Day 113: Goodbye Dead Man’s Beach

Goodbye Dead Man’s Beach

In the late spring of a bitter windy day, I wiped the grits of sand from my face and stared down below to the foggy beach. This would be the first time I’d see flaccid bodies all lined up in a row, bloated and an almost-blue.  I hadn’t wanted to watch or even glance a little.  I’d wished to run away or at least close my eyes, but I had to see.  This was another coming of a dream.  Some seven days had passed, seven long days of waiting and wondering who would drown.  I knew enough from my past and the way my dreams played out to realize death would be arriving on a Saturday—on a cold, cold Saturday.

I wondered as the workers desperately pressed and pumped on the already dying flesh, why life, or God, or whatever essence gave me these glimpses of future events, wouldn’t also go one step further and allow me to serve some purpose and exist as more than a detached helpless onlooker.   Had I had a magic button to stop the dreams, I thought at the time I would have.  But then I thought I would have missed the dreams in the way I would have missed my arm, or leg, or eye; the dreams were so much a part of me, a needed part, something I’d been born with which had served me in some sense; even though I couldn’t comprehend the reason, even though I cursed the visions and the following reality, I knew enough, innately or perhaps spiritually, to know the dreams were necessary.

The dreams would serve a higher purpose someday, I was told.  Not directly, but in whispers, gentle reminders to be patient, to be watchful, and to wait.  I would cry then, in my teens, in the same way I cry now, when the weight of the world is so heavy upon my shoulders that I wish for nothing but silence and the unknowing, to be like the mother across the street satisfied with her scrapbooking and classroom volunteering, and yearning for nothing more than the simple.

That’s what I longed for:  the sweet simple.

Those dead bodies below on the beach had been a family, the emptied vessels now covered in black bags on the sands below had been minutes before living tourists who hadn’t heeded the warnings posted at Dead Man’s Beach about the dangers of the ocean currents and under-tow.  One boy had fallen in off the rocks, and in response, each family member had leapt to their own death.

I have been terrified of the ocean, ever since the tragedy at Dead Man’s Beach. Add this to the horrific flesh-eating fish dreams I’ve had since I was three, and the time my mother’s boyfriend saw a shark take a chunk out of his best friend. (His friend died.) And I’ve been able to justify not going in the ocean for about twenty-five years.

Yesterday, I overcame my great fear of the sea. As I paddled out into the ocean on my surfboard, I was terrified. I trembled. I almost cried. I almost turned back. But I paddled onward.

I wasn’t planning on surfing at all while visiting Maui. But there I was, regardless of all my fears and misgivings, flat on my belly, in a borrowed, rather-stinky surf shirt, paddling over the waves. And I got up on my surfboard, not once, but at least five times and rode the waves.

They may have looked like little waves to the observer. But to me they were the biggest darn waves of my life.

I’ve realized I have spent much of my forty-some years living on my own Dead Man’s Beach. I’ve been counting my days. Worrying about lurking dangers. Terrified to be happy.

This evening, as I sat in a local bar having yet another fruity rum drink (a new thing for me), the musician played Here Comes the Sun, and I was brought back to a summer day in Oregon, when at the age of nine I was riding in the back of a pickup truck listening to that song. I remember at that age I had an intense feeling of happiness and freedom. It was one of the last times I remember feeling so elated.

Yesterday, when I rode the waves, I returned to that sunny day in the back of the truck. I walked off of Dead Man’s Beach and I found my sun again.

A wise man once told me that he asks everyday: “How can life get any better?”

Day 110: Falling In Love

Falling In Love

I’m falling in love.

I’m falling in love with the sensation of wet ocean sand squishing between my toes and lathering the soles of my feet.

I’m falling in love with my feet; how my little toe is smaller than his neighbor, how my feet are the perfect size and perfect shape.

I’m falling in love with floating my entire body in the healing, salt-rich sea, kicking and splashing my way from beachside to beachside.

I’m falling in love with my body: the softness of my skin, the curves, the beautiful imperfections that make me entirely me.

I’m falling in love with fruity-drinks with rum and fancy umbrellas, with the foam that tickles my lips and the buzz that tickles my view.

I’m falling in love with my view, in how I see the world, how I see people, and how my heart is big enough to embrace the entirety of the universe.

I’m falling in love with crème brulee served in minature pineapple-bowls, and garnished with large juicy strawberries and fresh whipped cream.

I’m falling in love with the little girl in me who fancies sweet treats and surprises, who wants to share her treats with a stranger, who wants to tell everyone she meets about tiny pineapple bowls.

