A Father’s Day Tribute

My Father passed on my 55^th birthday. If his body had survived he would have been 100 years old this year going on 101. He’s a better father and friend since he passed than when he was alive.

He was highly intelligent with an incredible vocabulary (which rubbed off on me).  He taught me logic and debating while using these tools to brainwash me into his way of thinking and believing – the conservative mindset. At the same time, he modeled being a free thinker. Well I could be free as long as I thought within his parameters of acceptable thinking and behaviors. Nevertheless he was proud of my intellectual prowess while he occupied his body and I felt this and am grateful.

He was very self-centered and a narcissist. He belittled my mother’s non-rational intuition as if he was admonishing a child. When I was a kid I wanted to defend my mom but didn’t know how. My dad was very fearful all his life and over-compensated by having to be “right” and angry at all costs even if that meant bullying others and “shouting them into submission.”

After he passed the shell of his fragile damaged ego fell away and he became the sweet innocent that I had seen in photographs of his childhood. We share love and occasional communication. He has told me he is proud of me especially after I published my first novel – a fantasy – The Green Man of Destiny.

This is for you Dad as you really are – not some patriarchal definition of a man afraid and always defending himself but a Dad with a boundless curiosity about everything and a dorky sense of humor.

This is for my Dad with a boundless heart and intellect exploring consciousness as a sweet curious boy in the world beyond the corporeal body.

I love you, Dad.

Blessings

Essence of Light Within

From “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you…

“God, what am I suppose to do with my life?”

was the question I asked myself before going to bed on a Monday night on February 5, 1990

Light as seen by Others

The answer led me to a life that while there was previously undeveloped and unfolded into a life of grace and blessings.

We forget that within the core of each individual is being

One of the greatest gifts or blessings in my life has been and continues to be is an ability to “see”.  I have “seen” others to the depths of their beings and they have all been beautiful.

In my interdimensional healing practice of nearly 30 years I have been blessed to see and embrace other peoples’ realities. My heart is full with that privilege of this life that has been afforded me.

In the beginning I did readings and embraced others’ realities. Then I began to work with helping others heal the blocks that stood (stand) in the way of their own light and embraced their realities.

the love is boundless

We all long to be seen, accepted and know that our presence has been acknowledged. We are hungry for that connection and may do all sorts of things distracting us from feeling that connection while thinking its out there somewhere. We see behaviors and attributes that we don’t like, loathe, hate and judge in the other. We discount and judge ourselves. We forget that the actions and attributes of the other person are surface waters and not who they are. We do not see people for who they are because we are so concerned with judging, criticizing and berating ourselves and maybe others. We forget that within the core of each individual is being.

When we are quiet enough to experience being in another we can experience being in ourselves. Then the love is boundless.

 

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For further reading: The Calling

For more about my work visit:  Ontario’s The Kai

An Odyssey of Loss and Rebirth (May 2017 to May 2018)

Fires of October 2017

 

I had dreams of the death of my friend Wendy former lover and good friend in early May and she had given me hints of her upcoming death over the phone but I missed them. Denial is so self-protecting at least initially.

the October fires of Northern California began

News came of Tom Petty’s death…

I got a voice mail from a good friend’s daughter on 9/28/17 about his impending death. I had known it was coming but it took me my surprise. The next day he passed out of his cancer-ridden physical body into the next life.

Wendy had died of cancer in May.

A week later the October fires of Northern California began. I evacuated, as did my neighbors – only to find that it wasn’t a mandatory evacuation as I was lead to believe by authorities on the scene. (I later learned they had moving heavy equipment – massive bulldozers into the mountains at the end of the road.). My cat and I stayed with a good friend in Windsor. I returned one day in the midst of smoke as thick as fog that not even air conditioning in my car, a mask or the interior of my house would eliminate to retrieve a few items and found a message on my answering machine to call the niece of Wendy in Canada.

The losses from the fires were and continue to be heartbreaking and devastating.

I waited until I arrived back in Windsor to call Wendy’s niece. She had gotten my letter (Wendy’s phone had been disconnected). Wendy had died of cancer in May.

My old boss was shot

The losses from the fires were and continue to be heartbreaking and devastating. Thankfully my place and my neighborhood were spared. Many homes that were completely destroyed are just now starting the re-building process. Loss and the anniversary of that loss have had us holding our breaths a bit. I felt us all sigh relief, exhaling as the rains came October first and second.

He was taken off hospice in May 2018

In December another friend passed from cancer.

