Today - on the two year anniversary of Mom's Rebirth - I found Mom's reflexology portfolio in a suitcase full of "stuff" I hadn't looked at for a long time. On the first page, I found a list of Mom's "Affirmatins & Personal Goals", which I wanted to share. The affirmations themselves are ones aspired to by probably every great spiritual teacher in history. Even more amazing, though, is that - like Buddha, or Jesus, or Ghandi, or Martin Luther King - Mom fulfilled them. She lived these high spiritual tenets. We all can learn so much from her, not only today, but every single day.
1. It is my heartfelt desire to rise each morning with love in my heart for all living creatures.
2. I give thanks to God for the many blessings in my life, the greatest of which is Love.
3. I will focus only on the power of Love as my guiding light through each day, and the interaction with each person I encounter shall be with Love as my guide.
4. I will be available to teach and to share any knowledge that has been bestowed upon me. I realize that we are all here to offer love and kindness to each other as we make our way through this life.
5. I will focus on bringing the healing energy to and through my efforst with everyone I encounter each day with the intent to be a successful person.
6. I will manage my business with the same intent as I live my life...as a blessing and an opportunity to shine and serve.
7. I will volunteer some of my time in the efforts of healing as a reflexologist as a means of saying Thanks.
8. I will manage my time and my paperwork with the same intent...to be successful and professional.
9. I will take time out for my own needs and for myself and to spend quality time with my family.
10. I will always look for more ways to better my understanding of the healing energy and the opportunity to grow in knowledge as a reflexologist.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone
31.12.06
14.12.06
PLEASE DON'T WAKE THE DREAMER
I have been seeing mom in dreams a lot lately. in one i had the other night, i saw mom everywhere - in everything - literally. i remember specifically looking into a copper-colored toaster, and seeing mom...dancing. she was throwing her arms all around, like she always did, as if she was trying extra hard to tell me she was "there". "here". everywhere. In the same dream, I remember a flash of looking into a mirror, and seeing HER face so distinctly in mine, it took me aback. i actually had to stop looking at the reflection, because it was too intense.
i had one last night in which i was hanging out with gavin, though he was just a toddler, maybe 2 years old. he was crawling around on the bed, and he said "Nana", and then acted as if he was listening for her. or maybe saw and felt her spirit as she entered the room. actually, it was as if she entered "him". because he looked at me, and spoke clearly (though in an infant's voice), the words "they're mostly human all the time". then he smiled a huge BRUMM smile - just like mom's smile, when she used to crinkle her nose and her dimple would appear and her eyes would twinkle with love and light.
i don't exactly know what that meant. but i remember thinking (in the dream) that it meant that spirits work through those of us still in human form.
over all, her message lately seems to be that we can - and should - see our lost-but-not-lost loved ones in everything and everyone around us. especially in our own reflections.
i had one last night in which i was hanging out with gavin, though he was just a toddler, maybe 2 years old. he was crawling around on the bed, and he said "Nana", and then acted as if he was listening for her. or maybe saw and felt her spirit as she entered the room. actually, it was as if she entered "him". because he looked at me, and spoke clearly (though in an infant's voice), the words "they're mostly human all the time". then he smiled a huge BRUMM smile - just like mom's smile, when she used to crinkle her nose and her dimple would appear and her eyes would twinkle with love and light.
i don't exactly know what that meant. but i remember thinking (in the dream) that it meant that spirits work through those of us still in human form.
over all, her message lately seems to be that we can - and should - see our lost-but-not-lost loved ones in everything and everyone around us. especially in our own reflections.
3.12.06
GIVING THANKS
Although I am getting to it a week and a half late, I wanted to share the story of the year's Thanksgiving.
To be honest, I was dreading it. Dreading the good - no absolutely great - times of my childhood Thanksgiving Days this one would remind me were no more. Dreading not being with my family. Not being with Mom.
About two months ago, I was listening to the afternoon "Totally 80's" show on the one and only radio station I listen to in Kona - K-Big FM. For some reason, I took note of the DJ's invitation to call up and request "your favorite song from the eighties". I thought to myself, "Hmm, what eighties' song would I want to hear right this minute, if I could hear any single one in the world I wanted?" The first song that came to mind was "Live to Tell", by Madonna. This is not necessarily all that strange. I mean, I do like that song a lot. But it is definitely not one of my "characteristic" favorites. It is on the one and only Madonna album I ever owned, which was True Blue, and when I was seven or eight years old, I believe. At any rate, I did not call and request it, because I had never heard them play it before on this station, and figured it wasn't probably in their music library or usual repertoire of songs.
At any rate, I thought about that song. Then - as I often do with many various "things" - I decided that if and when I actually heard that song, whether they played it on this radio show or not, it would be a sign from my Mom. A sign that she was listening. An affirmation that she hears my thoughts, and knows what I need to receive from her in order to know that she knows.
Over the next several weeks, I heard lots of Madonna songs on the radio, but never that one. I took notice of each one, though, now somehow equating Madonna with signals from Mom.
* * *
It was the weekend before Thanksgiving. I spent Saturday and overnight into Sunday with Star and Forrest, on Forrest's farm in Kawaihae. When I arrived, I found Forrest's cat, Blackie, sitting in front of the door on the Lanai. I was absolutely shocked at what I saw. Blackie - who had had a deeply-settled, and apparently untreatable, ear infection for several months - lay before me nearly a skeleton. He was just a pile of raggedy bones, draped loosely with mangy, fly-ridden fur. He smelled of sickness. The side of his head that was originaly infected looked like that of a hydrocephalic, but worse. It bulged out like a baseball pushing forward from underneath his skin, and oozed pus. It was horrifying. I cried and put my hands to my open mouth in disbelief.
I asked Forrest that afternoon if he had considered putting Blackie to sleep. Or even if not by the hands of a vet, had he thought about "helping" Blackie go in any way - putting something poisonous in his food or something. Something that would be quick and not hurt, of course. We had a heart to heart talk, in which Forrest explained that while he had thought many times about euthanizing Blackie, he just kept intuitively feeling like he should just let the cat live out the rest of his days "naturally" - however many or few they may number. He said that - although to the casual observer, Blackie looked terrible and as if he was in severe pain - Forrest got the feeling from him as if he wasn't "ready" to go yet, and would go as soon as he was. He said that Blackie still had the strength - amazingly enough - to jump up on the furniture outside on the Lanai!
As I listened, it became utterly clear to me that Blackie was Forrest's cat, and his friend, and that Forrest knew what was best for him. I completely trusted and respected whatever he decided to do.
Later that night, Forrest and Star and I went outside to look at the night sky through the telescope. As they did just that, I got distracted...by Blackie. It may sound dark to say it, but it was only because it was nighttime, and light was too scarce to show Blackie's malady in full visual effect, that I was able to sit next to him and (at least attempt to) pet him. He seemed so brittle, so delicate, I didn't want to touch him with too much pressure. But even having only gotten semi close to him, I heard him begin to purr, as if all was right in the world. As if just to be close to another beating heart was more important than the number of times his own would beat before ceasing.
I spoke in whispers to Blackie. I told him to go toward his Heavenly Home. I told him that my Mom would be there to greet him on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. I told him that he would be healthy; a baby kitten again! And that Mom would pick him up and hold him, and stroke his beautiful thick fur, the way Forrest always had before it became too damaged and tangled for this world's fingers. As two prayers in one, I asked Mom to open her arms to Blackie and invite him "up" and "in". Of course, Mom's heart was always infinitely open to all cats. Her connection to feline energy was always tangible. I always sense messages from her emanating from all cats that I meet. In them, I see and feel her love.
* * *
Three days later, it was Wednesday. The next day was Thanksgiving. I was over at Star's house for our usual Wednesday night "Dinner and MEDIUM" get-together. She was in the kitchen, busily preparing some of the next day's meal. She had put the TV on and - for lack of anything else worth watching - had turned the channel to NBC, which was the station MEDIUM would be coming on in the next 45 minutes. She and I were jabbering away, like we always do, listening intermittently to each other and the TV. After whatever commercial was on when we arrived at the current channel ended, we were surprised to see that a MADONNA concert was showing on network television! Complete with gay rollerskating boys and cage-dancers, and Madonna parading around in various leotards, there she was in all her fabulousness and beauty.
We left it on, but muted it during commercials, and continued blabbing. Then my phone rang. It was my sister Tina. I took the phone in the next room and lay on the bed to chat with her. We had one of our typical conversations for a while: talked about what Tina's cat, Sylvia, was doing; about our work days; about T.'s latest thrift store find. All the while, Madonna's boom boom techno disco bass formed garbled white noise that smudged the wall between me and the next room.
With one word - Thanksgiving - Tina and I both began to cry. Our coversation came to an immediate halt, and melted into a communal moment of grief and sorrow. Neither of us said a word for a moment or two, both envisioning Thanksgiving days of our childhood autumns. Our house was always the one full of friends and family, gathered around a table with a "leaf" in it, an expansive piece of "extra table" to accomodate the mass of Love in the room. The card table was the "kids' table". My mom, Nana and Dad cooked the Turkey, and everyone brought the fixins'. Oh God...Just an incling of the thought of it is still enough to choke me with little girl-style tears. The ones that hurt beyond the analysis of adulthood. Those days were pure beauty. Pure Love. Pure Family.
The thought stabbed the air between us: Mom would not be here for Thanksgiving.
In those couple of moments of tearful silence, Tina and I knew we were in the exact same "place", where no expression or explanation via words is ever necessary. When it comes to our Mom and family, we practically share one heart and mind. Tina said, "I love you, Liz. I'll talk to you tomorrow".
As I hung up the phone, I lay back on the bed and let the tears stream down my temples; rivers of searing pain, and longing for the dream of bygone innocence. I noticed that Star had just turned the TV back up to a high volume. I noticed because the sound was a stark difference relative to the silence that had spanned the last commercial break. The introduction to the song was not the album version; it was a strange, but very cool live rendition. I did not know which song it was, until I heard the words, LOUDLY:
I know where beauty lives
I've seen it once, I know the warm she gives
The light that you could never see
It shines inside, you can't take that from me...If I LIVE TO TELL the SECRET I knew then would I ever have the chance again..."
Mom was telling us...SHE WAS going to be with us on Thanksgiving; just as she is with us every day.
I listened to the song, heard Mom's message. Then I joined Star again in the kitchen. I explained what had just happened - and why my eyes were bloodshot from crying. After that, Star changed the subject. She said, "Oh! Did I tell you that Forrest's cat Blackie finally died yesterday?
No. She hadn't told me. But I was not at all surprised. My mom's work is always obvious; her "signature" of LOVE as real as the body that carried her. The mystery of life and death through her continual teaching ever clearer.
I bowed my head and Thanked God for HOME.
To be honest, I was dreading it. Dreading the good - no absolutely great - times of my childhood Thanksgiving Days this one would remind me were no more. Dreading not being with my family. Not being with Mom.
About two months ago, I was listening to the afternoon "Totally 80's" show on the one and only radio station I listen to in Kona - K-Big FM. For some reason, I took note of the DJ's invitation to call up and request "your favorite song from the eighties". I thought to myself, "Hmm, what eighties' song would I want to hear right this minute, if I could hear any single one in the world I wanted?" The first song that came to mind was "Live to Tell", by Madonna. This is not necessarily all that strange. I mean, I do like that song a lot. But it is definitely not one of my "characteristic" favorites. It is on the one and only Madonna album I ever owned, which was True Blue, and when I was seven or eight years old, I believe. At any rate, I did not call and request it, because I had never heard them play it before on this station, and figured it wasn't probably in their music library or usual repertoire of songs.
At any rate, I thought about that song. Then - as I often do with many various "things" - I decided that if and when I actually heard that song, whether they played it on this radio show or not, it would be a sign from my Mom. A sign that she was listening. An affirmation that she hears my thoughts, and knows what I need to receive from her in order to know that she knows.
Over the next several weeks, I heard lots of Madonna songs on the radio, but never that one. I took notice of each one, though, now somehow equating Madonna with signals from Mom.
* * *
It was the weekend before Thanksgiving. I spent Saturday and overnight into Sunday with Star and Forrest, on Forrest's farm in Kawaihae. When I arrived, I found Forrest's cat, Blackie, sitting in front of the door on the Lanai. I was absolutely shocked at what I saw. Blackie - who had had a deeply-settled, and apparently untreatable, ear infection for several months - lay before me nearly a skeleton. He was just a pile of raggedy bones, draped loosely with mangy, fly-ridden fur. He smelled of sickness. The side of his head that was originaly infected looked like that of a hydrocephalic, but worse. It bulged out like a baseball pushing forward from underneath his skin, and oozed pus. It was horrifying. I cried and put my hands to my open mouth in disbelief.
I asked Forrest that afternoon if he had considered putting Blackie to sleep. Or even if not by the hands of a vet, had he thought about "helping" Blackie go in any way - putting something poisonous in his food or something. Something that would be quick and not hurt, of course. We had a heart to heart talk, in which Forrest explained that while he had thought many times about euthanizing Blackie, he just kept intuitively feeling like he should just let the cat live out the rest of his days "naturally" - however many or few they may number. He said that - although to the casual observer, Blackie looked terrible and as if he was in severe pain - Forrest got the feeling from him as if he wasn't "ready" to go yet, and would go as soon as he was. He said that Blackie still had the strength - amazingly enough - to jump up on the furniture outside on the Lanai!
As I listened, it became utterly clear to me that Blackie was Forrest's cat, and his friend, and that Forrest knew what was best for him. I completely trusted and respected whatever he decided to do.
Later that night, Forrest and Star and I went outside to look at the night sky through the telescope. As they did just that, I got distracted...by Blackie. It may sound dark to say it, but it was only because it was nighttime, and light was too scarce to show Blackie's malady in full visual effect, that I was able to sit next to him and (at least attempt to) pet him. He seemed so brittle, so delicate, I didn't want to touch him with too much pressure. But even having only gotten semi close to him, I heard him begin to purr, as if all was right in the world. As if just to be close to another beating heart was more important than the number of times his own would beat before ceasing.
I spoke in whispers to Blackie. I told him to go toward his Heavenly Home. I told him that my Mom would be there to greet him on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. I told him that he would be healthy; a baby kitten again! And that Mom would pick him up and hold him, and stroke his beautiful thick fur, the way Forrest always had before it became too damaged and tangled for this world's fingers. As two prayers in one, I asked Mom to open her arms to Blackie and invite him "up" and "in". Of course, Mom's heart was always infinitely open to all cats. Her connection to feline energy was always tangible. I always sense messages from her emanating from all cats that I meet. In them, I see and feel her love.
* * *
Three days later, it was Wednesday. The next day was Thanksgiving. I was over at Star's house for our usual Wednesday night "Dinner and MEDIUM" get-together. She was in the kitchen, busily preparing some of the next day's meal. She had put the TV on and - for lack of anything else worth watching - had turned the channel to NBC, which was the station MEDIUM would be coming on in the next 45 minutes. She and I were jabbering away, like we always do, listening intermittently to each other and the TV. After whatever commercial was on when we arrived at the current channel ended, we were surprised to see that a MADONNA concert was showing on network television! Complete with gay rollerskating boys and cage-dancers, and Madonna parading around in various leotards, there she was in all her fabulousness and beauty.
We left it on, but muted it during commercials, and continued blabbing. Then my phone rang. It was my sister Tina. I took the phone in the next room and lay on the bed to chat with her. We had one of our typical conversations for a while: talked about what Tina's cat, Sylvia, was doing; about our work days; about T.'s latest thrift store find. All the while, Madonna's boom boom techno disco bass formed garbled white noise that smudged the wall between me and the next room.
With one word - Thanksgiving - Tina and I both began to cry. Our coversation came to an immediate halt, and melted into a communal moment of grief and sorrow. Neither of us said a word for a moment or two, both envisioning Thanksgiving days of our childhood autumns. Our house was always the one full of friends and family, gathered around a table with a "leaf" in it, an expansive piece of "extra table" to accomodate the mass of Love in the room. The card table was the "kids' table". My mom, Nana and Dad cooked the Turkey, and everyone brought the fixins'. Oh God...Just an incling of the thought of it is still enough to choke me with little girl-style tears. The ones that hurt beyond the analysis of adulthood. Those days were pure beauty. Pure Love. Pure Family.
The thought stabbed the air between us: Mom would not be here for Thanksgiving.
In those couple of moments of tearful silence, Tina and I knew we were in the exact same "place", where no expression or explanation via words is ever necessary. When it comes to our Mom and family, we practically share one heart and mind. Tina said, "I love you, Liz. I'll talk to you tomorrow".
As I hung up the phone, I lay back on the bed and let the tears stream down my temples; rivers of searing pain, and longing for the dream of bygone innocence. I noticed that Star had just turned the TV back up to a high volume. I noticed because the sound was a stark difference relative to the silence that had spanned the last commercial break. The introduction to the song was not the album version; it was a strange, but very cool live rendition. I did not know which song it was, until I heard the words, LOUDLY:
I know where beauty lives
I've seen it once, I know the warm she gives
The light that you could never see
It shines inside, you can't take that from me...If I LIVE TO TELL the SECRET I knew then would I ever have the chance again..."
Mom was telling us...SHE WAS going to be with us on Thanksgiving; just as she is with us every day.
I listened to the song, heard Mom's message. Then I joined Star again in the kitchen. I explained what had just happened - and why my eyes were bloodshot from crying. After that, Star changed the subject. She said, "Oh! Did I tell you that Forrest's cat Blackie finally died yesterday?
No. She hadn't told me. But I was not at all surprised. My mom's work is always obvious; her "signature" of LOVE as real as the body that carried her. The mystery of life and death through her continual teaching ever clearer.
I bowed my head and Thanked God for HOME.
12.10.06
Damn, Girl!
To my most favorite girls in the world...my dearest girlfriends...my sisters,
The subject heading above is the name of the Justin Timberlake song I was dancing my ass off to, when I was suddenly struck with the urge to write to all of you. (Yes, I bought his new album, and let me tell you - it's the sexiest thing I've ever heard, next to pretty much anything by Depeche Mode).
I was falling asleep on the couch at 7:00pm, with rain falling softly outside my window. I needed to wake up. I needed to move. So I decided to dance!
At first, I was looking at myself in the mirror as I boogied around the room like a maniac (on the floor). And the typical urge crept in to criticize certain parts of my body that seemed to be jiggling too much, or bouncing in a way that made me look "un-modelish" (a.k.a. ALIVE, not a skeleton corpse in high heels). I do it. We all do it. And it's such a shame, because we are all beautiful women, perfectly flawed in all the right places.
So I kept dancing, and nit-picking at my image in the mirror...until something awesome happened. I kept my eyes focused on my eyes, as opposed to my hips or my jelly-belly or my legs or my hair or my self-imposed imperfections. And as I was looking - not AT my body, but INTO the window to my soul - I saw my strength. I saw my beauty, my muscles, my femininity, my blessings. And then, in my own eyes, I saw my Mom's.