I’m falling in love with the sun setting over the ocean while the wind blows through my blonde-streaked, windblown hair.

I’m falling in love with my capacity to love nature, the depth of my awe, the appreciation of all glorious works of this planet.

I’m falling in love with hiking down ocean cliffs to the sound of the roaring waves and wading in the warm natural sea pools with hundreds of little fish.

I’m falling in love with my courage to try new things and my appreciation of my bravery and risk taking.

I’m falling in love with catching up with my old friends, I adore, and learning about new friends, I adore.

I’m falling in love with my personality, the way I truly love people, and hold them daily in my heart and thoughts.

I’m falling in love with my potential, with my options, and with opportunity.

I’m falling in love with my skillset to seek out whatever I dream.

I’m falling in love with my family, with their humor, with their wit, with their clever observations and deep sensitivity to life and their environment.

I’m falling in love with my mothering, with all that I’ve dedicated and given without second-thought or need.

I’m falling in love with my eyes and their depth, in what they have seen and saved in silence, and what they have seen, and shared in truth.

I’m falling in love with every inch of me and every inch of my life. I am blessed. I am gifted. And I am me.

 Sometimes I think I make my new friends feel like the sheep in the picture above!

Day 108: Swim Deep

I’ve been reflecting a lot as of late. Of my choices and my personhood. I am slowly transforming and transitioning. I long for Crazy Frog to come out and lighten Melancholic Me. But I recognize this as a growth process. A replanting of sorts. And so I turn to words. My forever comfort through the ever-changing life.

Swim Deep

I don’t know how to pretend.

I don’t know how to fake emotions.

I don’t understand shallow.

I don’t understand fickle or lies.

I love with depth.

I live with depth.

But the depths frighten me.

I swim in the deep waters.

While others sit on the edge.

I know not why.

I watch the watchers watch me.

I question my truth.

I doubt.

I ache.

I weep.

I worry.

I turn inward in fear.

I long.

I long again.

But I still swim deep.

I will for always swim deep.

For there are no better waters.

 

 

 

Day 105: The Clutching Man

Be gentle with yourself in regards to this money. There is nothing worse in this world than giving your power to something beyond yourself, whether this be pupil or papyrus. All is the same in the sense of losing self in illusion of highness and grandeur. And it is this that the papyrus of illusion instills upon you—an attitude, and right-filled belief that the imaginary will bring forward fortitude and fortune. And if it be not good fortune, a raining down of green leaves, than the opposite is supposed by chance. That inevitably the money will reap nothing but garbage and exile. That the empty pockets will cause weeping and a predetermine fate of bitter destituteness.

How bazaar the power this one illusion has upon you. How it wraps around not only your mind but your being as a whole, drowning spirit along side body, leaving you gasping for what was never had before.

Yes, in the books of tales which you recreate and uphold as truths, those with less are victims. But are you not all victims? Are you not all persecuted by your very mind and ramblings, the cyclic thoughts you believe are reality? Who is to say these so-named victims of the past were anymore suffering than the richest heir upon his hilltop castle, the duke, the heralding placating son of circumstance?

This money is a disease of the mind, a self-created vision of lacking, built solely around the illusion. Where you are not already perceived lacking, where you have not found holes, you add the lacking of money to the multitude. You self-punish yourself.

Suppose money was nothing but the rotting fruit. Suppose money were the clouds. Or better yet, suppose money was the heart of man. Suppose everyone hankered after the heart of man, because there the riches were held. Here is the knife to cut the man to retrieve the heart that has the secrets to longevity and life. Here is the knife. Take and cut.

This is how you play. How you cut one another. There is not this knife that you can touch, but the pain is no different. To tell a man he is naught, that he is of sufficient lacking based on illusion is to do nothing more than tear out his heart while he stands watching and mourning. Who are you to claim that this illusion is the truth? The money, the thought behind money, and the belief that feeds the illusion leads to more war and more death than a million knifes. For the masses have believed, and thus made it seemingly so, that money is the answer to the problems.

This is simply not so. There are no problems beyond the mind. To be happy in a hovel is to be at peace. To be happy in a castle is simply an illusion, unless the man were able to sleep in a hovel the next night barefoot and frozen in his humility without regret. To take a man from high and surrender him to low, and have him return untouched—this is the absence of problems. To place a man up high and let him know in all ways that if he falls, if he lowers, if he lets go he shall tumble in misery and trouble—this is the fulfillment of problems. It is not that the meek are happy or better. It is that the meek are aware. They understand that happiness is not in a magic bottle, not wrapped in a grand illusion. That happiness is within.

