly live in the now, in the moment, you would have nothing to say, do, or feel. It would be like trying to stand at the border between two countries. Can you do that and not hang out into one or both. And if you could you would be like Dana's Man Without a Country--all dressed up and nowhere to be. So learn to balance.

"Grief is the recognition that we have to surrender to the past something we wish were in the present and future. When we find balance we can stop grieving because then we will lose no more. We keep grieving until we can do that.

"Let go of what belongs in the past and take on what will inform the future. For example, in my life with you there is a lot that belongs in memory and some that belongs in presence and some that belongs in visions. Getting them straight is the challenge. Then you can remember fondly but not sadly all those cute things I did, and you will keep alive the things of substance I was about, and you can share the dreams of the future I had. That's all.

"You still have those things if you put them in perspective. In fact if you don't, you don't have them; they have you, and you are stopped on your own journey... which, in this case, is our journey as well. So get with the program." (4/15/96 - G#17)

TIME

"Sometimes morning here lasts 30 minutes, and other times it lasts two weeks. So, if I say I am going to do this or that tomorrow morning, then tomorrow morning lasts until it gets done. Time expands or contracts to meet your needs.

"Think about this. You tell someone you will meet them at 10. You think you can get ready by then. Whatever time it takes, you are ready at 10--never late, but always the time you need. Time is elastic. If time is a function of our perception, why be trapped in a social perception. What your world calls time is only an average of all of your perceptions. Here we go the individual route, but in your world that only works if you are alone. And some people have more time dominance. In your relationships, time is not an average of the two of you. So we have Latinos, whose time is different from gringos. One dominates in New York, one dominates in Santo Domingo, and they fight it out in Miami.

"Time exists as a function of existence. That's also why kids and adults have different senses of time. Psychologists say it is a matter of the development of abstract thinking, but no, it is just abstract; you realise how much there is to do versus time. But... and here is the big but... those who know how to choose life's opportunities and shape their lives will find all the time they need, and they will experience a fullness, not a rush, of time. Interesting that those who most understood this got a lot done with their time, no matter how short, and they seem to move beyond time. We even call them timeless (Buddha, Jesus, etc.). If you are doing what you really really really want to do, you will do as much each day as the greatest have done. Don't compare to anything or anyone but yourself. When you compare, you buy back into the average-time trap.

"Think about this story: Someone takes a day to do just one thing. Is that great? If it is 'Let there be light,' it is quite a day. A day in Genesis is measured by accomplishment and purpose, not by hours. First lesson to billions and they miss it. It was an analogy, but not about creation or time, but about purpose and choice and fulfillment. Enough.

"The world and all that is in it have always been. The story of Genesis is about focusing and choosing to be there, and finding fulfillment in that life. And the story gives us all the clues. We have the world and life, etc., and we have dominion, but that does not mean control; it means access. So we can choose to be in that world as we wish, and our days will be measured by what we do creatively--just as God's work is measured, so to speak, by her creativity in six days. The chapter is not about God, but about us; and we form us in our own imagining. We get what we envision and choose, and we have the potential of all the time we need and one day of rest to get everything done we need to do to create our own Eden. Now, enough." (2/9/96 - B#6)

DIMENSIONS OF THE SPIRIT

"The intensity of psychic energy is how you see me. You don't always see me, either. It's a combination; it is not automatic. But hey, it's the old psychic problem: A group of believers gets together, and something happens; but when a skeptic tries to recreate the event with only a part of the group, nothing happens. If the phenomenon is dependent on our energies, then it will appear subjective, not objective. But is subjective reality secondary to objective reality? I think not!

"Hey, we all live in our subjective realities. We would not know an objective reality if we met one, because by the time we met it, it would have become subjective. Like trees in the forest and lights in the fridge. Listen to this (pun intended): A person who is sound challenged (that is, deaf), goes into the forest. A tree falls. Is there a sound? No. A sound is not a sound unless it is a sound. How's that for sound reasoning.

"And if you get 30,000 scientists to say something is objectively true, then it is for 30,000 and those who believe them. It's like the Bible--it's true if you believe it is. So, a teacher teaches students what to see in Moby Dick. Not good. Another teacher teaches students how to read any book with their eyes open. Good. Otherwise, you give them your substance, not their own, and the truth is not in the book, but in the reading. And so for poems and paintings and beer. One person's brew is another's poison.