I saw her dancing. I saw how joyful she was. How non-judgemental, toward herself, toward everyone. I saw the LOVE that flowed like music from her pores. I heard her saying, "Dance, my precious darling girl! GO BABY GO!"
I saw her living as she IS in the present - invisible to the naked eye, which simply scans the outer shell of things - but completely ALIVE in spite of her physicality. She lives now through her influence, on me...on all of us. Through her tremendous loving spirit, encapsulated perfectly in remembered images of her face when she danced - all twisted with ecstacy and eternity.
I thought about all of your moms, too. How blessed we are to have our incredible, strong, wise mothers. Pass this on to them, too. They have also influenced my life positively, helping to build my confidence and identity as a woman in this world. Even those of my friends whose moms I have never met personally - they still affect me...through the part of them that is YOU!
My mom loved all of you so much...as if you were her own children and friends. She watches over you now, and is HERE when you need an angel's help, protection or guidance.
THANK YOU GOD...for our amazing MOMS!
The subject heading above is the name of the Justin Timberlake song I was dancing my ass off to, when I was suddenly struck with the urge to write to all of you. (Yes, I bought his new album, and let me tell you - it's the sexiest thing I've ever heard, next to pretty much anything by Depeche Mode).
I was falling asleep on the couch at 7:00pm, with rain falling softly outside my window. I needed to wake up. I needed to move. So I decided to dance!
At first, I was looking at myself in the mirror as I boogied around the room like a maniac (on the floor). And the typical urge crept in to criticize certain parts of my body that seemed to be jiggling too much, or bouncing in a way that made me look "un-modelish" (a.k.a. ALIVE, not a skeleton corpse in high heels). I do it. We all do it. And it's such a shame, because we are all beautiful women, perfectly flawed in all the right places.
So I kept dancing, and nit-picking at my image in the mirror...until something awesome happened. I kept my eyes focused on my eyes, as opposed to my hips or my jelly-belly or my legs or my hair or my self-imposed imperfections. And as I was looking - not AT my body, but INTO the window to my soul - I saw my strength. I saw my beauty, my muscles, my femininity, my blessings. And then, in my own eyes, I saw my Mom's.
I saw her dancing. I saw how joyful she was. How non-judgemental, toward herself, toward everyone. I saw the LOVE that flowed like music from her pores. I heard her saying, "Dance, my precious darling girl! GO BABY GO!"
I saw her living as she IS in the present - invisible to the naked eye, which simply scans the outer shell of things - but completely ALIVE in spite of her physicality. She lives now through her influence, on me...on all of us. Through her tremendous loving spirit, encapsulated perfectly in remembered images of her face when she danced - all twisted with ecstacy and eternity.
I thought about all of your moms, too. How blessed we are to have our incredible, strong, wise mothers. Pass this on to them, too. They have also influenced my life positively, helping to build my confidence and identity as a woman in this world. Even those of my friends whose moms I have never met personally - they still affect me...through the part of them that is YOU!
My mom loved all of you so much...as if you were her own children and friends. She watches over you now, and is HERE when you need an angel's help, protection or guidance.
THANK YOU GOD...for our amazing MOMS!
28.7.06
Communing With Pilots
I am the most blessed of dreamers.
For I have finally reached some promised point on the horizon; not where you plateau and live on the surface of your dreams. But rather, where dreams become real, and from within the integral web of a profoundly intricate, simply beautiful life, you give life to them in your every thought, word, and action.
I am immersed in my dreams; they have swallowed me and I live within their boundless spaces. where to begin?
I moved into the “Coffee Shack” about three and a half weeks ago. For the first week, I sort of settled in, but not fully, as I knew the team of whale researchers would be coming on the 15th; at which point the shack turns into the research center; a work station of crunching numbers, photographing squid samples that sit in the sink, downloading GPS waypoints about the island to track where the boat went that day; and analyzing tissue from whales that has been collected via a cross-bow and biopsy arrow! I cannot begin to tell you how exciting this is for me, albeit maybe kind of ridiculous, to look at “whale biologists" as some sort of higher breed of human. But this is the “WORLD” in which I have pictured myself for so long. I have fantasized about these days, during which whales would come up at least 100 times in conversation during each twenty-four hour period.
As I moved in, the main office person, Barb, announced that she was moving to California, and her plane left in only two short weeks. So she trained me, and I have now taken over the office. It’s fun. I wake up in the morning, and either make coffee or walk into the tiny “town” of Holualoa and grab a cup of pure Kona at a quaint little place called the Holuakoa Café. Holualoa is approximately ten miles from Kailua-town (the main “city” area of Kona), and is higher in elevation. It is also exempt from the nearby rain shadow that keeps the area where Star’s beautiful house is so dry. So I am now nestled into a plot of rainforest-y acreage, stuffed with coffee plants, papaya, avocado, fig and banana trees. Not to mention roosters, chickens, wild (feral) cats, and mongoose. Oh, and Koa and Napua, Dan’s German shepherds.
My commute to work involves climbing a crooked set of wooden stairs behind the shack, up to a giant moving container (the container isn't moving...it's a giant BOX the size of a mobile home used to ship people's stuff off-island when they move), which has been turned into the office for both Dan McSweeney’s Whale Watch, and the Wild Whale Research Foundation.
I still can’t believe I WORK HERE. Every time say all of these words in combination, these titles and phrases, see the logos of breaching humpbacks, I have to pinch myself. Although I look forward to the winter (humpback) season, when I will be able to train on the boat (hopefully as a naturalist, not just crew); in the meantime, I am enjoying learning all the aspects of the office job. To be honest, I really like making copies, filing stuff, sending out e-mails, and doing “accounting”. It makes me feel grown up! When I am not busy, (which, this time of year, is most of the time), I go down into another huge “container” that’s been built on the property to house the hundreds of thousands of archived whale photographs the Foundation has accumulated over the years, and uses for photo ID and matching. This is how they keep track of local whale populations, and where the division lines are that make boundaries between them and other populations non-native to the Hawaiian Islands.
While most every other group of scientists in the Hawaiian Islands are here studying humpbacks alone, the WWRF is most interested in the more evasive, lesser seen or known whale populations that inhabit the waters just off-shore. Their main focus has been on short-finned pilot whales, beaked whales, and pseudorca…the false killer whale.
They regularly see these whales in abundance, and on rarer occasions see SPERM WHALES, rough-toothed dolphins, pygmy killer whales, pygmy sperm whales, and even killer whales once in a great while!
Sometime in the fall, a Japanese version of National Geographic television is going to come here and work with Dan on a documentary about swimming with sperm whales. Dan told me today that he’ll need crew for the project, and that I am welcome to be a part of it. He also said that they may need “stunt doubles” to actually do the swimming, and I tried not to let on that the thought of getting that job made me want to pee in my pants and scream with ecstatic craziness! By the way, that is what am doing as write this, in my mind, behind every word…screaming ecstatically and crazily. This is all too good to be true. Yet I know it could be no other way now; nor could it have come to this any other way than it has. I have had unfathomable help and guidance from Mom, and her band of angels on the Other Side! SHE IS SO HERE AND A PART OF EVERY MINUTE OF THIS DREAM PROCESS UNFOLDING AND BECOMING REAL IN THE PHYSICAL PLANE!!!
This time around, the research team was here mainly for the Navy’s RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercise; wherein they would be “playing” war games in the channel between Maui and the Big Island, all the while using the mid-frequency sonar that (everyone, including the Navy,) knows is responsible for hurting, stranding, and killing thousands of marine animals. They have found beaked whales stranded after these exercises, with nitrogen gas trapped in their blood – the equivalent to the SCUBA diver’s malady known as the bends. These whales dive several thousand feet down. So the theory is that they probably spend time decompressing at various depths, (like humans do), upon ascension; and that when they hear these mind-blowing blasts of sound in their delicate, acoustically-open-nerved environment, they get scared or disoriented, and bolt to the surface too quickly to allow for decompression.
Well, as you may or may not have heard, the NRDC sued the Navy for breaching the tenets of the marine mammal protection act in using this sonar. So they had added “conditions” under which they were ordered to use their sonar this time around. Many people were/are (rightfully) concerned that these are just sort of politically-correct measures, and that they won’t actually change the potential amount of harm that threatens the marine life through the use of this sonar. But the researchers were going to be out here for a couple of weeks, during the RIMPAC exercise, to find signs of distress in whales and dolphins after the big blasts. Strangely – but victoriously (we hope) – the Navy didn’t set off their sonar. The time they were slated to do it came and went, and nothing. It could very well have been because of the pressure put on by environmental groups such as NRDC, and also thanks to the local organizations like the WWRF, and these scientists’ being out there and holding them accountable. It may be a “small” victory; but in this case, any move forward is a huge step!
The scientists were out on the water every single day they were here, getting tissue samples from whales for biopsies, attempting to tag them with VHF radio tags, (at which they were unsuccessful this time around), and just recording encounters and taking tons of photos. I got to go out with them twice, which was unbelievably exciting. I was more an observer and “active watcher” than anything else, but learned a tremendous amount about what they do out there. And also, they have agreed to leave behind one of their big, expensive, fancy digital cameras for me to practice with, so that I can hone my skills at shooting fast-moving, darting, swimming animals! ME! Taking photos of whales!! It is so unreal!!!!! And it gets better…
Yesterday, Dan came into the container and showed me an old Nikonus underwater camera he had found among his older equipment. He is soon expecting an unbelievably expensive underwater digital video camera, so he has sort of passed this classic one on to me…for practice. He has worked on several movies doing underwater lighting and shooting – including The Abyss, Titanic, and one of the James Bond movies. He recently got back from shooting something in the Bahamas starring Halle Berry! I have mentioned to him a couple of times how much I would love to learn underwater photography…and be able to photograph WHALES and DOLPHINS…maybe even make documentaries someday! He has definitely taken note of this. And he talks - as if it is simply a given - about taking me out on the boat to practice shooting photos of whales... UNDERWATER!!!!
The possibilities are as vast as the sea, it seems. And this whole situation is just so incredibly meant to be…so BLESSED…that I thank GOD every single day and night for these tremendous GIFTS.
The researchers have gone, but will return in November – that time for six weeks. In the meantime, I am going to spend the weekend cozy-ing up the Coffee Shack…making it feel more like home. Oh…and not to forget…SWIMMING WITH WHALES!!!
* * *
I return to this entry on Tuesday night. I am bleary-eyed, sleepy. But the coffee shack is looking and feeling wonderfully homey and me-y.
Dan and I were on the water all weekend. We specifically went looking for a group of sperm whales that another captain called to report to Dan. Saturday, we found nothing. Sunday, we didn't find the sperm whales; but we did find pilot whales. TONS of them, in three different groups. While topside, I shot 255 digital photos that day, all of which will become part of the pilot whale photo ID archives. Dan complimented my fin shots, saying that I have great potential in this area!
And yes...I did get to get in with these amazing, beautiful animals, and see their FACES up close. it was unreal. I took a few photos, though I fumbled with the camera, completely awe-struck and frozen with wide-open eyes, breathing heavily through my snorkel. There I was - in the open ocean where the water depth reached thousands of feet - facing an oncoming slow motion parade of whales. This was beyond the cliche, "a dream come true". Five or so pilots swam toward me, drifting by me on my right side, looking at me with gentle, curious and intelligent eyes. I was completely enthralled, which is why - when something "bumped" me rather hard from behind, I didn't (even via reflexes) turn around. I kept shooting photos of the whales, until I guess about 45 seconds to a minute later, when I did turn around...to see a seven foot oceanic white tip shark...staring me in the face with its empty, frightening eyes. I began to panic. I lifted my head from the water to find the boat had drifted a substantial distance. Dan saw what was happening, and remained very calm. He encouraged me to do the same, though it was difficult with the shark beginning to approach even closer now. Dan told me to hold the camera out in front of me, and that if the shark got too close, I should "hit it in the face" with the camera. He told me later that, had I had on fins, (which I didn't that day because I had raced from town to the boat without going home for my snorkel gear the minute Dan called and told me to come to the harbor for this trip), I could have kicked a sort of "territorial circle" around myself, which the shark would supposedly have respected. At any rate, I had no fins, the shark was moving steadily toward me, and I was becoming terrified. I envisioned the beast ripping me in half, right there in the middle of the best day of my life!
All I wanted was to turn and kick like hell to get back to the boat. But Dan said not to let the shark out of my sight, not even for a second. He said, "Keep the shark in your field of vision, and just try and stay calm". I stuck my head back underwater, and watched helplessly as the shark continued moving my way. When it was approximately three feet from me on my right side, it simply turned a slight left...and vanished into the abyss from whence it came.
Once I knew I was safe, the primal fear turned chemically into pure adrenalin. I could not believe what had just happened! When I made it back to the boat, Dan hurriedly pulled me up out of the water by my wrists and said, "Are you okay? Did it 'get' you?" I said, "I don't think so, why?" But as the words came out of my mouth, I looked down to notice that my second toe (next to the big one) on my left foot was bleeding. There were two tiny, razor thin slices that exactly resembled paper cuts, etched across the top of that toe. The shark's teeth had actually made contact with my body. I was "tasted". I was touched by an oceanic white tip shark in the Pacific Ocean.
While this probably should have made me afraid to ever jump in the ocean again, it did just the opposite. It made me realize a couple of things: For one, I am protected. By MOM, other angels...the whales, perhaps. Second, I am blessed for these kinds of spiritual moments in my life. And third, I want nothing more than to spend my life taking photos of whales and other marine life in the wild.
Needless to say, I was dying to know how the photos would turn out! This old Nikonus uses film (what's that?); and I was practicing shooting in black and white. So I actually had to send the roll off to Honolulu just to get processed! It took a week to get it back, only to find out the entire roll had been overexposed. Had it turned out, I would've had photographs of both the whales that enchanted me, and the shark that may have eaten me, had I turned around seconds later than I did.
Another reason to look ahead at taking more pictures. This instance was the catalyst for deeper and more beautiful things.
For I have finally reached some promised point on the horizon; not where you plateau and live on the surface of your dreams. But rather, where dreams become real, and from within the integral web of a profoundly intricate, simply beautiful life, you give life to them in your every thought, word, and action.
I am immersed in my dreams; they have swallowed me and I live within their boundless spaces. where to begin?
I moved into the “Coffee Shack” about three and a half weeks ago. For the first week, I sort of settled in, but not fully, as I knew the team of whale researchers would be coming on the 15th; at which point the shack turns into the research center; a work station of crunching numbers, photographing squid samples that sit in the sink, downloading GPS waypoints about the island to track where the boat went that day; and analyzing tissue from whales that has been collected via a cross-bow and biopsy arrow! I cannot begin to tell you how exciting this is for me, albeit maybe kind of ridiculous, to look at “whale biologists" as some sort of higher breed of human. But this is the “WORLD” in which I have pictured myself for so long. I have fantasized about these days, during which whales would come up at least 100 times in conversation during each twenty-four hour period.
As I moved in, the main office person, Barb, announced that she was moving to California, and her plane left in only two short weeks. So she trained me, and I have now taken over the office. It’s fun. I wake up in the morning, and either make coffee or walk into the tiny “town” of Holualoa and grab a cup of pure Kona at a quaint little place called the Holuakoa Café. Holualoa is approximately ten miles from Kailua-town (the main “city” area of Kona), and is higher in elevation. It is also exempt from the nearby rain shadow that keeps the area where Star’s beautiful house is so dry. So I am now nestled into a plot of rainforest-y acreage, stuffed with coffee plants, papaya, avocado, fig and banana trees. Not to mention roosters, chickens, wild (feral) cats, and mongoose. Oh, and Koa and Napua, Dan’s German shepherds.
My commute to work involves climbing a crooked set of wooden stairs behind the shack, up to a giant moving container (the container isn't moving...it's a giant BOX the size of a mobile home used to ship people's stuff off-island when they move), which has been turned into the office for both Dan McSweeney’s Whale Watch, and the Wild Whale Research Foundation.
I still can’t believe I WORK HERE. Every time say all of these words in combination, these titles and phrases, see the logos of breaching humpbacks, I have to pinch myself. Although I look forward to the winter (humpback) season, when I will be able to train on the boat (hopefully as a naturalist, not just crew); in the meantime, I am enjoying learning all the aspects of the office job. To be honest, I really like making copies, filing stuff, sending out e-mails, and doing “accounting”. It makes me feel grown up! When I am not busy, (which, this time of year, is most of the time), I go down into another huge “container” that’s been built on the property to house the hundreds of thousands of archived whale photographs the Foundation has accumulated over the years, and uses for photo ID and matching. This is how they keep track of local whale populations, and where the division lines are that make boundaries between them and other populations non-native to the Hawaiian Islands.
While most every other group of scientists in the Hawaiian Islands are here studying humpbacks alone, the WWRF is most interested in the more evasive, lesser seen or known whale populations that inhabit the waters just off-shore. Their main focus has been on short-finned pilot whales, beaked whales, and pseudorca…the false killer whale.
They regularly see these whales in abundance, and on rarer occasions see SPERM WHALES, rough-toothed dolphins, pygmy killer whales, pygmy sperm whales, and even killer whales once in a great while!
Sometime in the fall, a Japanese version of National Geographic television is going to come here and work with Dan on a documentary about swimming with sperm whales. Dan told me today that he’ll need crew for the project, and that I am welcome to be a part of it. He also said that they may need “stunt doubles” to actually do the swimming, and I tried not to let on that the thought of getting that job made me want to pee in my pants and scream with ecstatic craziness! By the way, that is what am doing as write this, in my mind, behind every word…screaming ecstatically and crazily. This is all too good to be true. Yet I know it could be no other way now; nor could it have come to this any other way than it has. I have had unfathomable help and guidance from Mom, and her band of angels on the Other Side! SHE IS SO HERE AND A PART OF EVERY MINUTE OF THIS DREAM PROCESS UNFOLDING AND BECOMING REAL IN THE PHYSICAL PLANE!!!
This time around, the research team was here mainly for the Navy’s RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercise; wherein they would be “playing” war games in the channel between Maui and the Big Island, all the while using the mid-frequency sonar that (everyone, including the Navy,) knows is responsible for hurting, stranding, and killing thousands of marine animals. They have found beaked whales stranded after these exercises, with nitrogen gas trapped in their blood – the equivalent to the SCUBA diver’s malady known as the bends. These whales dive several thousand feet down. So the theory is that they probably spend time decompressing at various depths, (like humans do), upon ascension; and that when they hear these mind-blowing blasts of sound in their delicate, acoustically-open-nerved environment, they get scared or disoriented, and bolt to the surface too quickly to allow for decompression.