And still they laugh, these masterminds of money. For how could what they possess not have meaning and purpose—bring power and totality? They do not see that the hand that is empty, absence of clutching, is the hand open to discovery and newness. The hand so tightly gripped cannot even save the body from a fall. The hand held prison in greed is no better than the mouth held captive in gossip. Anything in excess breeds the opposite—thusly, a hand unable to release creates an excess of loose grip, so that the hand can no longer grasp what is vital and needed, can no longer gather the fruits that nurture the soul. Just as a mouth flapping and chaffing has no energy left to close so the flies and dust don’t enter and germinate. This money, what does it do? How does it equate to equality and justice? How does one with none accomplish in life, when all about him he is judged as this “none” as this “zero.”

What is a man that cannot view beyond the illusion he grasps? Why is the clutching man welcomed and not the man with open hands? What makes a man who chains himself to bars of gold free? Remember the eyes are only a very limited scope, attached to a mind pre-created by limitations of thoughts, memories and happenstance. There is nothing before you to judge except the method in which you perceive. Judge this first, and then release that as well.

Money is a funny thing. It is not easy to measure but is always measured. It is not easy to like but often obsessed over and loved. It is not easy to find but piles high in dark basements. It is not something to build a life upon but becomes the foundations of thoughts. It is not worthwhile but lasts through the ages. It is not damaging but cuts like knives. It is not attainable but collected like trophies. It is not desirable but wished upon through stars. It is not real but the basis of an entire system of exchange. It is worthless paper easily set aflame but used to build empires. Everything about money is contradictory. It is gathered to instill passion and security but fuels disgust and worry. Money is said to make the world go round but often strikes a man half-dead. What use is a spinning world when all upon the planet are unaware? This money is a funny thing.

Money stops dreams. Money stops families. Money stops love.

There is only one vaccine for the heresy of money and that is belief in a higher good, a higher truth. Replace the belief of money for a quest for higher truth.

The illusion is altering. The things that illusion brings are no less better than the illusion. Fear begets fear. Money brings fear. Give up the illusion of fear and embrace the illusion of higher good. Blow down the green of money trees and replace this green with the light of the heart, the glow of what is. Find the real green and share this to see what truly grows.

Day 104: Fire Ball and My BIG BRAIN

This is to give you a glimpse of what goes on in my mind. Not all the time, but enough of the time. I start thinking, and thinking, and thinking. All these thoughts below ran through my mind in the first twenty-minutes of our plane ride. I have to laugh at myself. Thanks for letting me ooze this out of my brain onto these pages. And I DO NOT expect you to read this all. Like I said, this is a sampling of MY BIG BRAIN.

Maui update: Wonderful, wonderful day. The sand feels so good on my feet. Watched the boys play in the waves. We got upgraded to a 2,000 square foot, ocean view penthouse for the first night. They had a raffle in the courtyard. About 125 people, 125 raffle tickets, and they drew five tickets. Out of the first four, three were each of my son’s tickets. What are the odds??? The force is with us.

Okay, here is my brain in high gear….don’t ask me to explain this.

The Fire Ball/Fire Mass

In the circumstance of two coming together in company, feelings arise. These feeling are both beneficial and non-beneficial. Because we choose our feelings based on illusion and limited perception, in turn, the element of choosing is either beneficial or non-beneficial.

There is no in between middle point or meeting point in considering variants of choosing. Choosing is not on a line. Choosing is neither good nor bad. Choosing is like the air. One does not look into the air and wonder what is between the air, or where air meets. Choosing is expansive, beyond human reasoning. This choosing is one of the gifts of humans. This choosing is powerful. As we choose as a collective, we generate energy into perceived reality. When the masses are choosing the same then the masses receive the same.

If choosing is not on a flat timeline and not based on evaluation or degree, and one cannot finger-point choosing, then where does choosing exist? Choosing cannot be applied a degree or numerical value, because choosing firstly carries no value, and secondly, choosing is a vast collective that cannot be pinned down at any moment. With the illusion of time, choosing does not exist. Remove the illusion of time, and choosing exists. Choosing is always, with no ending and no beginning. The masses choose continually. This choosing in time terms occurs every second, every half of a second, every hundredth of a second, and so on, into infinity. Thusly, choosing cannot be placed within the concept of time, only within the concept of infinite.