My old boss was shot during the time my boss asked a question and was in critical condition for a time and then started his recovery.

A friend was put on hospice in February. I could see he wasn’t going to die that soon. He was taken off hospice in May 2018

Movies in the 1960s…

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Steven Soderbergh just completed a second feature film using an iPhone exclusively. Very cool. This could be a big break for budding filmmakers and continue to flood the world of film / movies with even more.

The Hollywood blockbuster ruled.

Before streaming, film experts reported that there were more films made than there were screens to display them on – that was the late 1980s. Enter streaming and millions of films. The amount and size of flat screens increases and even though 4-walling movies (on theaters) does not begin to cover the volume of film home theater is attempting to meet the challenge.

As a Boomer I remember when cinema was a big deal. The Hollywood blockbuster ruled. There was a theater in a city south of my little town named the CineMart. They had ushers in red uniforms and hats that seated folks. Movies like “The Sound of Music”, Lawrence of Arabia” and Dr. Zhivago” played for a whole month or more.

“You can’t make movies, they only do it in Hollywood.”

Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” played for a whole summer in 1968.

Music from the film played before the movie started. There were no short subjects, no previews and no ads – for anything. When the logo of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Lion appeared on the screen the curtain parted as the film played.

There was an Intermission announced across the wide 70 mm screen and for 15 or 20 minutes music from the film played. People stayed until the credits ceased and the house lights came up. Even in my small town we saw Oscar winning shorts before the feature and slews of cartoons – mostly “Looney Tunes”.

That didn’t stop us

Movies were special. And of course there was a catch. My friend Paul and I made movies, mostly very bad movies. When we tried to get classmates to be in our very bad movies they invariably said: “You can’t make movies, they only do it in Hollywood.”

That didn’t stop us. Our High School Art teacher Mrs. Bernarzyk told us about the Fordham’s Young Filmmaker Festival in NYC in February 1968. Our bad movie – The Chase was our ticket in. It was very cool – movies day and night for 3 days. I met these geeky guys from Long Island that made 3-D animation Godzilla films with models in their basements. The first YFF was during the first garbage strike in the cold and snow of February.

We saw a pre-screening of The Planet of The Apes, cool.

I went home and made films with 3-D (pixilation) animation with chairs, sneakers, laundry baskets, rocks and sometimes with people too.

The last film I made in those days – King Chair that was 3 minutes long and took 3 eight hour days to make was distributed with 2 other shorts and the only project where I made a $45 profit.

…. Later I adapted a James Thurber story – Unicorn in the Garden to a 20-minute plot-boiler of “Alien in the Refrigerator”

Offering Love

Bhante – my mentor and teacher who lived to 110 years old once said that for every person that loves it nullifies the hate in ten other people.

Gregg Braden in conjunction with the Heart Math Institute reports that our hearts create a field of about twelve feet and that the instruments used to measure the field can only do so up to twelve feet. So it is possible that the heart field extends much further than twelve feet.

Love loves hate until it dissolves.

 

Love is the binding emotion. If love can be quantified as photons it could be said that love is a frequency of light. In my experience I have seen a variety of frequencies of light that are love. Love is the stuff of connection in the universe and allows all other emotions to connect to it. Emotions are universal amongst all humans. Its what binds us together as a species. Love is the most binding of all the emotions.

When I send love to another and there is no permission to send it to an individual I send the love near to an individual so that the love is so irresistible it could be delightful to take the love.

When love surrounds hate without us forcing love onto another then it softens the hatred, which is fear and allows it to dissolve. Love loves hate until it dissolves.

Try it to see how sharing or offering love affects your view of yourself, your view of the peopled multiverse and your relationship to the peopled multiverse as well as the multiverse itself.

A Code of Conduct for Men with Women, Children and Other Men

Or Equality Hugging

Preface

Men are in a position of power in this culture because of their gender and that has been invisible for the most part to them. Women have known about the abuses of men’s power positions for as long as the patriarch is old. It’s becoming more visible now, thankfully and has a long way to go. Men have set many precedents to treat women and others as objects to be subjugated and this has remained acceptable and even hailed as “good” amongst men and some women.

Men who have been victims of sexual crimes such as rape, sexual assault, violations, incest and ritualized sexual abuse as children and feel to be victims / survivors are keenly aware of men’s power than those men acting as perpetrators.

A Possible Code of Conduct

When I was recovering from memories of having been raped as a child I began to create boundaries. Many people men and women make a tacit assumption – it is okay to hug. Amongst my friends and acquaintances I had to stop people from hugging me. I asked them to ask me if was okay to hug me.