Well, as you may or may not have heard, the NRDC sued the Navy for breaching the tenets of the marine mammal protection act in using this sonar. So they had added “conditions” under which they were ordered to use their sonar this time around. Many people were/are (rightfully) concerned that these are just sort of politically-correct measures, and that they won’t actually change the potential amount of harm that threatens the marine life through the use of this sonar. But the researchers were going to be out here for a couple of weeks, during the RIMPAC exercise, to find signs of distress in whales and dolphins after the big blasts. Strangely – but victoriously (we hope) – the Navy didn’t set off their sonar. The time they were slated to do it came and went, and nothing. It could very well have been because of the pressure put on by environmental groups such as NRDC, and also thanks to the local organizations like the WWRF, and these scientists’ being out there and holding them accountable. It may be a “small” victory; but in this case, any move forward is a huge step!
The scientists were out on the water every single day they were here, getting tissue samples from whales for biopsies, attempting to tag them with VHF radio tags, (at which they were unsuccessful this time around), and just recording encounters and taking tons of photos. I got to go out with them twice, which was unbelievably exciting. I was more an observer and “active watcher” than anything else, but learned a tremendous amount about what they do out there. And also, they have agreed to leave behind one of their big, expensive, fancy digital cameras for me to practice with, so that I can hone my skills at shooting fast-moving, darting, swimming animals! ME! Taking photos of whales!! It is so unreal!!!!! And it gets better…
Yesterday, Dan came into the container and showed me an old Nikonus underwater camera he had found among his older equipment. He is soon expecting an unbelievably expensive underwater digital video camera, so he has sort of passed this classic one on to me…for practice. He has worked on several movies doing underwater lighting and shooting – including The Abyss, Titanic, and one of the James Bond movies. He recently got back from shooting something in the Bahamas starring Halle Berry! I have mentioned to him a couple of times how much I would love to learn underwater photography…and be able to photograph WHALES and DOLPHINS…maybe even make documentaries someday! He has definitely taken note of this. And he talks - as if it is simply a given - about taking me out on the boat to practice shooting photos of whales... UNDERWATER!!!!
The possibilities are as vast as the sea, it seems. And this whole situation is just so incredibly meant to be…so BLESSED…that I thank GOD every single day and night for these tremendous GIFTS.
The researchers have gone, but will return in November – that time for six weeks. In the meantime, I am going to spend the weekend cozy-ing up the Coffee Shack…making it feel more like home. Oh…and not to forget…SWIMMING WITH WHALES!!!
* * *
I return to this entry on Tuesday night. I am bleary-eyed, sleepy. But the coffee shack is looking and feeling wonderfully homey and me-y.
Dan and I were on the water all weekend. We specifically went looking for a group of sperm whales that another captain called to report to Dan. Saturday, we found nothing. Sunday, we didn't find the sperm whales; but we did find pilot whales. TONS of them, in three different groups. While topside, I shot 255 digital photos that day, all of which will become part of the pilot whale photo ID archives. Dan complimented my fin shots, saying that I have great potential in this area!
And yes...I did get to get in with these amazing, beautiful animals, and see their FACES up close. it was unreal. I took a few photos, though I fumbled with the camera, completely awe-struck and frozen with wide-open eyes, breathing heavily through my snorkel. There I was - in the open ocean where the water depth reached thousands of feet - facing an oncoming slow motion parade of whales. This was beyond the cliche, "a dream come true". Five or so pilots swam toward me, drifting by me on my right side, looking at me with gentle, curious and intelligent eyes. I was completely enthralled, which is why - when something "bumped" me rather hard from behind, I didn't (even via reflexes) turn around. I kept shooting photos of the whales, until I guess about 45 seconds to a minute later, when I did turn around...to see a seven foot oceanic white tip shark...staring me in the face with its empty, frightening eyes. I began to panic. I lifted my head from the water to find the boat had drifted a substantial distance. Dan saw what was happening, and remained very calm. He encouraged me to do the same, though it was difficult with the shark beginning to approach even closer now. Dan told me to hold the camera out in front of me, and that if the shark got too close, I should "hit it in the face" with the camera. He told me later that, had I had on fins, (which I didn't that day because I had raced from town to the boat without going home for my snorkel gear the minute Dan called and told me to come to the harbor for this trip), I could have kicked a sort of "territorial circle" around myself, which the shark would supposedly have respected. At any rate, I had no fins, the shark was moving steadily toward me, and I was becoming terrified. I envisioned the beast ripping me in half, right there in the middle of the best day of my life!
All I wanted was to turn and kick like hell to get back to the boat. But Dan said not to let the shark out of my sight, not even for a second. He said, "Keep the shark in your field of vision, and just try and stay calm". I stuck my head back underwater, and watched helplessly as the shark continued moving my way. When it was approximately three feet from me on my right side, it simply turned a slight left...and vanished into the abyss from whence it came.
Once I knew I was safe, the primal fear turned chemically into pure adrenalin. I could not believe what had just happened! When I made it back to the boat, Dan hurriedly pulled me up out of the water by my wrists and said, "Are you okay? Did it 'get' you?" I said, "I don't think so, why?" But as the words came out of my mouth, I looked down to notice that my second toe (next to the big one) on my left foot was bleeding. There were two tiny, razor thin slices that exactly resembled paper cuts, etched across the top of that toe. The shark's teeth had actually made contact with my body. I was "tasted". I was touched by an oceanic white tip shark in the Pacific Ocean.
While this probably should have made me afraid to ever jump in the ocean again, it did just the opposite. It made me realize a couple of things: For one, I am protected. By MOM, other angels...the whales, perhaps. Second, I am blessed for these kinds of spiritual moments in my life. And third, I want nothing more than to spend my life taking photos of whales and other marine life in the wild.
Needless to say, I was dying to know how the photos would turn out! This old Nikonus uses film (what's that?); and I was practicing shooting in black and white. So I actually had to send the roll off to Honolulu just to get processed! It took a week to get it back, only to find out the entire roll had been overexposed. Had it turned out, I would've had photographs of both the whales that enchanted me, and the shark that may have eaten me, had I turned around seconds later than I did.
Another reason to look ahead at taking more pictures. This instance was the catalyst for deeper and more beautiful things.
8.7.06
29.6.06
JUNE 23, 2006
Today is a special anniversary. Two years ago today, Mom and I underwent our miraculous living donor liver transplant surgery.
The other day, on the 21st, Tina and I visited University Hospital, where the surgery - and all else efter it, both encouraging and devastating - took place. We went specifically because I had to. I am part of a long-term research study on living liver donors; so I have to go in once a year for blood tests and questionnaires regarding my overall physical health, and mental and emotional well-being, since the surgery. Also, though, we went to visit with some very special people in the hepatology department. These are people who played such an important role in our lives; and in Mom's life...and transition into the afterlife. In fact, the way I perceive it, Mom's doctors, and some of the other members of the transplant team, played virtually ANGELIC roles in the most sacred rite of passage of her life. They were also central to our support network throughout the whole time Mom was ill, going through surgery, and moving toward that ethereal light at the end of the dark tunnel of her declining health afterward. In some respect, that group of people knew better than anyone else in the world what we were going through. They not only knew...they empathized. They cared. They went through it with us. And they still care.
We visited with Michael Talamantes, the transplant team social worker, whose heart is genuine and sweet, and whose presence and support have always been so very comforting to our family. We also had the chance to see Dr. Wachs, who was one of the three doctors central to Mom's care from the point of surgery to the last breath.
It is certainly hard to go back to that place. The smells...The smell of rubber gloves, the cafeteria buffet, and antiseptic hospital cleansers intermingle, and jab directly through the olfactory sense into the most primal center of memory and emotion. That part of it is terribly painful. But - as always - there is the side of the situation that is the GIFT in it all. And after honoring my tears for what deep pain we all went through in that hospital, I chose to focus on the beauty that transpired there...all of which transpired out of LOVE...the miracle of Human Life...and the brilliant hope of the Spiritual Afterlife!
As we talked with Michael and Dr. Wachs, I brought up the fact that I would be really interested in SEEING a living donor liver transplant. I told them I am terribly intrigued by such an amazing procedure, and as I talked, I reveled even more in just how awesome it is that I get to be a part of this ongoing research in such a revolutionary field of medicine.
Later that afternoon, Tina dropped me off at my old house, where Micah and Josh still live. It has been wonderful to see both of them, and to be back at the "old homestead" on Delaware st. again. Micah and I headed out for the BODY WORLDS exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This was something I had heard of upon returning home, and was DYING (no pun intended) to see! In case you haven't heard of it, Body Worlds is a traveling science center exhibit that showcases REAL HUMAN BODIES and body parts, through a process of tissue preservation called plastination.
Anyway...as we arrived, Micah reminded me that it was both the summer solstice...and National Skateboarding Day! This may not mean anything to most people, but was a cool bit of information to me :) I also noted that it happened to be the day resting smack dab in the middle between Mom's birthday and (today) the two-year anniversary of our surgery. This whole five-day period would prove to be very strange and special, in that "way" that I am coming to know as "MOM'S WAY"...the way of her spirit's working and communicating.
We stepped into the exhibit hall, noticing first the display contract, signed by one of the body donors. It struck me...hard. What an awesome thing to do with one's body: donate it to science! And what a HUGE choice we each have the blessed right to make...that which determines what will become of our physical vehicles once our spirits break free to fly on their own! It hit me like a shining stone: THAT WILL BE MY CHOICE: I will donate my body to science. My first thought was to donate it to the actual Body Worlds Project...my next was to donate it to the University of Colorado Hospital research center. I am going to look into both options. After seeing the mind-blowing similarity between coral reef, and human organ systems covered in cappilaries, Micah decided he would like for his body to be used in making nifty saltwater aquariums :)
The whole exhibit was boggling and incredible. One of the models that I really appreciated was the "Dancer". On the placard explaining her positioning, etc., it said that "Dance and balance are possible due to the harmonization of the brain and the muscles". I really liked that. It made me think about the fact that A BALANCED person is the result of the cohesion between the brain and the heart...and such is why exhibits like Body Worlds are so important and advanced; because they are the objective portrayal of accurate science through the emotionally-effective vehicle of Art. As I walked through the exhibit hall, it struck me that LIFE is both so simple, and so profound. Simple, in the sense that every physical piece of every body can be detached from its machine, displayed, and explained with fairly basic language. The whole working system of which each part is a part can be explained. But where it becomes PROFOUND is the incomprehensibility of our own spiritual nature. Looking at these bodies cemented my belief that the spirit is something that lives independently of the brain and musculature, skin and bone.
ONLY ONE of the body models still had its hair...
As Micah and shuffled through the exhibit hall, I reminded him that this very place – known back when as the Denver Museum of Natural History – was where my Mom, Mark and Marci all met some 30 years ago. If you don’t know who Mark and Marci are, it’s a long (though awesome) story. But suffice it to say, they are two people that I love with all my heart and soul, whom I was most absolutely meant to meet, and who have been a crucially integral part of my adult life.
Anyway…Thinking about Mom...about the profoundity of life, and its properties that outlive its physicality...and about Mom's and my awesome experience of having joint surgery...I fixed my gaze upon this model; she was posed as if ballet dancing in Heaven, and had a full head of beautiful red hair. Not only was she dancing; and not only was her hair red. But it so much resembled Mom's hair, I choked up. I was stunned. Her hair was even pulled back in a sort of disheveled pony tail, just like Mom's was much of the time during the last three or four years of her life, and held in place with a sparkly butterfly pendant/clip. We always associate butterflies and butterfly symbolism with Mom and her freely-fluttering spirit. As if all that wasn't enough, the woman was poised just outisde the entrance to the display of Birth and Motherhood, wherein a model of a pregnant woman showed her five-month old fetus inside of her womb...AND...the name they had given her...was ANGEL.
Need I say more?
I think Mom pretty much said it all.
The other day, on the 21st, Tina and I visited University Hospital, where the surgery - and all else efter it, both encouraging and devastating - took place. We went specifically because I had to. I am part of a long-term research study on living liver donors; so I have to go in once a year for blood tests and questionnaires regarding my overall physical health, and mental and emotional well-being, since the surgery. Also, though, we went to visit with some very special people in the hepatology department. These are people who played such an important role in our lives; and in Mom's life...and transition into the afterlife. In fact, the way I perceive it, Mom's doctors, and some of the other members of the transplant team, played virtually ANGELIC roles in the most sacred rite of passage of her life. They were also central to our support network throughout the whole time Mom was ill, going through surgery, and moving toward that ethereal light at the end of the dark tunnel of her declining health afterward. In some respect, that group of people knew better than anyone else in the world what we were going through. They not only knew...they empathized. They cared. They went through it with us. And they still care.
We visited with Michael Talamantes, the transplant team social worker, whose heart is genuine and sweet, and whose presence and support have always been so very comforting to our family. We also had the chance to see Dr. Wachs, who was one of the three doctors central to Mom's care from the point of surgery to the last breath.
It is certainly hard to go back to that place. The smells...The smell of rubber gloves, the cafeteria buffet, and antiseptic hospital cleansers intermingle, and jab directly through the olfactory sense into the most primal center of memory and emotion. That part of it is terribly painful. But - as always - there is the side of the situation that is the GIFT in it all. And after honoring my tears for what deep pain we all went through in that hospital, I chose to focus on the beauty that transpired there...all of which transpired out of LOVE...the miracle of Human Life...and the brilliant hope of the Spiritual Afterlife!
As we talked with Michael and Dr. Wachs, I brought up the fact that I would be really interested in SEEING a living donor liver transplant. I told them I am terribly intrigued by such an amazing procedure, and as I talked, I reveled even more in just how awesome it is that I get to be a part of this ongoing research in such a revolutionary field of medicine.
Later that afternoon, Tina dropped me off at my old house, where Micah and Josh still live. It has been wonderful to see both of them, and to be back at the "old homestead" on Delaware st. again. Micah and I headed out for the BODY WORLDS exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This was something I had heard of upon returning home, and was DYING (no pun intended) to see! In case you haven't heard of it, Body Worlds is a traveling science center exhibit that showcases REAL HUMAN BODIES and body parts, through a process of tissue preservation called plastination.
Anyway...as we arrived, Micah reminded me that it was both the summer solstice...and National Skateboarding Day! This may not mean anything to most people, but was a cool bit of information to me :) I also noted that it happened to be the day resting smack dab in the middle between Mom's birthday and (today) the two-year anniversary of our surgery. This whole five-day period would prove to be very strange and special, in that "way" that I am coming to know as "MOM'S WAY"...the way of her spirit's working and communicating.
We stepped into the exhibit hall, noticing first the display contract, signed by one of the body donors. It struck me...hard. What an awesome thing to do with one's body: donate it to science! And what a HUGE choice we each have the blessed right to make...that which determines what will become of our physical vehicles once our spirits break free to fly on their own! It hit me like a shining stone: THAT WILL BE MY CHOICE: I will donate my body to science. My first thought was to donate it to the actual Body Worlds Project...my next was to donate it to the University of Colorado Hospital research center. I am going to look into both options. After seeing the mind-blowing similarity between coral reef, and human organ systems covered in cappilaries, Micah decided he would like for his body to be used in making nifty saltwater aquariums :)
The whole exhibit was boggling and incredible. One of the models that I really appreciated was the "Dancer". On the placard explaining her positioning, etc., it said that "Dance and balance are possible due to the harmonization of the brain and the muscles". I really liked that. It made me think about the fact that A BALANCED person is the result of the cohesion between the brain and the heart...and such is why exhibits like Body Worlds are so important and advanced; because they are the objective portrayal of accurate science through the emotionally-effective vehicle of Art. As I walked through the exhibit hall, it struck me that LIFE is both so simple, and so profound. Simple, in the sense that every physical piece of every body can be detached from its machine, displayed, and explained with fairly basic language. The whole working system of which each part is a part can be explained. But where it becomes PROFOUND is the incomprehensibility of our own spiritual nature. Looking at these bodies cemented my belief that the spirit is something that lives independently of the brain and musculature, skin and bone.
ONLY ONE of the body models still had its hair...
As Micah and shuffled through the exhibit hall, I reminded him that this very place – known back when as the Denver Museum of Natural History – was where my Mom, Mark and Marci all met some 30 years ago. If you don’t know who Mark and Marci are, it’s a long (though awesome) story. But suffice it to say, they are two people that I love with all my heart and soul, whom I was most absolutely meant to meet, and who have been a crucially integral part of my adult life.
Anyway…Thinking about Mom...about the profoundity of life, and its properties that outlive its physicality...and about Mom's and my awesome experience of having joint surgery...I fixed my gaze upon this model; she was posed as if ballet dancing in Heaven, and had a full head of beautiful red hair. Not only was she dancing; and not only was her hair red. But it so much resembled Mom's hair, I choked up. I was stunned. Her hair was even pulled back in a sort of disheveled pony tail, just like Mom's was much of the time during the last three or four years of her life, and held in place with a sparkly butterfly pendant/clip. We always associate butterflies and butterfly symbolism with Mom and her freely-fluttering spirit. As if all that wasn't enough, the woman was poised just outisde the entrance to the display of Birth and Motherhood, wherein a model of a pregnant woman showed her five-month old fetus inside of her womb...AND...the name they had given her...was ANGEL.
Need I say more?
I think Mom pretty much said it all.
20.6.06
JUNE 19, 2006
Today, June 19th, 2006, Mom would have been 59 years old. But time and years and ages are not a concern where she lives "today". As she now exists – eternally ALIVE – every day is her birthday.
* * *
A couple of noteworthy stories/communications surrounding the day of Mom's physical birth:
TODAY, I was visiting with my friend, Joanne, at her house. We were standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when the phone rang. Joanne decided to screen the call, so we waited to hear a voice over the (sort of "old school") answering machine (you know, as opposed to voice mail). At the tone, we heard a man's voice...He sang, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (one week late), HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU..." (and so on). Turns out, it was Joanne and Alex's friend, Brian, calling to wish Joanne a happy birthday. The interesting thing is, (besides the fact that I happened to be standing in her kitchen at that moment), today is not Joanne's birthday. It is not even one week later than her birthday. Joanne's birthday is July 12. Brian got mixed up, and was thinking it was June 12, and hence, the "Happy Birthday...one week late".
A while later, I went outside with Joanne's daughter, Aurora, for a bit so that Joanne could finish up some chores she had been trying to do all morning. As I was sitting on the front step of the house, watching Aurora play, a little boy came riding up to us on his bike. I asked him his name. He said "Landon. I said, "How old are you, Landon?" He said, "five". I said, "When's your birthday?" Well, he didn't actually answer my question, but instead offered the bizarrely synchronistic information, "TODAY IS MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY". I was amazed. I then said, "Today is my mom's birthday too...What is your mom's name?" He said..."Mommy".
* * *
The following story took place a few nights ago, on the 16th. But this one TRULY BLEW MY MIND...still does, and does even more every time I tell it:
Friday night, Micah and Shawn's band, Zebra Junction, had a really important gig. They played at the Fox Theater in Boulder, which is a big deal! I had been telling Micah for weeks that I was glad I was going to be in town for it, and definitely wanted to come.
When Shawn's wife, Patricia, and I arrived, we were happily surprised to find dear friends, Josh and Yuko! I had no idea they were going to be there, but was so glad they turned up!