It is the collectives choosing that creates choosing. This collective choosing can be visualized as a fire ball. This fire ball moves continuously with heat and gases. The choosing moves within this ball, continually altering form and position. Our thoughts are our choosing. Thoughts move in the ball of circular continuous motion. There is no end, no beginning, no start, no completion. This fire ball fuels the reality that the collective sees. Ultimately, everything perceived through the recognized senses at this moment are fueled by the fire mass, and in turn everything perceived fuels the mass.

This fire mass is neither good nor bad, for no such named vibrations exists. The fire mass moves with what could be called beneficial and non-beneficial vibration. Non-beneficial does not imply bad, nor does beneficial imply good. Beneficial and non-beneficial are part of the fire mass; and as these two are within the mass, they are also within our choosing. Ultimately, beneficial and non-beneficial do not exist. If we were to apply bad to non-beneficial and good to beneficial then there is an instant separation, with one above the other, or one on the side of the other. These directions, of up or down, or negative or positive in degree, imply separation. Where there is separation of any form—be it word or thought—then there is an absence of unity. Unity has no opposite. Singular does not exist. Thus degrees of beneficial cannot exist.

What is beneficial and what is non-beneficial. Beneficial is vibration that expands and creates vibration that inspires growth. Thusly all things, all actions, all thought, all being is beneficial. For everything within this planet of existence inspires growth. Therefor non-beneficial grows within beneficial, just as beneficial stagnates (or ceases to create) inside non-beneficial. There is no separation of the two beneficials. Non-beneficial vibration implodes and creates vibration that inspires stagnation. Stagnation can be beneficial. Thusly, non-beneficial can be equated to beneficial. There is no opposite. They are as one, like all unity. They are part of the fire mass. We choose the words of beneficial or non-beneficial to communicate a variation in vibration, not a distinction in right or wrong.

One vibrating non-beneficial energy, which implodes and will be received as stagnant, with the inability to expand and grow, is beneficial to the one, to another one, and to the collective (fire mass). This is how: A person who is exhibiting non-beneficial energy will directly affect the fire mass. A person who is exhibiting non-beneficial energy will directly affect another person within the energy frequency. The person(s) affected will then have a choosing. The person will choose to vibrate with the non-beneficial stagnant energy or to vibrate with beneficial growth energy. There is no right or wrong. Whatever the choosing, the person(s) are learning and growing through the acceptance or transformation of non-beneficial energy. Persons who vibrate with non-beneficial energy are teachers, the same as persons who vibrate with beneficial energy. Each is a variant of the unity of love. Each is part of the fire mass.

There are lessons in every reflection viewed through the recognized senses. These lessons are a reflection within a reflection. It is vital to remember there is no bad or good. There is not good or bad energy. No good or bad reflection. Everything is a one and breathes as one. A non-beneficial reflection is a teacher, as is a beneficial reflection. Think of the one looking upon the one in the mirror. This one may choose to vibrate with beneficial energy upon viewing the reflection, or the one may choose to vibrate with non-beneficial energy upon viewing the reflection. This is the same for one looking upon another one. This one is reflection of the other one. What one sees is what the one chooses to see.

All at once we are either expanding in light or imploding away from light. This occurs outside our concept of time. Every glance into the reflection of illusion is fed back to the fire mass and then returned to the collective masses instantaneously. There is no time. Only union. This is not as a shooting star or rocket ship, where one energy is fueled down, and then another energy fueled back up. There is no up or down. Source and fire mass are within. Light is within. Thusly, the one is continually expanding and imploding. The fire mass is held by all light bearers. The unity is light bearers. All are light bearers. All are unity.

When one evaluates, judges, or analyzes another one, the one is choosing to send these thoughts directly to the one, to the other one, and to the fire mass. As in thought there exists no one.

When one believes the reality of, You make me feel, there is an instant separation. When one is able to step outside of self and practice as observer, then unity remains. With the absence and removal of the thought, You make me feel, there is a flow of transitioning from non-beneficial (stagnant) to beneficial (growing) vibration. The beneficial vibration expands the fire mass; the more one expands the illusion of reality, recognizes thought, and practices as observer, the more one expands beyond the senses, and the more the collective fire mass expands beyond the senses.

The flow of transition of thought into vibration into the fire ball (fire mass) may be observed in the following manner:

I am angry at you.

I am choosing to be angry at you.

I am choosing to be angry.

I am choosing to be.

I am choosing.

We are choosing.

We are.

In the first string of words (or string of vibrations), I am angry at you, one is choosing to be angry at another one.