Some men employ the bear-hug. This is a clamping down on the hugee to a point where the hugee is crushed by the hugger. Most hugs are unequal. There is a hugger and a hugee. The hugger gives a hug or is the aggressive hugger – even if gentle. The receiver of the hug does just that – receives without choice in the matter. Most hugs are not shared they are given and received. An aggressive hugger can “get-off” sexually on the hug without any seeming impropriety. The best a receiver of a hug may be able to do is the A-Frame Hug. They lean into the giver’s hug with their head and shoulders. Only the very top of their chests may be in contact with the other.

 

The Code of Conduct is Simple

Step One:

“May I give you a hug?”

“Yes.”     Or      “No.”

 

Step Two:

Or you could re-frame the experience:

“May I give you a hug?” Could be met with:

“No, but I will share a hug with you.”

“Same difference,” the hug perpetrator could say.

Response – Walk away

Or they could say: “What does that mean?”

If its said sarcastically its probably best to refuse all together and walk away.

 

In sharing a hug –

Each hugger gives and receives the hug equally.

Explanation and practice required.

 

Am I splitting hairs? Maybe, but I don’t think so…

 

The Happiness Prayer

 

 

 

 

 

Happiness is what we are blessed with as babies. We get caught up in a world of having, goals, and conquest in “the pursuit of happiness”. The past isn’t a separate place “back there” – the memories of the past exists in the present and the emotions are the link to the ever expanding now.

You’re scrolling through the photos on your phone, tablet or computer (or a photo album / loose photos) and you come across a photo of you and your friends, family or loved ones.

You remember what it was like in this photo, the sounds, the conversations, the quality of the air, the laughter, the feelings of companionship and love. Looking at the photograph you feel the happiness and love you felt with your friends, family and/or lovers – your community.

You reflect on those feelings and allow yourself to feel those feelings now. Feel the peace, feel the love, feel the happiness.

Reflecting on feelings of happiness elicits the feelings to arise now.

You give thanks.

 

 

Home Remedies: Love in Cooking & Richness in a Recipe

Love in…
Cooking with love is easy and many of you most likely do this. Before elucidating the how – a story.
In the 1990s I cooked for my landlord’s wife in exchange for dollars off my rent. She had some severe food allergies. The aim was to make meals and prepare food to her specifications and keep food costs low. Her mainstay was chicken and I was a vegetarian at that time. I purchased boneless chicken breasts at Costco. When I began cooking the chicken I could feel how savagely the chickens had been killed. I had known – in the past this but had forgotten. Kosher chicken is the only chicken killed humanely to my knowledge. It was through directed love that I was able to ameliorate the effects of the violence done to these chickens – as much as possible.

I employed an exercise to activate the heart. Scientists have discovered neurons in the heart. The heart is an organ for sensing emotions, our cognitive brain givens language to delineate these emotions… The exercise is the “I-Am” exercise designed to activate feeling in the heart and allow love to expand. https://psychesweather.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/the-i-am-exercise/

I activated the “I-Am” and directed loving kindness to the chicken. Nora, my landlord’s wife reported that she felt the love in the meals.

Richness
Chicken Breast with White Wine Sauce, Asparagus and Rice (may be substituted with mashed potatoes)
These ingredients aren’t exact because it’s from memory – something I haven’t cooked for a long while.

Inner Prep Work:
Ground and pay attention to your breath as you begin and then periodically through the cooking process. Treat yourself and every ingredient with loving-kindness. As you handle each piece of meat and other ingredients infuse them with love and kindness. As you add the ingredients together project your love into them.

Hardware:
Long-handled wooden spoon for stirring
1 or 2 measuring cups
1 sauté pan
1 saucepan
a table knife or spoon
a sharp knife
Gravy or sauce bowl
Ladle

What’s in it:
2 to 4 boned and skinned chicken breasts (rinsed)
Chicken Stock
¼ to ½ cup white wine
½ to 1 stick of butter
1 pint of heavy cream
olive oil or butter
Some asparagus (rinsed)
Wild Rice or Brown Rice (rinsed)  or 7 – 10 Yukon Gold Potatoes

What to do:
Thaw the chicken stock in advance
If you’re preparing mashed potatoes prepare them in advance while thawing the chicken stock and reheat in the microwave or oven when close to serving.

Brown the chicken in a skillet on both sides until golden brown using butter or cooking oil.
Pour in the chicken stock (liquid only) until it nearly covers the breasts and bring to a boil.
Once boiling turn heat down to medium or medium low and reduce by half.