The music was phenomenal. I welled up with pride and happiness for Micah and Shawn's progress and new accomplishments. They have so obviously evolved, and are doing really well. They have hooked up with an awesome bluegrass, "Rusted Root-Style" band called Oakhurst, who they have been touring and collaborating with for the last several months. I had several feelings whirling around within me, all good ones. All ones founded in LOVE. I felt love and pride for Micah. Love for my friends - especially Josh, who I am also extraordinarily proud of! In case you don't yet know, Josh is in the final runnings on the hit TV show, "Last Comic Standing"!! Anyway, I also felt love for HOME...for Colorado. And just a lot of JOY surrounding DANCING and MUSIC.
I had been wanting so badly to DANCE for months and months, since before I left for Hawaii in November. While there are a couple of clubs and DJs there, there is nothing like the Denver music scene - or that of any big city. I have so missed that about being in Colorado - and about being around Micah. Josh and I have always shared a love for dancing, too. We always used to dance together at college parties, then at parties at our house in Denver over the last several years. Our "thing" was always to have "jumping contests", which we would do to high-energy songs, in place of dancing. We tied the other night, agreeing that if neither of us had stopped jumping up and down by the time the music stopped, we would both win. And we did. That had never happened before!
At any rate, we were all having a blast, and I was feeling almost elated. I felt the absolutely tangible charge of MOM around me. I knew she was there, and not just "with me", or only for me. But with and for and IN ALL of us. I said to Josh at one point, "Guess who's here right now?" And he said, "Who?" And I said, "My MOM!". I told both Patricia and Micah the same thing at various times throughout the evening.
Meanwhile, as Josh, Yuko and I danced, we were joined by a handful of others on the floor. One woman in particular caught my attention. She was probably around sixty years old, but totally radiant; a glowing aura about her. She was dancing her heart out, and at certain particularly brilliant twists of sound, she would close her eyes and tilt her face upward, as if to praise God for life's deliciousness and utter beauty. She - of course - reminded me of Mom. She didn't look like her, but she FELT like her. She radiated the same kind of LOVE in her dance steps, and oozed joy from her every pore.
I mentioned this to Patricia, and told her that I would like to talk to this woman before we left, and tell her of the connection I felt with her on the dance floor. At that, I looked around, but saw no sign of the dancing woman. I figured she had left, and that I had missed my window of opportunity. But, I decided, if I saw her once more before leaving, I would take that as a sign that I was supposed to have my moment of communication with her. If not, then it wasn't meant to happen.
About an hour later, Patricia and I started shuffling up the ramp toward the exit sign. We were ready to leave the theater and head home. Just then, one and only one person faced us on the path to the door. It was her. We were face to face. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes as if I had known her for eternity, and said, "You remind me of my Mom".
Without an ounce of pause, hesitation, or thought, the woman pulled me close to her, hugged me deeply, kissed me on the cheek, and said into my ear, "I AM YOUR MOM."
It was not "weird". It didn't feel "strange" or abnormal or uncomfortable or odd. I was literally in the arms of a "complete stranger"...yet she wasn't a stranger at all. She was a messenger, and I knew it. Furthermore, she knew it.
When we separated from this incredible embrace, I told her that My Mom had died a year and a half ago; and that she had loved to dance, and was joyful about it in the same way I could see that she (the woman) was.
Once again, she just stared into my eyes, and I into hers. We looked through lifetimes, and beyond the supposed barriers of "reality" and "illusion" that plague us in this physical world. She poured LOVE into me like a waterfall pours water into the land beneath it. She SPOKE on behalf of Mom. Or maybe more truly, MOM SPOKE THROUGH HER. She put her hands on my cheeks and said, "ANGEL...You're and ANGEL", and hugged me one more time.
We parted ways, both looking back at each other until to do so would cause a trip or fall. And that was that. We had had our moment, and we both understood what it meant, on some wordless, nameless, energetically divine level.
And I went to bed that night simply Thanking God...over and over and over again...for my deliciously blessed life.
* * *
A couple of noteworthy stories/communications surrounding the day of Mom's physical birth:
TODAY, I was visiting with my friend, Joanne, at her house. We were standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when the phone rang. Joanne decided to screen the call, so we waited to hear a voice over the (sort of "old school") answering machine (you know, as opposed to voice mail). At the tone, we heard a man's voice...He sang, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (one week late), HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU..." (and so on). Turns out, it was Joanne and Alex's friend, Brian, calling to wish Joanne a happy birthday. The interesting thing is, (besides the fact that I happened to be standing in her kitchen at that moment), today is not Joanne's birthday. It is not even one week later than her birthday. Joanne's birthday is July 12. Brian got mixed up, and was thinking it was June 12, and hence, the "Happy Birthday...one week late".
A while later, I went outside with Joanne's daughter, Aurora, for a bit so that Joanne could finish up some chores she had been trying to do all morning. As I was sitting on the front step of the house, watching Aurora play, a little boy came riding up to us on his bike. I asked him his name. He said "Landon. I said, "How old are you, Landon?" He said, "five". I said, "When's your birthday?" Well, he didn't actually answer my question, but instead offered the bizarrely synchronistic information, "TODAY IS MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY". I was amazed. I then said, "Today is my mom's birthday too...What is your mom's name?" He said..."Mommy".
* * *
The following story took place a few nights ago, on the 16th. But this one TRULY BLEW MY MIND...still does, and does even more every time I tell it:
Friday night, Micah and Shawn's band, Zebra Junction, had a really important gig. They played at the Fox Theater in Boulder, which is a big deal! I had been telling Micah for weeks that I was glad I was going to be in town for it, and definitely wanted to come.
When Shawn's wife, Patricia, and I arrived, we were happily surprised to find dear friends, Josh and Yuko! I had no idea they were going to be there, but was so glad they turned up!
The music was phenomenal. I welled up with pride and happiness for Micah and Shawn's progress and new accomplishments. They have so obviously evolved, and are doing really well. They have hooked up with an awesome bluegrass, "Rusted Root-Style" band called Oakhurst, who they have been touring and collaborating with for the last several months. I had several feelings whirling around within me, all good ones. All ones founded in LOVE. I felt love and pride for Micah. Love for my friends - especially Josh, who I am also extraordinarily proud of! In case you don't yet know, Josh is in the final runnings on the hit TV show, "Last Comic Standing"!! Anyway, I also felt love for HOME...for Colorado. And just a lot of JOY surrounding DANCING and MUSIC.
I had been wanting so badly to DANCE for months and months, since before I left for Hawaii in November. While there are a couple of clubs and DJs there, there is nothing like the Denver music scene - or that of any big city. I have so missed that about being in Colorado - and about being around Micah. Josh and I have always shared a love for dancing, too. We always used to dance together at college parties, then at parties at our house in Denver over the last several years. Our "thing" was always to have "jumping contests", which we would do to high-energy songs, in place of dancing. We tied the other night, agreeing that if neither of us had stopped jumping up and down by the time the music stopped, we would both win. And we did. That had never happened before!
At any rate, we were all having a blast, and I was feeling almost elated. I felt the absolutely tangible charge of MOM around me. I knew she was there, and not just "with me", or only for me. But with and for and IN ALL of us. I said to Josh at one point, "Guess who's here right now?" And he said, "Who?" And I said, "My MOM!". I told both Patricia and Micah the same thing at various times throughout the evening.
Meanwhile, as Josh, Yuko and I danced, we were joined by a handful of others on the floor. One woman in particular caught my attention. She was probably around sixty years old, but totally radiant; a glowing aura about her. She was dancing her heart out, and at certain particularly brilliant twists of sound, she would close her eyes and tilt her face upward, as if to praise God for life's deliciousness and utter beauty. She - of course - reminded me of Mom. She didn't look like her, but she FELT like her. She radiated the same kind of LOVE in her dance steps, and oozed joy from her every pore.
I mentioned this to Patricia, and told her that I would like to talk to this woman before we left, and tell her of the connection I felt with her on the dance floor. At that, I looked around, but saw no sign of the dancing woman. I figured she had left, and that I had missed my window of opportunity. But, I decided, if I saw her once more before leaving, I would take that as a sign that I was supposed to have my moment of communication with her. If not, then it wasn't meant to happen.
About an hour later, Patricia and I started shuffling up the ramp toward the exit sign. We were ready to leave the theater and head home. Just then, one and only one person faced us on the path to the door. It was her. We were face to face. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes as if I had known her for eternity, and said, "You remind me of my Mom".
Without an ounce of pause, hesitation, or thought, the woman pulled me close to her, hugged me deeply, kissed me on the cheek, and said into my ear, "I AM YOUR MOM."
It was not "weird". It didn't feel "strange" or abnormal or uncomfortable or odd. I was literally in the arms of a "complete stranger"...yet she wasn't a stranger at all. She was a messenger, and I knew it. Furthermore, she knew it.
When we separated from this incredible embrace, I told her that My Mom had died a year and a half ago; and that she had loved to dance, and was joyful about it in the same way I could see that she (the woman) was.
Once again, she just stared into my eyes, and I into hers. We looked through lifetimes, and beyond the supposed barriers of "reality" and "illusion" that plague us in this physical world. She poured LOVE into me like a waterfall pours water into the land beneath it. She SPOKE on behalf of Mom. Or maybe more truly, MOM SPOKE THROUGH HER. She put her hands on my cheeks and said, "ANGEL...You're and ANGEL", and hugged me one more time.
We parted ways, both looking back at each other until to do so would cause a trip or fall. And that was that. We had had our moment, and we both understood what it meant, on some wordless, nameless, energetically divine level.
And I went to bed that night simply Thanking God...over and over and over again...for my deliciously blessed life.
3.6.06
FINALLY...The RIGHT TIME
It was the "eleventh hour", in the longest and most arduous of all "twelve hour days". It was the last minute. It was two hours before I was to board an airplane to the mainland, at the end of my initial 6 month trial run in Kona. It was the end of my thoughts as I knew them: Longing for the dream to awaken. It was about to become the beginning of the greatest awakening in the recorded history of my soul. It was the two-hour window in which my ultimate dream, passion, and purpose culminated over chocolate mousse cake and decaf with cream. It was my dinner with Dan McSweeny, and life's pre-dream-come-true-days now shift into the-dream-is-real-hazy-daze.
It is all too unbelievable. Too perfectly strung together. Too blatantly telling of a supposedly "mysterious" Divine Order. Too much evidence for the existence of God, and of Mom's angelic reign over our lives since her ascension. It is the most obvious orchestration of the Universe's plans for me. Finally. Finally...It appears that my ship has come in.
Beginning on July 5, one week after I return to Kona from Colorado, I will move into the renovated coffee shack on Dan's Hualalai property. Although I haven't seen the place yet, it sounds incredible. Hardwood floors, kitchen, bedrooms, sleeping loft, living room, outdoor cedar wood bath and shower, cable t.v. and internet. Chickens running around outside, birds singing in the morning, view of the ocean. No other noise, really. Nestled upon two sprawling acres of tropical farmland. I will pay nothing for rent, but rather exchange my time volunteering with Dan's organization, The WILD WHALE RESEARCH FOUNDATION. When Dan's fellow cetacean biologists are in town for research projects, they will stay in the coffee shack, thus surrounding me with their wisdom, experience, and knowledge of the subject deepest in my heart. People whose books I have read, whose work I admire. And when they go out on the research boat, I will go with them, and be an apprentice to their practice. I will learn to outfit whales with radio tags, take their photos for identification, and take research notes.
For pay, I will work as the naturalist on Dan's whale watching boat. During the off-season (spring/summer), I will go out three mornings per week, adventuring with guests to find pilot whales, false killer whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales, spinner and bottlenose dolphins...even sperm whales, who happen to have the largest, heaviest brains of any living being in the history of the planet. During humpback season, two cruises a day will be packed, and the work will overflow!
I will also learn how things work in the office. And maybe...seeing as how the heights of the sky - and the deepest fathoms of the sea - appear to be the limit within the stipulations of this situation...I will be able to get all of my SCUBA certifications up through Divemaster; and will be trained in underwater photography and videography. Maybe someday I will produce my own documentary about whales, with my own words as script; my own eyes the lens; my own experience the window through which watchers can look into the eyes of whales, and see the vast, incredible beauty that has fueled my every action since I dreamt my first tale of swimming with the gentlest of giants ten years ago.
I will be immersed in the WHALE WORLD, and learn all aspects of the "business". The politics, the issues, the science, the people involved. Most importantly, the animals themselves...whose world will be brilliantly new for me each and every day, alive and changing; transforming me with it.
Yes...It will be a WHOLE NEW WORLD in one way...though in another, the world completely familiar to the entirety of WHO I AM, and who I am destined to become.
It is all too unbelievable. Too perfectly strung together. Too blatantly telling of a supposedly "mysterious" Divine Order. Too much evidence for the existence of God, and of Mom's angelic reign over our lives since her ascension. It is the most obvious orchestration of the Universe's plans for me. Finally. Finally...It appears that my ship has come in.
Beginning on July 5, one week after I return to Kona from Colorado, I will move into the renovated coffee shack on Dan's Hualalai property. Although I haven't seen the place yet, it sounds incredible. Hardwood floors, kitchen, bedrooms, sleeping loft, living room, outdoor cedar wood bath and shower, cable t.v. and internet. Chickens running around outside, birds singing in the morning, view of the ocean. No other noise, really. Nestled upon two sprawling acres of tropical farmland. I will pay nothing for rent, but rather exchange my time volunteering with Dan's organization, The WILD WHALE RESEARCH FOUNDATION. When Dan's fellow cetacean biologists are in town for research projects, they will stay in the coffee shack, thus surrounding me with their wisdom, experience, and knowledge of the subject deepest in my heart. People whose books I have read, whose work I admire. And when they go out on the research boat, I will go with them, and be an apprentice to their practice. I will learn to outfit whales with radio tags, take their photos for identification, and take research notes.
For pay, I will work as the naturalist on Dan's whale watching boat. During the off-season (spring/summer), I will go out three mornings per week, adventuring with guests to find pilot whales, false killer whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales, spinner and bottlenose dolphins...even sperm whales, who happen to have the largest, heaviest brains of any living being in the history of the planet. During humpback season, two cruises a day will be packed, and the work will overflow!
I will also learn how things work in the office. And maybe...seeing as how the heights of the sky - and the deepest fathoms of the sea - appear to be the limit within the stipulations of this situation...I will be able to get all of my SCUBA certifications up through Divemaster; and will be trained in underwater photography and videography. Maybe someday I will produce my own documentary about whales, with my own words as script; my own eyes the lens; my own experience the window through which watchers can look into the eyes of whales, and see the vast, incredible beauty that has fueled my every action since I dreamt my first tale of swimming with the gentlest of giants ten years ago.
I will be immersed in the WHALE WORLD, and learn all aspects of the "business". The politics, the issues, the science, the people involved. Most importantly, the animals themselves...whose world will be brilliantly new for me each and every day, alive and changing; transforming me with it.
Yes...It will be a WHOLE NEW WORLD in one way...though in another, the world completely familiar to the entirety of WHO I AM, and who I am destined to become.
31.5.06
Serenade of the Melon-Heads
For the past month and a half or so, since i quit working for the fair wind, i have been pouring coffee for tourists. yes, i have ended up in the exact place i said i didn't want to be. i don't mean hawaii. i mean a coffee shop, regardless of its geographical coordinates. HOWEVER, i know it has been for the greater purpose at hand. i have JUST very recently realized this. i will explain...
(The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote to Micah a couple of weeks ago...)
...i know how blessed i am to be here. even though my mind criss-crosses every day, and sways back and forth, and changes continuously, i am growing to love kona more and more. i feel like i am at a real "crossroads". like i have to reflect now, after 6 months, and i say to myself, "i either have to dig my heels in now, and decide to stay - in which case, SOMETHING has got to "happen"; you know, some magical door has to open up - yet another door on the path of my dreams - like they always do. OR, i have to decide where to go from here, and go there. but as the days and even the moments of each day pass, and as i get closer to my month-long trip away from here, i feel more and more deeply that SOMETHING GREAT is on the horizon here. you know, it'll be like my freshman year at evergreen. half-way through that year, i decided that the boundless opportunity i had to create my education there was just too much of a challenge. like the uncertainty would kill me, or drive me crazy trying. i was all ready to hang it up, and quit. i felt like i was wasting my time, and (of course) not being productive enough. by april or may, i had applied - and been accepted to - western WA u. in bellingham, where they had grades, and neat, tidy little coursework requirements that i could follow easily.
but then...the internship at the whale museum FELL in my lap. and then it was decided. evergreen was the place to be. my fleeting faith had been restored, and greatly enhanced. i knew it was right - and the rest is history.
well, here i am in hawaii, in that same space, "right before the big 'opening' of that magical door". and i can feel it coming. even though on many days, i "convince" myself that it just isn't going to work here, and that i am destined to either work in a coffee shop in hawaii, or figure out the next move...and fast!!! i convince myself that moving back to denver, and returning to the "dog business" would be best - just because that brought me some sense of security and success.