In the second string of words, I am choosing to be angry at you, the one is releasing the belief of direct effect. The one is recognizing choice.

In the third string of words, I am choosing to be angry, the one is recognizing there is no distinction between one and the other one, and that all feelings stem from the fire mass. All feelings are a direct response from the vibration of the fire mass. The fire mass is held within one and held within the other, and held by the union of whole. Thusly, one feeling is not attached to only one.

In the fourth string of words, I am choosing to be, the one is recognizing the choosing and the absence of another one. The one is recognizing the absence of separation. In the absence of separation the illusion of blame does not exist.

In the fifth string of words, I am choosing, the one is releasing the sense of having to be in order to exist. In essence the one is detaching from the element of being and existing and viewing the one as choice.

In the sixth string of words, We are choosing, the one is recognizing the fire mass: that all choice Is collective. That all is a reflection.

In the seventh string of words, We are, the one (WE) has transitioned the illusion of reality, stepped beyond individuality, and is able to view the collective.

All strings of words can transition into the seventh level. Vibration at the seventh level is optimal. Those vibrating at the seventh level omit a vibration of growth, nurturing, and serenity. There is a calmness and a glow. The glow is spirit: the light of the fire ball. Thusly, the glow the one carries is the glow the unity or whole carries. Thusly, as the reflection glows as does the whole.

The seventh transition is seen in other form likewise.

I am ugly.

I am choosing ugly.

I am choosing.

I am choosing beauty.

I am beauty.

We are beauty.

We are.

Another:

That man is bothering me.

I am choosing for that man to bother me.

I am choosing bothered.

I am choosing serenity.

I am serenity.

We are serenity.

We are

Another:

I hope he likes me.

I am choosing to hope he likes me.

I am choosing likable.

I am choosing I am likeable

I am choosing we are likable.

We are likable.

We are.

Another:

What if she doesn’t think I am special?

I am choosing to fear she doesn’t think I am special.

I am choosing fear that I am not special.

I am choosing special.

I am choosing we are special.

We are special.

We are.

With practice, one can vibrate at the fourth and fifth level. The fifth and sixth level occur when one is able to accept the illusion of reality and experience the fire ball within, recognizing one is in truth WE.

There is no right or wrong in the transition of seven. One will experience the vibration of the transition as beneficial or non-beneficial. In beneficial transition, there will be a releasing of separateness and a growth of collective. In non-beneficial transition, the separateness will stagnate. Separateness cannot grow; there exists nothing beyond the wall of separateness. Once separate, in all ways separate. Once whole, in all ways whole.

The transition of non-seven will create non-beneficial vibration for the fire mass. In example, the string of words below demonstrates the stream of vibration feeding non-beneficial vibration. Again, this is not bad or good. This is stagnation which serves a purpose, as all vibrations serve a purpose.

It is vital to remember what one holds as truth for one holds for truth as all. The one who sees his one as ugly, likewise sees the other one as ugly. There is only unity, no one. The one who sees his one as ugly vibrates this into the collective fire ball, the fire ball each carries. Thusly, all ones carrying fire balls will see ugly, and the collective whole will be ugly. Ugly is an illusion. One can choose to create whatever one chooses. Choosing is the key and the power.

In reference, the following string of words reflects the non-beneficial string of non-seven transition:

I have an ugly face.

I am ugly.

You are ugly.

We are ugly.

We are.

Here the vibration vibrates as stagnant. This is non-beneficial but not bad. The one has not recognized the effect one has on the collective. This is stagnation that feeds back into the fire mass (ball). When one believes in the illusion of ugly, all are ugly. One cannot proclaim one is ugly without proclaiming that he is equally ugly.

All ugly is an illusion. All beauty is an illusion. Words are vibration. Vibration creates form and reality. The vibration of ugly is determined by the illusion of ugly. If one chooses ugly as bad, then the vibration of ugly is bad. This bad is an illusion as well, creating its own ripple of vibration.

All words carry power—but the true power is in the choice of vibration behind the illusion of the word. This choice vibrates into the collective and feeds the fire mass. This fire mass is within one and within the other. Ugly feeds the one, and so ugly feeds the other. Stagnation, or non-beneficial vibration occurs when this ugly, this word, this vibration meets the fire mass. The vibration of non-beneficial energy will feed to implode the fire mass instead of expand, decreasing the light. Again, the word is not bad, neither is the vibration. The word is an illusion, the vibration behind the word is created by choosing illusion. We are in a constant state of choosing illusion.