Add butter and let melt and diffuse.

Start the rice. (Rice cookers are a good for this kind of cooking)

Pour or ladle out ½ to ¾ of stock to a small pan and add the pint of heavy cream, put on medium heat and stir occasionally. Reduce by half.

Pour mixture back into the pan with the chicken, add the wine and reduce by half or three-quarters.

While reducing cut the bottoms of the asparagus stems and steam the asparagus.

Serving:
Take the breast out of the pan and place on a dish with the cooked rice and steamed asparagus.

Take the sauce or pan sauce and pour over chicken. Reserve the rest in a gravy bowl with a ladle

 

Joe – a Tribute

Joe at the parking lot near Panther Meadow, Mount Shasta

~

I met Joe at the New Leaf Bookstore in Larkspur, California in May of 1996.

I worked on Saturdays at the New Leaf from 10 am to 7 or 8 pm providing short “Psychic” Readings. Joe had a reading. He was very impressed with it.

He started coming in and we began talking about interdimensional realities and spirituality. These talks started getting longer, so I suggested he join me during my lunch/dinner break.

I brought bag lunches in the early days. Then Joe invited me up the street to Spanky’s, a breakfast and lunch place that had a model train on a track near the ceiling chugging around the restaurant every ten minutes or so. We’d eat and kibitz for an hour or so.

He liked my work so much he suggested I incorporate so he could buy a share. I laughed, but I talked to a friend about it. She advised against it. If I made the company public others could get a majority share and buy me out and prevent me from working at my avocation. Or I could have a privately owned company where I would always own 51 % of the shares or more. It sounded too much like a business and I declined all together.

Joe was a client who was also a friend and to some degree a benefactor. He loved going out to dinner. He would take me out to dinner at a variety of restaurants in Marin County from greasy spoons to high-end places. One time we were having steaks at Sizzler near the Marin Civic Center.

“Don’t look now. Don’t turn around. George Lucas and his son (I guess) are behind you having a steak.” Joe turned around. Lucas had a pink Roll Royce outside too. “I told you not to turn around. Geezs, Joe!”  He shrugged.

When I first met Joe he wasn’t working because he was recovering from a massive heart attack and triple bypass surgery. Eventually he went back to work – as an architect designing hospitals. He once said that if I knew how to operate AutoCAD I could get a job as an architect at his firm.

“That gives me great confidence knowing there are “architects” whose only experience is AutoCAD – knowing a design program are making a hospital – hmm.  I won’t want to go to one of those hospitals because it might just collapse.”

He laughed.

           “Well a lot of the work goes through me and then it all gets reviewed by the Structural Engineer.”

 

When The New Leaf closed in 1999 and I had become locally known and had been hired by Hollywood Types to consult on business, be the entertainment at parties and continue to do readings and healing work. It was all thanks to a two staffers at The New Leaf and word of mouth.

After the close of The New Leaf ( a recovery bookstore) I worked out of an office in Kentfield on Saturdays until the hippy-dippy chiropractor – I subleted from – decided to move his operation to Fairfax (west Marin). I had an office P/T at The Sonoma Holistic Center in Sonoma after that.

Joe had also become one of the three “Lotto Buddies” with a silly cheer. He once said that he would give 10 % of his Lotto winnings for free massages for the rest of his life. (I was also a massage therapist).

“Have you won yet?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, “Not yet.”

“You want me to take your promise of 10% on nothing but a future promise.”

He smiled.

“I think you already know my answer.”

 

When, in 1999 a colleague and I did a workshop on Mt. Shasta, the Lotto Buddies, Joe, my best friend (a female) and myself reconnoitered the campground where we were to stay and hung out in Mt. Shasta City and on the mountain.

We had three workshops there – 1999, 2010 and 2011. Joe was invited but did not attend. However we traveled up there for those years and then some but before the workshops.

Joe became a student – developing his skills as a healer and could have had a private-healing practice but decided not to go that route. When the economy tanked he lost his job and slipped into retirement. As a result of using an OTC nasal spray for allergies he lost his sense of smell and going out to eat was no longer appealing except for desserts.

Due to Joe’s loss of his sense of smell he became depressed and remarked while with the Lotto Buddies that “I’m just waiting to die.”

After falling down a flight of stairs at his house he decided with his daughter to move to the greater Portland (Oregon) area in 2010.

I visited him in 2011 and 2012.

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He was a great friend; a benefactor and he had great stories to tell.

He passed Sep 29 2017.