BUT, i know i will look back on this time, and tell the story much like i now tell the one about evergreen. i will say, "yeah - i was at the breaking point, planning on fleeing the island...when suddenly, and AMAZINGLY - that magical door opened up, and the true "rightness" of this move will be revealed...
the ground here is rich and fertile, a perfect bed for growth. the saltwater surrounding the island stirs the mystical ingredients of creation into a warm broth for divine possibility. but with all of this potential for magic, comes the fear to face something so grand. it is like nelson mandela said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." i feel that way about myself, and about myself in the specific context of this island. i know on some deep level that i was meant to come here, and am meant to be here. and that my "wildest dreams" - literally - are going to be realized here. but surrendering to that is frightening, because it takes all the blind faith one person can muster.
it is also represented - as is every major precipice in my life - by my "original whale dream". in the dream, with which freud would've had a hayday, i exited a long, dark tunnel toward the light at its end. once out of the "birth canal", i stood on a tiny piece of solid ground, with the fluid ocean stretched infinitely around me. in the shallows surrounding my feet swam monsters, each one representing a deep fear or sense of ugliness or darkness. i was deathly afraid, and wanted to "go back". of course, when i turned to see where i had come from, the tunnel's circumference had shrunk to an opening the size of a lemon. i turned back around to face my fears. in the distant, deeper waters beyond fear, there were WHALES. thousands of them, waiting to save me...if only i would abandon fear, thus passing through it, and with faith...reach my destined world of beauty, love, and eternal light.
for the past couple of months, i have been clinging to thoughts of leaving the big island as if they were that small piece of land. working in a coffee shop, and feeling lost and homesick, i had just about hung up my flippers and turned toward the safety of home. i was about to make another huge life decision...based on fear, rather than faith. the fear of not being able to make it work here. the fear of it being too expensive, too far away...not "realistic". i almost setttled on, "okay...i will just go back to denver and pick up my pet business again. that was a good thing, and it would be a sure thing, and it would be easy". although somewhere in the farthest fathoms of my soul, i continually found that light of faith: the vision of whales has kept me moving forward toward my ultimate dream.
it has only been in the past two weeks that things have changed drastically, snuffing out the desire to leave kona. making brighter...the magical potential that makes this place so ALIVE and wondrous.
and yes, it has happened from behind the counter at lava java. who knew this coffee shop job might be the launching pad for the grandest "career move" of my life? i sure didn't! but here's how it happened...
it was the day after mother's day. i had felt something in me shift somehow, partially as the product of spending time with chloe and martin, a couple i know with whom i have been doing "spiritual healing work". i see now that this shift from fear to faith that i am experiencing now, is running parallel to the shift from grieving...to healing. and it makes sense. because it is the false idea that life is finite that causes us to fear death. we fear most of all that it is an ultimate separation between us and those we love who have passed. it is in faith, conversely, that we focus on the eternal nature of life. and on the fact that our loved ones who have died have not left us, but rather are with us in ways more intricate and incredible than the physical world can ever allow.
here in kona, the typical, daily grind type of things, like jobs and money and rent, are like the physical world. to us they seem like the most important things to think about, ponder, and worry over, because they are what we see directly in front of us. when it seems that these things are hurdles too difficult to overcome, we give up, not BELIEVING in what lies waiting on the other side of that illusion. i was getting caught up in that madness, and scooching back toward what i thought was "safer". the tangible. but looking past all of that in honor of following a dream, i KNOW in my heart that the dream IS meant to BE!
so anyway, on that monday after mother's day, i was making a latte or something, cursing this menial job under my breath; and said to myself: SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE. something has got to change. that's all there is to it. i am NOT destined to work in a coffee shop my whole life!
just then, i turned around and saw a man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties, standing at the counter ordering food. he had a baseball cap on that said, "dan mcsweeny's whale watching cruise", and when asked by the barista, said his name...was dan. i said, "hey! are you dan mcsweeny? i've heard a lot about you."
i had heard dan's name several times, and he was always referred to as THE major "whale guy" on this island. i had perused his website once, many months ago, and decided not to inquire about work opportunities with his company, i think, because on his site, he said he ran all of his tours himself, and was his cruise's own naturalist.
but i quickly briefed him on the fact that i had a marine education background, and was here - in kona - to find this kind of work. he told me to go ahead and e-mail him my resume. so i did, that evening! he came in the next day, and said he hadn't received it. something was screwy about his personal e-address; so he gave me his office address (something, something, at I-LOVE-WHALES.com...). that day, i sent the resume again, to the second address. it came right back to me. tried again, came right back.
the next day, i was at lava java, but not working. i had my book, and was going to order a bagel and read for a while. up to the table next to me walks, who else, but dan mcsweeny. his stuff was already there, he had just gotten up for a minute to get the newspaper. i said hi, and asked again if he had gotten my resume. he had not. we both puzzled over the communication mishap. though now, i strongly believe that, too, was for a perfectly sound reason.
reason being this: rather than him reading my resume, then calling upon me for a technical "job interview", we made a personal connection first. i wasn't nervous, fidgety about what to say or what not to. we just sat and had a long conversation about both of our favorite topic - whales - over bagels and coffee. he told me about the work he and his fellow researchers are doing, (much of it having to do with mid-frequency sonar used by the navy, and its devastating effect on marine mammals).
throughout the course of the conversation, i told about my schooling, my experience in many different genres of the broader theme: the "human/whale interface", and about how i ended up in kona, and what i dream of doing here. i told him that i want to be immersed in the "whale world", for it to become most of my "whole world", like it is his. also, while we were chatting, as i told him about my wishy-washy feelings about staying in kona, i mentioned that my living situation with star was sort of tenuous. reason being, that since jane died, star has been thinking of ways to make more of an income. and renting out the bottom half of her house (for what she could actually get for it, like $1500/month or something!) is something she will have to do. although at the time of dan's and my conversation, i didn't know just when she would have to do this, or if she might actually have to sell the house, or whatever. but as we talked, dan seemed to be coming up with various ways that we could maybe help each other out...
he mentioned that there might be volunteer work for me, which would involve actually spending time on the research boat, outfitting whales with VHF radio transmitter tags! i would maybe be able to take notes, record activity, or maybe even take photos!!! he also said that, while he was typically always his cruise's own naturalist, that may be changing soon. he wants to spend more time on the research boat, in which case he would have to hire a second captain to run the whale watching boat...and, of course, he would need a naturalist to stand in his place, since he would be on the research boat! he said what he would like to do, is have both boats congregate in the same location (i.e. where the whales are); this way, the whale-watchers would not only get to "watch whales", but would also get the rare opportunity to see - in real time - the current research being conducted in the wild. then...in response to what i had said about my tenuous living situation, dan mentioned that he has a coffee shack on his property in an area of kona called holualoa, which he uses to house visiting scientists who come in to work on projects for periods of time. he has owned the two acres of land on which the coffee shack sits for the last 16 years. at the time that he rented the coffee shack (before buying the land and building his home on it), he paid $25/MONTH for it!! those things - shabby as they may be sometimes - go for as much as $1000/month these days! but his isn't one of the shabby ones. he has completely renovated the inside. and it must be pretty awesome; because he says that had it been the way it is now, then, he would never have built his house! he would've just lived in the shack himself! anyway, right now, a woman named sabre is living there...not for rent money...but in exchange for VOLUNTEER WORK for dan, on his research and with his company. sort of "off the cuff", he remarked that sabre was leaving to go back to oregon in july, and maybe there would be the opportunity for ME to live there, on his land, in the coffee shack...for free...in exchange for work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i mean, come ON! i would PAY to get the kind of mentoring and experience i would get in this situation. being surrounded by some of the top whale researchers, in the midst of their projects...and on a boat, actually SURROUNDED by WHALES, much of the time.
(and just to add icing of gold to a cake made of precious gems...dan also works with an UNDERWATER FILM CREW, shooting scenes for movies like titanic and james bond!!! could any more potential burst forth from this fateful circumstance??!!)
THIS would be IT. THIS would be the ultimate DREAM. THIS is what i have waited for, worked so hard for, prayed for, struggled with every day, fantasized about every night...for the last TEN years. THIS would be the MAGICAL DOOR OPENING to the watery brilliance of my future...
* * *
The following is an excerpt from the e-mail dan sent me after finally receiving my resume. keep in mind that for me, reading the promise in this message was like opening a HUGE, long-dreamed-of gift on christmas morning, for lack of a better analogy...
Wanted to let you know that I picked up your resume at Lava Java. Well done cover letter and you certainly have had a varied sampling of work experiences. Your sincerity and interest in marine mammals, etc, comes through loud and clear. Good for you.
We still have a VHF transmitter tag on a sub adult male pilot whale. The foundations research boat is in a temprary slip at Honokohau Harbor. If the whale re-appears and Sabre (volunteer doing the scanning/matching) hears the tag signal, we will try and go offshore and find it. Ifyou have an opportunity/interest in coming with us, you'd be welcome.
* * *
So...after dan's and my conversation - i think one day later, actually - star told me that the renting of the bottom half of the house was imminent, and that it would have to happen soon. in fact, she would need to rent it out by july 1st. my trip to the mainland is to be from may 31-june 29!! what did this mean? well, on the "surface", it meant that i would have to pack and move all of my stuff within the next week; and that when i came back at the end of june, i wouldn't have a living situation set up (though star - gracious and wonderful as she is - would never let me be on the street!! it just means that i need to figure something else out, and soon!). it meant that i probably wouldn't have a job upon my return, because they will have to hire someone to take my place at lava java during my month-long absence. i wouldn't have any money upon returning, and CERTAINLY not enough to put down a deposit on a full-priced apartment here in kona! for god's sake, you can hardly get a room in a house for less than $800/month!
so...focusing on the "daily grind" stuff you can see and touch: no money, no job, no place to live, no potential window into my chosen career path by this point...really, no way of continuing to live here. i would have to sell my car, and use the money to move back to the mainland. that would be my only choice, i figured. unless......unless i met dan mcsweeny for a very important reason...
* * *
Following are excerpts from the next e-mails dan and i wrote to each other after this point in time:
(from me):
Hi Dan,
Thanks so much for your e-mail.Your positive feedback means a lot to me. And your invitation to join you on the research vessel is an honor. Thank you. I would be thrilled to come along!
I wanted also to talk to you about something else...
Remember when I told you that my living situation was "tenuous", because the woman I live with might have to sell her house? Well, she returned from Thailand a couple of days ago, and informed that, while she is not selling the house, she will soon have to rent out the whole bottom half of the house, (of which my bedroom is a part), for the extra income.
What this means for me, is that I have to move all of my stuff out of her place within the next 9 days, before I leave for my month on the mainland. Luckily there is not much to move. But essentially, the gravity of the situation has become clear, in that when I return, I will either have to stay at a friend's house just long enough to sell my car, and then use that money to move back to the mainland...or, come into a more financially-realistic living situation, which would allow me to stay on the island and continue this journey...
I want with my whole heart to stay here, Dan. And I want to be involved with the work you are doing for, with, and about whales. I don't mean to sound overdramatic, but rather am just being frankly honest, when I say that this scenario would be my life's dream unfolding.
In other words, if (like you mentioned the other day) there might be a way for me to work for you in exchange for a place to live, I would be eternally greatful, and so very ready to begin the work. With me would come my profound passion for whales and the ocean, my intelligence and fresh perspective, my unique background of experience, and my deep desire to learn about our living, liquid world.
We do have to be creative to make it work here in the Islands. But I do believe that an openness to the greater Creative force at work...leads to the creation of wonderful new chapters in this continuing story.
Dan, thanks for everything. Call me when that tag signal sounds!
* * *
(from dan in response):
Hi Liz...thank you for your response. Give me a call and/or swing by the Lady Ann’s haul out at Honokohau Harbor (Gentry’s Marina) if you get the chance and let’s figure out what we can do to solve your situation...
* * *
Well, since this point, i have felt, overwhelmingly clearly, that dan truly intends to help me "solve my situation", which most probably means living on his land in exchange for work...WHALE WORK in the WHALE WORLD!
the day i received this message from dan, my friend megan arrived from atlanta for a week-long visit. she would be here until the 30th. i leave for seattle on the 31st. so...dog-sitting, packing and moving stuff into storage, hanging with megan, dealing with my car that keeps not starting...so much going on...but with this wonderful possibility hovering above like a soft, guiding light, NO DOUBT FROM MOM!
when i called dan, he said to go ahead and have fun with megan, and that we would have plenty of time to talk before i (actually, both of us) left for the mainland. a couple of days later, he actually invited me and megan to go out on his personal boat with him...and "look for whales". well, megan and i had planned on going out on the fair wind, so that megan could experience some world-class snorkeling on her trip. i had secured some comp passes from my friend, jesse, and we were all set to use them on either sunday or monday...unless...the boat was full. well, i had forgotten that we were dealing with memorial day weekend tourist traffic, so sure enough, the boat was full on both of those days. this was a bit of a bummer at first...but of course later, we realized why our not getting on that boat - and instead, getting on dan's - was so specially meant to be...
* * *
we got to the marina at seven a.m., as planned. dan ushered us onto the boat, and we tooled slowly out of the harbor's no-wake zone, into the open ocean. we went off-shore for quite a ways, then headed due south. dan told us a bazillion cool facts about the 13 species of cetaceans in these hawaiian waters. then he went up top to look through his big yellow binoculars, and megan and i stayed on the deck, scanning the nearer horizon with just our eyes. i hung out over the bow pulpit, feeling like a bird in flight. the sun kissed our faces and bodies, and the wind caressed our hair and skin. it felt so good. so, so good to be on that boat...with dan mcsweeny, whale-watcher extraordinaire, who actually guarantees whale sightings year-round, not only during the winter months of humpback season.
we continued south into the blue for what seemed like two hours or more. no sign of any marine life yet. though i just kept thinking about how blessed we were to be there, on the boat, in the beautiful tropical sun, on the water. we were just so very lucky. i thanked god for that, over and over. then i prayed, "god, if you could possibly swing it, though...megan has never seen whales or dolphins in the wild. and i know i am going to be blessed on many more of these trips to come. so please, god, for megan's sake...bring us to the whales"...i envisioned our little tiny boat, bobbing in the center of a massive aggregation of dorsal fins. being serenaded by a chorus of whale breaths. i envisioned it as though i had not an ounce of doubt in my heart that it would happen. it was a joyful prayer, rather than a desperate one. somehow that seemed to make all the difference.
after our long, long journey south, dan began to maneuver the boat back inland. we were trekking east, easing back onto a northward path back home...when all of a sudden, i saw something in the distance. i said, "dan, i don't know if my salt-crusted mind is playing tricks on me or not"; because once you look at the water long enough, every rocking wave begins to look like an undulating fin. "but i see...SOMETHING up ahead"...
before we could pick our jaws up off the floor, we realized, wide-eyed and blown away, that we were SURROUNDED, 360 degrees, by an ENORMOUS pod of whales! they were unusual ones, too. ones i had never even seen or heard of before. dan said, "melon-heads...wow, these are a rare find...and there have to be over a HUNDRED of them!"
dan is on the water 300 days out of the year, and says he sees these whales only 3 to 4 times a year. plus, from the look of bright excitement nestled carefully underneath his scientist-mug, i could tell that dan was blown away too. i don't think he had seen a group THIS BIG before. if so, maybe only once or twice. at any rate - no matter who you were - this would've taken your breath away.
while tons and tons of fins sliced through the shimmering sea around us, tons and tons more chuffed gracefully closer and closer to our boat. the breathing chorus got louder. and then...they were darting around, criss-crossing over and under each other, directly underneath our gaze in front of the boat. we were ecstatic, and just stood there with our cameras, mouths hanging open, shooting away, saying over and over again, "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god".
just when we though it couldn't get any better, any more surreal, any closer to actually BEING the dreams that fuel my every action and belief in life...dan said, "would you like to get a look at them...UNDER THE WATER?"
he told us to slip on our masks and fins, and then just slide into the water and swim around. we did. and the beautiful, alien-esque life forms buzzed, chirped, clicked and squealed all around us. they looked at us, echolocated on our forms, acknowledged our presence. and went on their way, eventually disappearing as mysteriously as they had appeared, from out of the blue...back into its eternal beauty...just like that.
* * *
this was a rare and special privilege. the only reason it was even legal for us to be in the water with them is because dan is a marine biologist, and as such, has the permits for such activites. both he and i took many, many photos, all (at least his) of which will go into a database of over 35,000 images of this species, for matching and photo i.d. purposes. he even complimented my pictures and digital video footage the next day when i showed them to him, remarking that most people only catch the "tail end" of fast-moving underwater animals as they whiz across the lens field.
(my photos will soon be up on my flickr page...and i have to find a site that will allow me to upload the streaming video...anybody know of something like this?)
* * *
just to reiterate the unbelievable magnitude of what appears to be unfolding, in the scope of my grandest dreams in sleep and in life, i give you this last paragraph from dan. keep in mind, as you read this, that killer whales, or orcas, are VERY RARELY ever seen in these waters. maybe once every four or five years, if that, they are spotted this far south. also remember, that orcas are THE most magnificent of ALL animals in creation, in my mind and heart. they are my "totem animal", so to speak. and they are the whales i was blessed to have close encounters with in the san juan islands several years ago...you can imagine the rising of ALIVE-VIBES in my soul at the opening of this e-mail...just at the mere suggestion, the mere possibility...and all of the possibilities that surround what all of dan's recent e-mails imply...
Hey Liz,
No sooner had I gotten back to the harbor and a charter
fishing boat called to report "3 ORCA's chasing after a large group
of dolphins with white lips"! Must be the melon-headed
whales from yesterday! I was toying with the idea of charging
out there (somewhere off Keahou) and tried calling you to see if
you were free but it went to voice mail. I didn't have my
camera and it would have taken over 40 minutes to go
get it, so I regrettably punted that idea.
The last time we saw ORCA they were in pursuit of
melon-headed whales as well. That's when we got the biopsy
sample that matched transients off Alaska. Maybe they'll
stay around the area. Pretty cool huh!
Dan
* * *
So, in conclusion to my little novella here...in five hours, i will board a plane to seattle. between now and then, dan and i are getting together for dinner and a "talk"...to discuss what will happen when we both arrive in konaafter our sojourns to the mainland for the month of june. i will close this chapteras soon as i know how it ends...and how the rest of my life story...is set to begin.
(The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote to Micah a couple of weeks ago...)
...i know how blessed i am to be here. even though my mind criss-crosses every day, and sways back and forth, and changes continuously, i am growing to love kona more and more. i feel like i am at a real "crossroads". like i have to reflect now, after 6 months, and i say to myself, "i either have to dig my heels in now, and decide to stay - in which case, SOMETHING has got to "happen"; you know, some magical door has to open up - yet another door on the path of my dreams - like they always do. OR, i have to decide where to go from here, and go there. but as the days and even the moments of each day pass, and as i get closer to my month-long trip away from here, i feel more and more deeply that SOMETHING GREAT is on the horizon here. you know, it'll be like my freshman year at evergreen. half-way through that year, i decided that the boundless opportunity i had to create my education there was just too much of a challenge. like the uncertainty would kill me, or drive me crazy trying. i was all ready to hang it up, and quit. i felt like i was wasting my time, and (of course) not being productive enough. by april or may, i had applied - and been accepted to - western WA u. in bellingham, where they had grades, and neat, tidy little coursework requirements that i could follow easily.
but then...the internship at the whale museum FELL in my lap. and then it was decided. evergreen was the place to be. my fleeting faith had been restored, and greatly enhanced. i knew it was right - and the rest is history.
well, here i am in hawaii, in that same space, "right before the big 'opening' of that magical door". and i can feel it coming. even though on many days, i "convince" myself that it just isn't going to work here, and that i am destined to either work in a coffee shop in hawaii, or figure out the next move...and fast!!! i convince myself that moving back to denver, and returning to the "dog business" would be best - just because that brought me some sense of security and success.