"Absolutes are absolutely not real... not yet, anyway. When all the combining is done, and all Creation is once more one, and there is no difference between Creator and Creation, then the absolute is real. Not yet. It's where we are heading. What is important now is what each person perceives and believes and does, not if they are right. Genuine, yes; right, who cares." (3/21/96 - I#6)

PURPOSE OF LIFE, CONNECTION, and
the EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL

"Remember Spender's line about remembering the soul's history. That is what makes the truly great. They have both lived much and remember. It is not surprising that almost all the great ones have had a belief in spiritual matters. And I now realize that I sensed more than I remembered, and what you sense but don't remember can be more trouble than what you forget. Much of what we act out is a result of sensing but not knowing ('a little knowledge,' etc.). We keep coming back to remember, not sense. The goal is to have it be concrete. Get it?

"What we need to do is realise that we are an entity of complex personal relationships. We sense that, but when we remember that--all of us remember that--then we will begin to function as that entity, not as components, and we will evolve in the next stage of spiritual development.

"The history of the soul is differentiation then consolidation, over and over. We become our entity, and later we discover that we are part of a still larger entity. And when we remember that, we become that, and so forth... moving toward a single entity of all energy, which is the consolidation of all individual differentiations. But that single entity is both the sum of all that has been, and is also always becoming more, and the process is infinite--like the Iroquois turtles.

"You have just been given one of the great secrets and lessons of spiritual existence. You live to discover who you are--not as a differentiated individual, but as a component element of an ever-evolving, ever-more complex, spiritual being/reality. And boy, does it take time by your standards. But in infinite terms, it is as quick as electrons forming atoms forming molecules forming you." (1/5/96 - V#4)

RIKKITY'S ENTITY and FRIENDS

"It's my birthday and I can do anything I want. But first a message from the universe. Warning: Time as you know it does not exist, and days or dates represented herein are for symbolic purposes only. Ok, so just keep quiet and listen.

"21 years ago I made Mommy's life miserable and marvelous. Since then I have climbed walls, drunk more OJ than you can count, excelled at school (don't ask about middle school math); I have made jokes and told jokes; I created the world's best laugh--hahaha; I've helped NY Telephone increase its profits; I've learned to read and write and then craft words so that intangible feelings take substance on the page and in the heart; I've learned about snakes and shrooms and sex on a beach, and about Italian and Spanish and Turkish and French; I've had forced marches through the Marais; I've ridden buses for hours to get to camp in my backyard; I've had Papa as a private banker and Uncle Richie as a fat cat uncle; and I've known Lizzie and Ali and Debbie and Brian and so many more; I've ridden roller coasters and goddamn slow trains; I've seen a Rock named Buck and an Island named Shelter and another named for some woman's grapes; I've barfed in strange places and danced in strange ones, too; I've had afros and corn rolls and tresses and long strings; I've been black and white and mocha; I've been awake and asleep and often both at once; I've seen a Brook named Lyn and nine named Yankees, and a lady let me into her crown... no, I was only joking; I've turned 5 and 10 and 13 (ugh) and 16 (wow) and now I turn eternal, which means I get lots more birthdays. But this is what I have learned from all of that and them:

"We are who we are and whom we connect with. We do not choose who we are; we come into being and continue to come into being. But we can choose our connections. Will it be physical or psychic, love or hate, fear or courage, knowledge or superstition, good or evil, close or distant, honest or false, genuine or artificial, here and now or far away and later. Choices, choices, choices. And how we come into being or not depends on our choices. So today I celebrate the choices I have made and that you two have made. I celebrate love and acceptance and challenge and honesty and truth and compassion and courage and OJ. We are who we are, the three or six of us, because of these choices. I thank you for making those choices. I thank you for helping me make those choices. What more need be said.

"O yes, I love you and me. As I was saying, Happy Me Day and Happy You Day. I know it is sad for you, but here's the really tragic thought: no Me days. The risk in living is losing, but the odds with parents like you and kids like moi is, or are, so good to make the risks into meaning. Better to have lived and died than never to have lived at all. No doubt about that.

"So onward, as Whitman would say. And I am not about to read Song of Myself, but onward comrades, there is much road ahead. We shall need the stores of our past and the love of ourselves and the companionship of each other. Let today mark a remembering and a start of a vision. Cry a little and then laugh and be on your way. I shall always be with you in the trees beside the path, and later we shall all refresh in the springs of eternity in which we now unknowingly flow.

"That is my Birthday Ode." (5/10/96 - W#32)