BUT, i know i will look back on this time, and tell the story much like i now tell the one about evergreen. i will say, "yeah - i was at the breaking point, planning on fleeing the island...when suddenly, and AMAZINGLY - that magical door opened up, and the true "rightness" of this move will be revealed...
the ground here is rich and fertile, a perfect bed for growth. the saltwater surrounding the island stirs the mystical ingredients of creation into a warm broth for divine possibility. but with all of this potential for magic, comes the fear to face something so grand. it is like nelson mandela said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." i feel that way about myself, and about myself in the specific context of this island. i know on some deep level that i was meant to come here, and am meant to be here. and that my "wildest dreams" - literally - are going to be realized here. but surrendering to that is frightening, because it takes all the blind faith one person can muster.
it is also represented - as is every major precipice in my life - by my "original whale dream". in the dream, with which freud would've had a hayday, i exited a long, dark tunnel toward the light at its end. once out of the "birth canal", i stood on a tiny piece of solid ground, with the fluid ocean stretched infinitely around me. in the shallows surrounding my feet swam monsters, each one representing a deep fear or sense of ugliness or darkness. i was deathly afraid, and wanted to "go back". of course, when i turned to see where i had come from, the tunnel's circumference had shrunk to an opening the size of a lemon. i turned back around to face my fears. in the distant, deeper waters beyond fear, there were WHALES. thousands of them, waiting to save me...if only i would abandon fear, thus passing through it, and with faith...reach my destined world of beauty, love, and eternal light.
for the past couple of months, i have been clinging to thoughts of leaving the big island as if they were that small piece of land. working in a coffee shop, and feeling lost and homesick, i had just about hung up my flippers and turned toward the safety of home. i was about to make another huge life decision...based on fear, rather than faith. the fear of not being able to make it work here. the fear of it being too expensive, too far away...not "realistic". i almost setttled on, "okay...i will just go back to denver and pick up my pet business again. that was a good thing, and it would be a sure thing, and it would be easy". although somewhere in the farthest fathoms of my soul, i continually found that light of faith: the vision of whales has kept me moving forward toward my ultimate dream.
it has only been in the past two weeks that things have changed drastically, snuffing out the desire to leave kona. making brighter...the magical potential that makes this place so ALIVE and wondrous.
and yes, it has happened from behind the counter at lava java. who knew this coffee shop job might be the launching pad for the grandest "career move" of my life? i sure didn't! but here's how it happened...
it was the day after mother's day. i had felt something in me shift somehow, partially as the product of spending time with chloe and martin, a couple i know with whom i have been doing "spiritual healing work". i see now that this shift from fear to faith that i am experiencing now, is running parallel to the shift from grieving...to healing. and it makes sense. because it is the false idea that life is finite that causes us to fear death. we fear most of all that it is an ultimate separation between us and those we love who have passed. it is in faith, conversely, that we focus on the eternal nature of life. and on the fact that our loved ones who have died have not left us, but rather are with us in ways more intricate and incredible than the physical world can ever allow.
here in kona, the typical, daily grind type of things, like jobs and money and rent, are like the physical world. to us they seem like the most important things to think about, ponder, and worry over, because they are what we see directly in front of us. when it seems that these things are hurdles too difficult to overcome, we give up, not BELIEVING in what lies waiting on the other side of that illusion. i was getting caught up in that madness, and scooching back toward what i thought was "safer". the tangible. but looking past all of that in honor of following a dream, i KNOW in my heart that the dream IS meant to BE!
so anyway, on that monday after mother's day, i was making a latte or something, cursing this menial job under my breath; and said to myself: SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE. something has got to change. that's all there is to it. i am NOT destined to work in a coffee shop my whole life!
just then, i turned around and saw a man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties, standing at the counter ordering food. he had a baseball cap on that said, "dan mcsweeny's whale watching cruise", and when asked by the barista, said his name...was dan. i said, "hey! are you dan mcsweeny? i've heard a lot about you."
i had heard dan's name several times, and he was always referred to as THE major "whale guy" on this island. i had perused his website once, many months ago, and decided not to inquire about work opportunities with his company, i think, because on his site, he said he ran all of his tours himself, and was his cruise's own naturalist.
but i quickly briefed him on the fact that i had a marine education background, and was here - in kona - to find this kind of work. he told me to go ahead and e-mail him my resume. so i did, that evening! he came in the next day, and said he hadn't received it. something was screwy about his personal e-address; so he gave me his office address (something, something, at I-LOVE-WHALES.com...). that day, i sent the resume again, to the second address. it came right back to me. tried again, came right back.
the next day, i was at lava java, but not working. i had my book, and was going to order a bagel and read for a while. up to the table next to me walks, who else, but dan mcsweeny. his stuff was already there, he had just gotten up for a minute to get the newspaper. i said hi, and asked again if he had gotten my resume. he had not. we both puzzled over the communication mishap. though now, i strongly believe that, too, was for a perfectly sound reason.
reason being this: rather than him reading my resume, then calling upon me for a technical "job interview", we made a personal connection first. i wasn't nervous, fidgety about what to say or what not to. we just sat and had a long conversation about both of our favorite topic - whales - over bagels and coffee. he told me about the work he and his fellow researchers are doing, (much of it having to do with mid-frequency sonar used by the navy, and its devastating effect on marine mammals).
throughout the course of the conversation, i told about my schooling, my experience in many different genres of the broader theme: the "human/whale interface", and about how i ended up in kona, and what i dream of doing here. i told him that i want to be immersed in the "whale world", for it to become most of my "whole world", like it is his. also, while we were chatting, as i told him about my wishy-washy feelings about staying in kona, i mentioned that my living situation with star was sort of tenuous. reason being, that since jane died, star has been thinking of ways to make more of an income. and renting out the bottom half of her house (for what she could actually get for it, like $1500/month or something!) is something she will have to do. although at the time of dan's and my conversation, i didn't know just when she would have to do this, or if she might actually have to sell the house, or whatever. but as we talked, dan seemed to be coming up with various ways that we could maybe help each other out...
he mentioned that there might be volunteer work for me, which would involve actually spending time on the research boat, outfitting whales with VHF radio transmitter tags! i would maybe be able to take notes, record activity, or maybe even take photos!!! he also said that, while he was typically always his cruise's own naturalist, that may be changing soon. he wants to spend more time on the research boat, in which case he would have to hire a second captain to run the whale watching boat...and, of course, he would need a naturalist to stand in his place, since he would be on the research boat! he said what he would like to do, is have both boats congregate in the same location (i.e. where the whales are); this way, the whale-watchers would not only get to "watch whales", but would also get the rare opportunity to see - in real time - the current research being conducted in the wild. then...in response to what i had said about my tenuous living situation, dan mentioned that he has a coffee shack on his property in an area of kona called holualoa, which he uses to house visiting scientists who come in to work on projects for periods of time. he has owned the two acres of land on which the coffee shack sits for the last 16 years. at the time that he rented the coffee shack (before buying the land and building his home on it), he paid $25/MONTH for it!! those things - shabby as they may be sometimes - go for as much as $1000/month these days! but his isn't one of the shabby ones. he has completely renovated the inside. and it must be pretty awesome; because he says that had it been the way it is now, then, he would never have built his house! he would've just lived in the shack himself! anyway, right now, a woman named sabre is living there...not for rent money...but in exchange for VOLUNTEER WORK for dan, on his research and with his company. sort of "off the cuff", he remarked that sabre was leaving to go back to oregon in july, and maybe there would be the opportunity for ME to live there, on his land, in the coffee shack...for free...in exchange for work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i mean, come ON! i would PAY to get the kind of mentoring and experience i would get in this situation. being surrounded by some of the top whale researchers, in the midst of their projects...and on a boat, actually SURROUNDED by WHALES, much of the time.
(and just to add icing of gold to a cake made of precious gems...dan also works with an UNDERWATER FILM CREW, shooting scenes for movies like titanic and james bond!!! could any more potential burst forth from this fateful circumstance??!!)
THIS would be IT. THIS would be the ultimate DREAM. THIS is what i have waited for, worked so hard for, prayed for, struggled with every day, fantasized about every night...for the last TEN years. THIS would be the MAGICAL DOOR OPENING to the watery brilliance of my future...
* * *
The following is an excerpt from the e-mail dan sent me after finally receiving my resume. keep in mind that for me, reading the promise in this message was like opening a HUGE, long-dreamed-of gift on christmas morning, for lack of a better analogy...
Wanted to let you know that I picked up your resume at Lava Java. Well done cover letter and you certainly have had a varied sampling of work experiences. Your sincerity and interest in marine mammals, etc, comes through loud and clear. Good for you.
We still have a VHF transmitter tag on a sub adult male pilot whale. The foundations research boat is in a temprary slip at Honokohau Harbor. If the whale re-appears and Sabre (volunteer doing the scanning/matching) hears the tag signal, we will try and go offshore and find it. Ifyou have an opportunity/interest in coming with us, you'd be welcome.
* * *
So...after dan's and my conversation - i think one day later, actually - star told me that the renting of the bottom half of the house was imminent, and that it would have to happen soon. in fact, she would need to rent it out by july 1st. my trip to the mainland is to be from may 31-june 29!! what did this mean? well, on the "surface", it meant that i would have to pack and move all of my stuff within the next week; and that when i came back at the end of june, i wouldn't have a living situation set up (though star - gracious and wonderful as she is - would never let me be on the street!! it just means that i need to figure something else out, and soon!). it meant that i probably wouldn't have a job upon my return, because they will have to hire someone to take my place at lava java during my month-long absence. i wouldn't have any money upon returning, and CERTAINLY not enough to put down a deposit on a full-priced apartment here in kona! for god's sake, you can hardly get a room in a house for less than $800/month!
so...focusing on the "daily grind" stuff you can see and touch: no money, no job, no place to live, no potential window into my chosen career path by this point...really, no way of continuing to live here. i would have to sell my car, and use the money to move back to the mainland. that would be my only choice, i figured. unless......unless i met dan mcsweeny for a very important reason...
* * *
Following are excerpts from the next e-mails dan and i wrote to each other after this point in time:
(from me):
Hi Dan,
Thanks so much for your e-mail.Your positive feedback means a lot to me. And your invitation to join you on the research vessel is an honor. Thank you. I would be thrilled to come along!
I wanted also to talk to you about something else...
Remember when I told you that my living situation was "tenuous", because the woman I live with might have to sell her house? Well, she returned from Thailand a couple of days ago, and informed that, while she is not selling the house, she will soon have to rent out the whole bottom half of the house, (of which my bedroom is a part), for the extra income.
What this means for me, is that I have to move all of my stuff out of her place within the next 9 days, before I leave for my month on the mainland. Luckily there is not much to move. But essentially, the gravity of the situation has become clear, in that when I return, I will either have to stay at a friend's house just long enough to sell my car, and then use that money to move back to the mainland...or, come into a more financially-realistic living situation, which would allow me to stay on the island and continue this journey...
I want with my whole heart to stay here, Dan. And I want to be involved with the work you are doing for, with, and about whales. I don't mean to sound overdramatic, but rather am just being frankly honest, when I say that this scenario would be my life's dream unfolding.
In other words, if (like you mentioned the other day) there might be a way for me to work for you in exchange for a place to live, I would be eternally greatful, and so very ready to begin the work. With me would come my profound passion for whales and the ocean, my intelligence and fresh perspective, my unique background of experience, and my deep desire to learn about our living, liquid world.
We do have to be creative to make it work here in the Islands. But I do believe that an openness to the greater Creative force at work...leads to the creation of wonderful new chapters in this continuing story.
Dan, thanks for everything. Call me when that tag signal sounds!
* * *
(from dan in response):
Hi Liz...thank you for your response. Give me a call and/or swing by the Lady Ann’s haul out at Honokohau Harbor (Gentry’s Marina) if you get the chance and let’s figure out what we can do to solve your situation...
* * *
Well, since this point, i have felt, overwhelmingly clearly, that dan truly intends to help me "solve my situation", which most probably means living on his land in exchange for work...WHALE WORK in the WHALE WORLD!
the day i received this message from dan, my friend megan arrived from atlanta for a week-long visit. she would be here until the 30th. i leave for seattle on the 31st. so...dog-sitting, packing and moving stuff into storage, hanging with megan, dealing with my car that keeps not starting...so much going on...but with this wonderful possibility hovering above like a soft, guiding light, NO DOUBT FROM MOM!
when i called dan, he said to go ahead and have fun with megan, and that we would have plenty of time to talk before i (actually, both of us) left for the mainland. a couple of days later, he actually invited me and megan to go out on his personal boat with him...and "look for whales". well, megan and i had planned on going out on the fair wind, so that megan could experience some world-class snorkeling on her trip. i had secured some comp passes from my friend, jesse, and we were all set to use them on either sunday or monday...unless...the boat was full. well, i had forgotten that we were dealing with memorial day weekend tourist traffic, so sure enough, the boat was full on both of those days. this was a bit of a bummer at first...but of course later, we realized why our not getting on that boat - and instead, getting on dan's - was so specially meant to be...
* * *
we got to the marina at seven a.m., as planned. dan ushered us onto the boat, and we tooled slowly out of the harbor's no-wake zone, into the open ocean. we went off-shore for quite a ways, then headed due south. dan told us a bazillion cool facts about the 13 species of cetaceans in these hawaiian waters. then he went up top to look through his big yellow binoculars, and megan and i stayed on the deck, scanning the nearer horizon with just our eyes. i hung out over the bow pulpit, feeling like a bird in flight. the sun kissed our faces and bodies, and the wind caressed our hair and skin. it felt so good. so, so good to be on that boat...with dan mcsweeny, whale-watcher extraordinaire, who actually guarantees whale sightings year-round, not only during the winter months of humpback season.
we continued south into the blue for what seemed like two hours or more. no sign of any marine life yet. though i just kept thinking about how blessed we were to be there, on the boat, in the beautiful tropical sun, on the water. we were just so very lucky. i thanked god for that, over and over. then i prayed, "god, if you could possibly swing it, though...megan has never seen whales or dolphins in the wild. and i know i am going to be blessed on many more of these trips to come. so please, god, for megan's sake...bring us to the whales"...i envisioned our little tiny boat, bobbing in the center of a massive aggregation of dorsal fins. being serenaded by a chorus of whale breaths. i envisioned it as though i had not an ounce of doubt in my heart that it would happen. it was a joyful prayer, rather than a desperate one. somehow that seemed to make all the difference.
after our long, long journey south, dan began to maneuver the boat back inland. we were trekking east, easing back onto a northward path back home...when all of a sudden, i saw something in the distance. i said, "dan, i don't know if my salt-crusted mind is playing tricks on me or not"; because once you look at the water long enough, every rocking wave begins to look like an undulating fin. "but i see...SOMETHING up ahead"...
before we could pick our jaws up off the floor, we realized, wide-eyed and blown away, that we were SURROUNDED, 360 degrees, by an ENORMOUS pod of whales! they were unusual ones, too. ones i had never even seen or heard of before. dan said, "melon-heads...wow, these are a rare find...and there have to be over a HUNDRED of them!"
dan is on the water 300 days out of the year, and says he sees these whales only 3 to 4 times a year. plus, from the look of bright excitement nestled carefully underneath his scientist-mug, i could tell that dan was blown away too. i don't think he had seen a group THIS BIG before. if so, maybe only once or twice. at any rate - no matter who you were - this would've taken your breath away.
while tons and tons of fins sliced through the shimmering sea around us, tons and tons more chuffed gracefully closer and closer to our boat. the breathing chorus got louder. and then...they were darting around, criss-crossing over and under each other, directly underneath our gaze in front of the boat. we were ecstatic, and just stood there with our cameras, mouths hanging open, shooting away, saying over and over again, "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god".
just when we though it couldn't get any better, any more surreal, any closer to actually BEING the dreams that fuel my every action and belief in life...dan said, "would you like to get a look at them...UNDER THE WATER?"
he told us to slip on our masks and fins, and then just slide into the water and swim around. we did. and the beautiful, alien-esque life forms buzzed, chirped, clicked and squealed all around us. they looked at us, echolocated on our forms, acknowledged our presence. and went on their way, eventually disappearing as mysteriously as they had appeared, from out of the blue...back into its eternal beauty...just like that.
* * *
this was a rare and special privilege. the only reason it was even legal for us to be in the water with them is because dan is a marine biologist, and as such, has the permits for such activites. both he and i took many, many photos, all (at least his) of which will go into a database of over 35,000 images of this species, for matching and photo i.d. purposes. he even complimented my pictures and digital video footage the next day when i showed them to him, remarking that most people only catch the "tail end" of fast-moving underwater animals as they whiz across the lens field.
(my photos will soon be up on my flickr page...and i have to find a site that will allow me to upload the streaming video...anybody know of something like this?)
* * *
just to reiterate the unbelievable magnitude of what appears to be unfolding, in the scope of my grandest dreams in sleep and in life, i give you this last paragraph from dan. keep in mind, as you read this, that killer whales, or orcas, are VERY RARELY ever seen in these waters. maybe once every four or five years, if that, they are spotted this far south. also remember, that orcas are THE most magnificent of ALL animals in creation, in my mind and heart. they are my "totem animal", so to speak. and they are the whales i was blessed to have close encounters with in the san juan islands several years ago...you can imagine the rising of ALIVE-VIBES in my soul at the opening of this e-mail...just at the mere suggestion, the mere possibility...and all of the possibilities that surround what all of dan's recent e-mails imply...
Hey Liz,
No sooner had I gotten back to the harbor and a charter
fishing boat called to report "3 ORCA's chasing after a large group
of dolphins with white lips"! Must be the melon-headed
whales from yesterday! I was toying with the idea of charging
out there (somewhere off Keahou) and tried calling you to see if
you were free but it went to voice mail. I didn't have my
camera and it would have taken over 40 minutes to go
get it, so I regrettably punted that idea.
The last time we saw ORCA they were in pursuit of
melon-headed whales as well. That's when we got the biopsy
sample that matched transients off Alaska. Maybe they'll
stay around the area. Pretty cool huh!
Dan
* * *
So, in conclusion to my little novella here...in five hours, i will board a plane to seattle. between now and then, dan and i are getting together for dinner and a "talk"...to discuss what will happen when we both arrive in konaafter our sojourns to the mainland for the month of june. i will close this chapteras soon as i know how it ends...and how the rest of my life story...is set to begin.
29.4.06
MAY is the MOTHER of ALL MONTHS
DURING the timeless time Mom and I spend together in the middle of the night, we hold each other. As is becoming a pattern in these visits, I sob into Mom's chest, and she reassures me with her overwhelming LIGHT. It is, in one way, amazing, because I am TRULY WITH HER, on some level, actually touching her, smelling her, seeing her face and red hair. She is THERE. But on another level, it is surreal and intangible, almost as if I am reaching out toward a mirage. The visits are comforting while I am in them, cruel when I awake to find myself light years and many worlds away from her again.
I am at a major spiritual crossroads: to put it simply, I am on the threshold between DEEPLY GRIEVING and TRULY HEALING. One may as well be the chicken, and the other the egg, because one must be experienced fully in order for the other to exist. I am transitioning. This does not mean I will not ALWAYS, in every moment and with every breath, miss her like the desert misses moisture. But it does mean that I am moving forward on my journey through grief, so that I may also release Mom from the bondage of my pain. In my last visit with her, Mom expressed to me that it was hard for her to know that we are all still in such deep pain, and unable to push through this stage of grief, and into the initial ones of healing.
Another aspect of this CROSSROADS can be seen in the progression of my dreams. While Mom was in the hospital, I would dream that she was all better, healthy, and being released from the bed; set free of her illness, and ushered back into the physical world with a new body. For a long time after she crossed over, I didn't dream of her at all. Later, I began having dreams in which I was with her in some way, but always a mysterious, only partial way. For instance, we would be sitting side by side, but I would be unable to turn my head and look at her. Or she would be at the edge of my bed, but I couldn't touch her, and her face was enshrouded in shadows. Lately, I have had a couple of "dreams" that have made me realize none of these experiences were merely dreams (whatever that means), but were actual visits, spirit to spirit exchanges of loving communication.
In the first two, my Dad held my hand and took me to her, encouraging me to go to her, and not be afraid. In these recent dream-like visits, we have met on a plane far higher and faster than the one I exist on consciously here in the physical world; and much lower and slower than where Mom exists now, in her boundless spirit-form. It is as though she is able to shape-shift somehow in these visits, making herself available to the desperate grabbing of my limited perceptive abilities. Her love - and the love we share - far transcends the perceived barriers of physicality. Our love trumps death. And I - through the gift of dream-flight - am able to escape momentarily from the limitations of my own still-human body, and meet her in the ether between us. This is the realm from which all are born, and into which all are reborn. It is the glowing cradle of PURE LOVE.
* * *
Mom gave me a card on HER birthday, June 19, 2004, just four days before our joint surgery. On the front of the card, there is an image of a Native American woman, walking through water, looking down at her reflection; she is holding a white feather out to her right side. On the inside of the card, mom wrote:
My Darling Liz,
The symbolism of the feather is awesome. As you and I begin this Great Adventure, I know we will be lifted up to the very core and source of the Loving Spirit of which we are a part.
The water is the fluidity of life, the essence of our human bodies. The conduit of our elements which offer the continuity of life...
Thank you, baby, for offering me the gift to continue. As I have said so many times, I am so very blessed to get to be your mom!
I love you!
Mom
I have been focusing on this card a lot lately. The last time I went through my letters and cards from Mom, I chose this one to keep out and put on the shelf in my room. I have read it and re-read it. Trying to put her words into the burgeoning framework of my NEW THINKING. Thinking that says that she was exactly right. That we were in fact lifted up to that core of LIGHT, LOVE, and DIVINE PROTECTION, through the surgery and beyond it. And that even though Mom didn't "continue" physically, the true GIFT is in her being able to move ahead in her spiritual journey, which involved shedding her body precisely when she did.
I was running yesterday, and asked Mom for a message. "Mom", I said, "If you are here, show me a FEATHER...show me feathers". My eyes searched then for any semblance of a feather, birds flying overhead, anything that might communicate an affirmation. I try not to "look" for these clues, as then I worry I might be creating them or fabricating them from the deep pain and need within my unconscious mind. I decided that, even though a few little yellow birds swooped across my visual field, I wouldn't "count" them, because there would be too much room for "coincidence" there.
I didn't see any feathers anywhere. Until...I was finished running. I entered my house, sweaty and jazzed from endorphin rushing. I began to trot down the stairs to my quarters, which I have done hundreds of times by now. But this time, I noticed something I had never noticed before. It was a poster Star has hanging on the overhead wall space above the stairs. The poster was for an Earth Day celebration.... It says the following:
THE GREAT MOTHER, at once Gaia, Sophia, Isis, Rhea, Astarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Ceres, Papa; SHE is the living, pulsing EARTH: Wise beyond human telling, ever-generating, nourishing, and transforming with irrepressible vitality. WE ARE THE EARTH BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF HERSELF...The depth of our wisdom will sustain her, even as SHE, in all her breadth, NURTURES and SHELTER US, one and all.
I asked Mom for feather imagery, so she reminds me very clearly that her flight as a SPIRITUAL GODDESS has only just begun!
Directly in the bottom center of the poster is an image of ISIS, the BIRD-HEADED GODDESS:
Following are among the most common of her titles:
The Great Lady
The God-mother
Giver of Life
"Queen," in every nome
The divine one
The only one
The greatest of the gods and goddesses
The queen of all gods
Opener of the year,
Lady of the New Year
Maker of the sunrise
Lady of Heaven
The light-giver of Heaven
Queen of the earth
Most mighty one
Lady of the solid earth
Lady of warmth and fire
The lady of life
Lady of green crops
Lady of abundance,
Lady of joy and gladness
Lady of Love
The maker of kings
Lady of the Great House
Lady of the House of fire
The beautiful goddess
The lady of words of power
After reading that poster for the first time, I picked up my computer and feverishly began looking up information on ISIS - knowing that what I found would blow my mind. Knowing that the next symbolic "phrase" in the latest of Mom's communications was coming fast, and falling directly into its perfect order, just like words into a sentence.
As I often do, I set the computer on my lap, and had the t.v. on in the background for noise. I flipped to the Discovery Health channel, to watch a show I normally do not watch. I think I had seen it once before. It was Dr. G.: Medical Examiner. I wasn't paying any attention to it for the most part. But at one point, I happened to look up from my internet searching, to see a commerical which showed a man skiing down a snow-covered mountain. I kept my eyes on the commerical, understanding why I did so as the commercial unfolded to reveal what it was for...
The skier was Chris Klug, an Olympic Athlete who had a liver transplant at the University of Colorado Hospital, on none other than my grandmother's birthday, July 28 (2000). Igal Kam was his surgeon. I know because as I heard Chris's voiceover explain who he was, and what he had been through, and how he advocated organ donation, I fixated on the t.v. screen, only to see a moment later, a still photo of Chris Klug SITTING NEXT TO DR. KAM! Dr. Kam is the man who removed one lobe of my liver from my body, carried it to the operating room next door, and helped sew it into my Mom's abdomen.
I was now officially blown away. More appropriately, I was flying...on this grand, life-giving feather...the one Mom had written about in her card to me just days before Dr. Kam performed our joint surgery in the summer of 2004. It is these creative, loving messages from her that keep me breathing. Just as I was born and breathed for the first time of her love and creativity...For SHE continues as, and continues to become, the ever-more beautiful Diva: The ULTIMATE MOTHER.
* * *
The following day, I had friends from work, and neighbors from the block, come over to Star's house for a "gallery opening". I showed my photos for the first time, which was a very special event for me. It really meant the most that my new friends from Lava Java came by; and were very excited for me. I hardly knew any of them, but they all made it a point to come and show their support! The first to show up were my friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Jessica. As they got out of their car, I was immediately drawn to the faint outline of wings bordering Jessica's necklace pendant. As I got closer to her, I noticed that what she wore...was the figure of ISIS, the bird-headed, Mother-God, GIVER OF LIFE...LADY OF THE NEW YEAR!
* * *
One friend from work, in particular, would prove to be someone extremely special to me. Her name is Jessica, and, (as SHE informed me), she was to become my new 'favorite person' :)
She and I hadn't yet connected before that night at the photo party. But since then, we've been inseparable, and frankly AMAZED by the immediately profound and psychic nature of the connection between us.
Her mother's birthday is the same day as mine, December 23rd. She has seeminly "read my mind" on several occasions. We realize that we have been brought together to teach and learn from one another. Mom is clearly involved. And it is clear to BOTH of us, not only me.
* * *
MAY 1, 2006
May, according to Lifetime Television, is the "MOTHER of all Months".
At work, on May 1, a man named Joe - who I also hardly knew - called me "Little Angel".
Next, a customer came up to the counter, and asked me for a new cup of coffee...because his had a FEATHER in it!
Most brilliantly...Later that afternoon, in walked Martin and Chloe. Who these two are is a long and difficult story to tell. But I must, so I will try.
Martin is a videographer who works on the Fair Wind once or twice a week. He comes on the boat and films the guests' experiences, then sells the DVDs. He also teaches a reef ecology class, and talks about his own experiences...swimming with dolphins, whale sharks, and pilot whales.
For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by him immediately upon meeting him. But it was the less obvious reasons, which really are only beginning to open up to consciousness now, that proved to be the most interesting.
I remember, (and this was five months ago, when I was new to the island, and brand new to the boat), hearing Martin say a couple of things that have stuck with me all this time. They were things that made me feel compelled to learn more about him, who he really is, and what the deeper connection was meant to be between us.
Once, he said something about working hard. Another crewmember retorted with, "Whatever, Martin...You only work a couple of days a week!" And Martin replied, "It's EMOTIONAL work I am referring to." Over the next several days, I heard several little "whispery" tidbits of vague information about this "emotional" work that Martin does. But oddly, I could never quite get a full picture, from anyone. The most anyone would say was something to the effect that Martin was a "spiritual healer" of some sort. Put together with the knowledge that he is a heart soft for the Ocean, and also with my intuitive feeling about his depth of consciousness, I knew he and I were going to unify somehow, at some point in time.
So one day, through hopped-up nerves, I asked Martin "what is it that you really do?".
He was skiddish about answering. He alluded to the serious nature of his work, versus the whimsical, fast-paced, tourist-attentive nature of the boat environment. He said, essentially, that he didn't want to talk about it in that setting. I asked then if we could get together some time to talk. He said yes, though many months would pass silently between us before our real meeting would occur.
The one other thing he did say that I have never forgotten, and in fact have held close to me, was something that may as well have come out of Mom's mouth. It certainly echoed the beauty and sentiment of her heart. He said that "EVERYTHING IS MADE...(not of "energy"...but) OF LOVE". I was intrigued by him. Even moreso, I was intrigued by the strange friction that developed between us when we were both on the boat.
An odd and somewhat uncomfortable electric fence of silence buzzed invisibly there. But, I ascertained, it wasn't the kind of awkwardness that is born of a lack of subject matter between two people. It wasn't that we didn't have anything to say to one another; rather, what we did have to say, we knew on some level was very important; therefore, small talk never felt easy, necessary, or relevant. The one time on the boat I had found a moment and had broken through that barrier between us, I asked Martin what his spiritual work was about. He was hesitant to talk about it. Again, I knew somehow that the reason he didn't even want to begin the discussion, was because he knew that once he began, something longer and more profound than a simple answer would escape its secret box.
I let my curiosity drift from the forefront, but kept in the back of my mind, the knowing that someday Martin and I would explore what electrified the space between us. I felt intuitively certain that Mom had something to do with it, and that when the time was right, she would reach me... through him...
* * *
I am at a major spiritual crossroads: to put it simply, I am on the threshold between DEEPLY GRIEVING and TRULY HEALING. One may as well be the chicken, and the other the egg, because one must be experienced fully in order for the other to exist. I am transitioning. This does not mean I will not ALWAYS, in every moment and with every breath, miss her like the desert misses moisture. But it does mean that I am moving forward on my journey through grief, so that I may also release Mom from the bondage of my pain. In my last visit with her, Mom expressed to me that it was hard for her to know that we are all still in such deep pain, and unable to push through this stage of grief, and into the initial ones of healing.
Another aspect of this CROSSROADS can be seen in the progression of my dreams. While Mom was in the hospital, I would dream that she was all better, healthy, and being released from the bed; set free of her illness, and ushered back into the physical world with a new body. For a long time after she crossed over, I didn't dream of her at all. Later, I began having dreams in which I was with her in some way, but always a mysterious, only partial way. For instance, we would be sitting side by side, but I would be unable to turn my head and look at her. Or she would be at the edge of my bed, but I couldn't touch her, and her face was enshrouded in shadows. Lately, I have had a couple of "dreams" that have made me realize none of these experiences were merely dreams (whatever that means), but were actual visits, spirit to spirit exchanges of loving communication.
In the first two, my Dad held my hand and took me to her, encouraging me to go to her, and not be afraid. In these recent dream-like visits, we have met on a plane far higher and faster than the one I exist on consciously here in the physical world; and much lower and slower than where Mom exists now, in her boundless spirit-form. It is as though she is able to shape-shift somehow in these visits, making herself available to the desperate grabbing of my limited perceptive abilities. Her love - and the love we share - far transcends the perceived barriers of physicality. Our love trumps death. And I - through the gift of dream-flight - am able to escape momentarily from the limitations of my own still-human body, and meet her in the ether between us. This is the realm from which all are born, and into which all are reborn. It is the glowing cradle of PURE LOVE.
* * *
Mom gave me a card on HER birthday, June 19, 2004, just four days before our joint surgery. On the front of the card, there is an image of a Native American woman, walking through water, looking down at her reflection; she is holding a white feather out to her right side. On the inside of the card, mom wrote:
My Darling Liz,
The symbolism of the feather is awesome. As you and I begin this Great Adventure, I know we will be lifted up to the very core and source of the Loving Spirit of which we are a part.
The water is the fluidity of life, the essence of our human bodies. The conduit of our elements which offer the continuity of life...
Thank you, baby, for offering me the gift to continue. As I have said so many times, I am so very blessed to get to be your mom!
I love you!
Mom
I have been focusing on this card a lot lately. The last time I went through my letters and cards from Mom, I chose this one to keep out and put on the shelf in my room. I have read it and re-read it. Trying to put her words into the burgeoning framework of my NEW THINKING. Thinking that says that she was exactly right. That we were in fact lifted up to that core of LIGHT, LOVE, and DIVINE PROTECTION, through the surgery and beyond it. And that even though Mom didn't "continue" physically, the true GIFT is in her being able to move ahead in her spiritual journey, which involved shedding her body precisely when she did.
I was running yesterday, and asked Mom for a message. "Mom", I said, "If you are here, show me a FEATHER...show me feathers". My eyes searched then for any semblance of a feather, birds flying overhead, anything that might communicate an affirmation. I try not to "look" for these clues, as then I worry I might be creating them or fabricating them from the deep pain and need within my unconscious mind. I decided that, even though a few little yellow birds swooped across my visual field, I wouldn't "count" them, because there would be too much room for "coincidence" there.
I didn't see any feathers anywhere. Until...I was finished running. I entered my house, sweaty and jazzed from endorphin rushing. I began to trot down the stairs to my quarters, which I have done hundreds of times by now. But this time, I noticed something I had never noticed before. It was a poster Star has hanging on the overhead wall space above the stairs. The poster was for an Earth Day celebration.... It says the following:
THE GREAT MOTHER, at once Gaia, Sophia, Isis, Rhea, Astarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Ceres, Papa; SHE is the living, pulsing EARTH: Wise beyond human telling, ever-generating, nourishing, and transforming with irrepressible vitality. WE ARE THE EARTH BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF HERSELF...The depth of our wisdom will sustain her, even as SHE, in all her breadth, NURTURES and SHELTER US, one and all.
I asked Mom for feather imagery, so she reminds me very clearly that her flight as a SPIRITUAL GODDESS has only just begun!
Directly in the bottom center of the poster is an image of ISIS, the BIRD-HEADED GODDESS:
Following are among the most common of her titles:
The Great Lady
The God-mother
Giver of Life
"Queen," in every nome
The divine one
The only one
The greatest of the gods and goddesses
The queen of all gods
Opener of the year,
Lady of the New Year
Maker of the sunrise
Lady of Heaven
The light-giver of Heaven
Queen of the earth
Most mighty one
Lady of the solid earth
Lady of warmth and fire
The lady of life
Lady of green crops
Lady of abundance,
Lady of joy and gladness
Lady of Love
The maker of kings
Lady of the Great House
Lady of the House of fire
The beautiful goddess
The lady of words of power
After reading that poster for the first time, I picked up my computer and feverishly began looking up information on ISIS - knowing that what I found would blow my mind. Knowing that the next symbolic "phrase" in the latest of Mom's communications was coming fast, and falling directly into its perfect order, just like words into a sentence.
As I often do, I set the computer on my lap, and had the t.v. on in the background for noise. I flipped to the Discovery Health channel, to watch a show I normally do not watch. I think I had seen it once before. It was Dr. G.: Medical Examiner. I wasn't paying any attention to it for the most part. But at one point, I happened to look up from my internet searching, to see a commerical which showed a man skiing down a snow-covered mountain. I kept my eyes on the commerical, understanding why I did so as the commercial unfolded to reveal what it was for...
The skier was Chris Klug, an Olympic Athlete who had a liver transplant at the University of Colorado Hospital, on none other than my grandmother's birthday, July 28 (2000). Igal Kam was his surgeon. I know because as I heard Chris's voiceover explain who he was, and what he had been through, and how he advocated organ donation, I fixated on the t.v. screen, only to see a moment later, a still photo of Chris Klug SITTING NEXT TO DR. KAM! Dr. Kam is the man who removed one lobe of my liver from my body, carried it to the operating room next door, and helped sew it into my Mom's abdomen.
I was now officially blown away. More appropriately, I was flying...on this grand, life-giving feather...the one Mom had written about in her card to me just days before Dr. Kam performed our joint surgery in the summer of 2004. It is these creative, loving messages from her that keep me breathing. Just as I was born and breathed for the first time of her love and creativity...For SHE continues as, and continues to become, the ever-more beautiful Diva: The ULTIMATE MOTHER.
* * *
The following day, I had friends from work, and neighbors from the block, come over to Star's house for a "gallery opening". I showed my photos for the first time, which was a very special event for me. It really meant the most that my new friends from Lava Java came by; and were very excited for me. I hardly knew any of them, but they all made it a point to come and show their support! The first to show up were my friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Jessica. As they got out of their car, I was immediately drawn to the faint outline of wings bordering Jessica's necklace pendant. As I got closer to her, I noticed that what she wore...was the figure of ISIS, the bird-headed, Mother-God, GIVER OF LIFE...LADY OF THE NEW YEAR!
* * *
One friend from work, in particular, would prove to be someone extremely special to me. Her name is Jessica, and, (as SHE informed me), she was to become my new 'favorite person' :)
She and I hadn't yet connected before that night at the photo party. But since then, we've been inseparable, and frankly AMAZED by the immediately profound and psychic nature of the connection between us.
Her mother's birthday is the same day as mine, December 23rd. She has seeminly "read my mind" on several occasions. We realize that we have been brought together to teach and learn from one another. Mom is clearly involved. And it is clear to BOTH of us, not only me.
* * *
MAY 1, 2006
May, according to Lifetime Television, is the "MOTHER of all Months".
At work, on May 1, a man named Joe - who I also hardly knew - called me "Little Angel".
Next, a customer came up to the counter, and asked me for a new cup of coffee...because his had a FEATHER in it!
Most brilliantly...Later that afternoon, in walked Martin and Chloe. Who these two are is a long and difficult story to tell. But I must, so I will try.
Martin is a videographer who works on the Fair Wind once or twice a week. He comes on the boat and films the guests' experiences, then sells the DVDs. He also teaches a reef ecology class, and talks about his own experiences...swimming with dolphins, whale sharks, and pilot whales.
For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by him immediately upon meeting him. But it was the less obvious reasons, which really are only beginning to open up to consciousness now, that proved to be the most interesting.
I remember, (and this was five months ago, when I was new to the island, and brand new to the boat), hearing Martin say a couple of things that have stuck with me all this time. They were things that made me feel compelled to learn more about him, who he really is, and what the deeper connection was meant to be between us.
Once, he said something about working hard. Another crewmember retorted with, "Whatever, Martin...You only work a couple of days a week!" And Martin replied, "It's EMOTIONAL work I am referring to." Over the next several days, I heard several little "whispery" tidbits of vague information about this "emotional" work that Martin does. But oddly, I could never quite get a full picture, from anyone. The most anyone would say was something to the effect that Martin was a "spiritual healer" of some sort. Put together with the knowledge that he is a heart soft for the Ocean, and also with my intuitive feeling about his depth of consciousness, I knew he and I were going to unify somehow, at some point in time.
So one day, through hopped-up nerves, I asked Martin "what is it that you really do?".
He was skiddish about answering. He alluded to the serious nature of his work, versus the whimsical, fast-paced, tourist-attentive nature of the boat environment. He said, essentially, that he didn't want to talk about it in that setting. I asked then if we could get together some time to talk. He said yes, though many months would pass silently between us before our real meeting would occur.
The one other thing he did say that I have never forgotten, and in fact have held close to me, was something that may as well have come out of Mom's mouth. It certainly echoed the beauty and sentiment of her heart. He said that "EVERYTHING IS MADE...(not of "energy"...but) OF LOVE". I was intrigued by him. Even moreso, I was intrigued by the strange friction that developed between us when we were both on the boat.
An odd and somewhat uncomfortable electric fence of silence buzzed invisibly there. But, I ascertained, it wasn't the kind of awkwardness that is born of a lack of subject matter between two people. It wasn't that we didn't have anything to say to one another; rather, what we did have to say, we knew on some level was very important; therefore, small talk never felt easy, necessary, or relevant. The one time on the boat I had found a moment and had broken through that barrier between us, I asked Martin what his spiritual work was about. He was hesitant to talk about it. Again, I knew somehow that the reason he didn't even want to begin the discussion, was because he knew that once he began, something longer and more profound than a simple answer would escape its secret box.
I let my curiosity drift from the forefront, but kept in the back of my mind, the knowing that someday Martin and I would explore what electrified the space between us. I felt intuitively certain that Mom had something to do with it, and that when the time was right, she would reach me... through him...
* * *
26.4.06
AMAZING LETTER FROM DAD
My dear Tina and Liz,
As I said on Sunday Liz, I have been thinking the last several days that I wanted to send you both an e-mail about some recent thoughts or "revelations" I've had about you two. So here it is....... You both are very special. Mommy and I knew this all along, and this is constantly confirmed by the comments of others and by your lives and actions on a daily basis. In thinking a lot about your "specialness" and your uniqueness, I truly believe that there are very clear reasons for it and responsibilities that come along with it. Not to sound vain, but you two are born of two very special families. Mommies family, extremely loving, creative, spititual and talented ..... people who have shared their gifts with so many through these talents, Mommie being so "important" in so many peoples lives in this way.... and always nurturing of you in using your very important gifts and serving as an example for you in manifesting these traits in yourselves. And my family, Also extremely loving, giving, spiritual in different, but very selfless ways, offering "stories" and humor about your family, always there for you, proud of your achievements and so happy for Nan and me to have been blessed with two such amazing daughters and their mother. My family, born of a people who have survived the worst of times and loss, through their courage and also the traits I listed above. These are your very special families who made their way to this point to create you and your beautiful traits. Again, know that you are blessed by this heritage and also know that you both have purposes. Purposes to carry forth these gifts and the love that created you both, and new purposes that are still unfolding. Know that you are loved so greatly and that you are meant to love others in turn. Please...... be strong, be proud, be happy, and carry on this great and loving family history. You owe it to us, to yourselves and to those meant to receive your gifts in the future.
I love you both so much,
Dad
As I said on Sunday Liz, I have been thinking the last several days that I wanted to send you both an e-mail about some recent thoughts or "revelations" I've had about you two. So here it is....... You both are very special. Mommy and I knew this all along, and this is constantly confirmed by the comments of others and by your lives and actions on a daily basis. In thinking a lot about your "specialness" and your uniqueness, I truly believe that there are very clear reasons for it and responsibilities that come along with it. Not to sound vain, but you two are born of two very special families. Mommies family, extremely loving, creative, spititual and talented ..... people who have shared their gifts with so many through these talents, Mommie being so "important" in so many peoples lives in this way.... and always nurturing of you in using your very important gifts and serving as an example for you in manifesting these traits in yourselves. And my family, Also extremely loving, giving, spiritual in different, but very selfless ways, offering "stories" and humor about your family, always there for you, proud of your achievements and so happy for Nan and me to have been blessed with two such amazing daughters and their mother. My family, born of a people who have survived the worst of times and loss, through their courage and also the traits I listed above. These are your very special families who made their way to this point to create you and your beautiful traits. Again, know that you are blessed by this heritage and also know that you both have purposes. Purposes to carry forth these gifts and the love that created you both, and new purposes that are still unfolding. Know that you are loved so greatly and that you are meant to love others in turn. Please...... be strong, be proud, be happy, and carry on this great and loving family history. You owe it to us, to yourselves and to those meant to receive your gifts in the future.
I love you both so much,
Dad
Brain Alive
dad,
it was the night before my first day working at lava java. the date was ("dates were" - as it happened over night between) 4/5/06 and 4/6/06.
did you get the e-mail that was circulating on april 3? people were noting that: at ONE o'clock, TWO minutes, and THREE seconds of that night/the next morning...the precise instant would be: 01:02:03 04/05/06. i got this e-mail twice, and andrea and i had talked about it just before we went to sleep (i slept over at her place that night, and knew i wouldn't be able to sleep well because i had to be at work by 5:15a.m. the next morning). so we hit the hay early - at like 9pm (remember, this was on 4/4).
as i lay in bed, i decided to try and meditate, so that i could relax, and hopefully fall asleep. so i began thinking consciously about two things: (1) a practice i have read about called "clicking the amygdala forward", on a "brain explorers" website. here is an excerpt from this website. the information is really interesting, and VERY significant to the rest of my story...
This is the fourth lesson from Brain Magic by musician and teacher Neil Slade. The book is a one-a-day activity, step by step workbook designed to increase creativity, intelligence, pleasure, and promote access to paranormal abilities.
(from his website):
There are two amygdalae in your brain, one inside the left hemisphere of your brain and one inside the right hemisphere, about one inch inside from the temples midway between your eyes and ears. Point there with your fingers, now. Your brain is in fact divided exactly in half, into two separate although connected right and left halves called hemispheres. Each brain hemisphere gets its own amygdala switch which controls and gives accurate feedback as to how well and how well your brain is working.
These other structures shown here are other internal structures, the brain's "limbic system" (the "mammal brain"), of which the amygdala is part. Additionally, the amygdala is a gateway/switch that turns on the most advanced part of your brain: the frontal lobes.
AMYGDALA CLICKED BACKWARD:
A) Your brain is working poorly and "Life stinks!". Brain energy moves into your brain stem and the small primitive core of your brain- your "reptile brain".
B) Being clicked backward means you are only using a fraction of your potential brain power.
C)When your amygdala is clicked backwards you are primarily computing primitive reptile brain thoughts and behaviors: self-defense and counter attack; fight or flight; basic survival.
D) Being clicked backwards automatically results in negative emotions.
To get things working better (an understatement), and to turn on limitless amounts of creativity, intelligence, and pleasure, you need to click your amygdala forward and turn on "the other 90%" of your brain.
AMYGDALA CLICKED FORWARD:
A) This opens the neuro-pathways in your brain to allow energy to effortlessly flow into the rest of your brain and your magnificent frontal lobes.
B) Your frontal lobes are the entire front 1/3 part of your brain. Hold your forehead. Everything under your entire hand is frontal lobes.
C) Your frontal lobes compute "CICIL": Cooperation-Imagination-Creativity-Intuition-Logic.
D) Clicking forward automatically results in positive "Life is FUN!" emotions. When you control your amygdala and click it forward into your frontal lobes, true Brain Magic happens.
MEMORIZE the paragraphs above. Test yourself by writing down the key ideas on a separate piece of paper- Backward, A, B, C, D; Forward, A, B, C, D.
The brain's advanced electrochemical circuits are controlled with THOUGHT. To click your amygdala forward you don't need any machines, gadgets, pills, nor do you need to sign up for expensive retreats or courses.
Clicking your amygdala forward is like wiggling your finger. Only it happens inside your brain instead of on the end of your arm. Do this: wiggle your right index finger. Easy, isn't it? Okay, wiggle your left big toe. Easy too? Now, locate your amygdala (see chart above). You click it forward using your frontal lobes- IMAGINE that your amygdala is like a click toggle switch- Now "click" the switch forward towards your forehead. There! You did it. It's a thought process that changes how you think, and how your brain works. Click it again. Smile!
okay. so that was the first thing i was thinking of, and trying to do. i kept imagining "clicking my amygdalas forward". ALSO, i was concentrating on a really cool dream i had a few months ago.
in the dream: i was in a swimming pool. the pool was an exact rectangle, divided down the center lengthwise by a perfectly straight line. i was at one end of the pool, my spine perfectly congruous to that center line. and i was head to head - more appropriately, mind to mind, with a DOLPHIN.
his forehead was pressed up against mine, and he began swimming forward, thus pushing me - moving me - backward, down the center of the pool. if the pool had been unzipped, i would have been the zipper, and the dolphin would have been the hand pulling the two halves of the pool together, creating the look of a seamless whole.
in the dream, i explained to a concerned friend who sat on the side of the pool watching, that the dolphin was not acting aggresively. and that what he was actually doing, in essence, was "zipping" together the two seperate hemispheres of my brain, so that i would be able to perceive life and the universe and myself more cohesively; with a unified vision. ironic, because everything about the dream was LOGICAL. all lines were straight, and all movement was along those straight lines. because this is what the human brain strives for - ORDER in his or her world. we want things to make logical sense, so we deal in squares, rectangles, and straight lines. of course, a "line" is only the shortest distance between two points. in this case, the line went from one END of the pool to the OTHER END. of course, we know that in the true physical and metaphysical state of the universe, there are no lines that actually "begin" or "end". they are all actually circles, that connect, and rotate eternally into deeper and deeper cycles. SO - this was the second dream i have had, in which whales and dolphins were present to show me - in a way that would make sense to my still-human mind - that there IS a GREATER ORDER to life, and that mom's ascension was NOT her "end", but rather, her birth into a deeper cycle of existence. and i had both of these dreams after falling asleep to desperate pleas to God for any of this - about mom's illness and passing - to make "SENSE" somehow.
okay - so now back to me, lying in bed, thinking about these things, and attempting to meditate on them. attempting to let that dolphin blend the division line in my logical brain, which divides life into beginnings and endings, into one seamless whole. and as i tried to BE in that place, with the dolphin's forehead pressed to mine, and as i was gently moved backward, i tried to consciously CLICK MY AMYGDALAS FORWARD. lastly, i asked mom to come through and let me know she was with me. i specifically "requested" a signal with some electronic connection - like a light turning on by itself, the fan starting up without the switch being flipped...or the phone. something with my phone. that would be good.
keep in mind, it was still very early, because both andrea and i had to be up before the crack of dawn. so i'm lying there, thinking i am awake, when suddenly, i awaken to find that i had actually fallen "asleep". but it wasn't "real" sleep. it was the very relaxed, meditative state of alpha consciousness. this is the state we fall into when we're taking one of those drowsy naps on the couch in the middle of the day, and we don't even realize we've been dozing until we wake up from our daze! it also happens to be the state of consciousness that dolphins EXIST in when they are resting. because they must surface to breathe, they cannot truly sleep. so essentially, they meditate. they SHUT DOWN ONE HALF OF THEIR BRAINS(perhaps, "click one amydala forward, and one backward, into the 'off position'?); and all of their systems slow way down. their metabolism, heartbeat, everything. this way they only have to breathe every once in a while, so as not to be interrupted during rest. kind of like a REAL POWER NAP!
so...i'm lying on the bed, tossing and turning. andrea wakes up and finds me kneeling on the floor, "sleeping" on my knees, and picks me up, and puts me back in the bed; then she wants to trade me places in the bed, because she says i am practically hanging off the edge of the bed, which i am. THEN MY PHONE RINGS.
i say to andrea, "i'd better answer that, because at this time of night, it's gotta be important. i mean, it's ONE a.m. here, which means it is already THREE a.m. in washington, and FOUR a.m. in colorado (figuring one of those would be the only logical place from which i might be getting this middle-of-the-night call.
so i answer. and i hear a conversation on the other end. i don't say anything, but i am LISTENING...to a conversation between YOU AND NAN on the line! i get the message coming through from mom - that she and nan, aunty karen, their mother...they're all still here, and we can talk to them. and we can USE THE PHONE sometimes to do it - just not in the way our logical minds would have us believe. remember, dad, when you had that "dream" that you were talking to nan on the phone (shortly after she died), and she sounded really happy...well, she sounded happy in this "dream" too. SO THEN I WAKE UP; never realizing or knowing that i had even fallen asleep.
i reach down and pick up my phone, and look at its screen for the first of three times i would end up looking at it that night - each time holding major significance. on the phone clock, the time read 12:01 a.m. i spent several minutes wondering why it wasn't 1:00 a.m. that would make much more sense, and be a much more brilliant point, because in the dream - i thought to myself - i noted that it was 3 in washington and 4 in denver. but then it hit me like a ton of bricks: it WASN'T 1 in the dream, it WAS ACTUALLY 12:00 - BECAUSE WE DIDN'T JUST RECENTLY SET OUR CLOCKS FORWARD, like everyone else did!!! we don't do that here!! oh my god...
so, in other words, i woke up from a dream i didn't know i was having, in which i heard you and nan talking on the other end of the line of my phone...at the PRECISE moment (or one moment later) than my phone had rung in that "dream". are you following me? 'cause there's more. a lot more...
it dawned on me. it was 12:01 a.m. - the clock had - one minute earlier - rolled over to bring forth the next new day: 04/05/06.
i fell back asleep, dazzled by what had just happened. the next time i woke up, i immediately picked up my phone again, expecting nothing less than something way too trippy and synchronistic to be either real or unreal. it was 12:46 a.m.
hmmmm, couldn't think of any significance there. but i knew at that point that i HAD to get up and write all of this down. i couldn't risk forgetting it.
trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake andrea, i tip-toed over to the one place i knew - even in the dark - had something i could write on. it was the 8x10 white envelope that my photo prints were in, and i had set it right there on that chair before i went to bed.
i took the envelope, and a pen from the table that i found by feeling around, and crept into andrea's closet, where i turned on the light, and feverishly started scribbling about the midnight "phone call" from the Other Side. the receipt from my picture order was still stuck, with tape, to the envelope. you know, that's how they do it at costco, so that they can see that you've paid for your merchandise before you leave the store. what jumps out at me? the TIME that my order was picked up:
12:46 p.m. !!!
i laid back down, drifted off for a few minutes, then got up and looked at my phone for the third and final time that night/middle-of-night/morning. it was 1:02 a.m.
not only was this the time i thought it would have had to have been (and would have, had we set our clocks forward like everyone else in the country), in my dream. but also, it was the precise moment (well, exactly 12 hours later) that i had both read about and spoken about only hours ago, for its "numerical significance": 01:02:(03) 04/05/06.
when i fell back into bed, under a moon i noticed was EXACTLY HALF of its full size (like each of our brain hemispheres), my mind wouldn't stop racing. i started thinking in numbers, and although it is virtually impossible to explain it here, i will say this: what "everything" came down to - at the conclusion of every "equation" - were the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, (and less often, but still prominently), 4 and 5.
(seperating each number, for instance, the number 12 into 1 and 2, and so on)...
my birthday: 1.2.2.3
tina's birthday: 0.3.2.0
shelly's birthday: 0.2.0.3
aunty karen's REBIRTHday: 1.2.2.0.0.1
mom's REBIRTHday: 1.2.3.1.0.4
amma's REBIRTHDAY: 1.2.3.1
(i might add that in the mayans' calculations, december 21, 2012 - the winter solstice of that year - 1.2.2.1.1.2 - is going to be not the "end" of the world - but the REBIRTH of the world; the kind of POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION that mom believed so deeply and truly was coming).
aidan's birthday: 0.3.2.4
gavin's birthday: 0.5.1.2 (also mother's day the year he was born...and, a side note, recall that last year, father's day and mom's birthday both fell on the same day) ----------
alena's birthday: 0.5.3.1
papa's birthday: 1.2.1.4
and so on...............
stay with me here. i'm going to go backwards for a minute...
two days before this one, i had come home to find a note at the top of the stairs for me in star's handwriting. it said, "liz - dentist appointment tomorrow - 8:00 a.m." HUH? what could that be about? although i had THOUGHT a whole lot about needing to go to the dentist - and every time, thinking about it stemmed from mom's (and yours, dad) continual INSISTENCE on our good dental health, and our needing to have regular dentist visits - but i had NOT made an appointment with anyone! i hadn't called any clinics, i hadn't spoken with any receptionists...i had NOT made that dentist appointment!
star and i puzzled over it. she said she answered the call, and the woman on the other end said she was calling to "remind elizabeth about her dentist appointment tomorrow morning". star said, "my name is elizabeth, but i don't have any appointment scheduled". and the woman said, "no, this is for elizabeth kover, not elizabeth star".
the more i think about this, the weirder it gets. and the more i question...WHO ON EARTH could have made that appointment? maybe it was not someone on earth. maybe it was MOM!!?? what other explanation could there be?!
* * *
earlier in the day (back to the day before i started work at lava java - the day i was supposed to have my mystery dental appointment - which i would have gone to had there been any information given about WHAT "CLINIC" to go to!), i had gone to starbuck's for an afternoon coffee. i usually never went in the afternoon, only in the morning on my way to work at the fair wind. i knew this would likely be my last time coming in there too, as the following day, i would start my job at a different coffee shop. i had been really bummed and blue that whole day. when i went to the counter at starbuck's, this young girl - probably in high school - served me. i always saw this girl in the morning, and always noticed that she looked very unhappy. she had never spoken more words to me than "may i help you", and i really thought she might not like me for some reason. but here we were, in the afternoon (closer to her getting off work time, i presumed). she actually smiled, which i swear, i had never seen her do. and she started talking to me, bubbly and bright as could be. she said, "i love your hair! i always say to myself, 'i want to do my hair just like hers!'...and i always wonder what you're doing, where you're on your way to...always alone...and i think of you as the 'workout queen'..........
compliment after compliment, and she was really sweet, and i was glad to see her happier than usual. she explained (without my asking) that she was always grumpy in the morning, and never felt like talking then. i told her it was nice to meet her. and on my way out the door, turned and asked, "what's your name"?...........JENNY (with a "y", i asked). still, the girl's name was JENNy.
also interesting to note: in the past two days, i had had two women introduce themselves to me from behind coffee counters. the first was KAREN (she works at lava java, i met her a few days before starting there myself); the second was JENNy.
anyway...when i left starbucks, i got in my car and pulled up at a stoplight behind a car whose licence plate said "GJV-123". i always look for letter combinations like that - with G's and J's, GV's, etc., and accept them as signs from mom.
* * *
coming back to the "future", it was finally time to get up and start my new job, after a restless and bizarre night of only half-sleep. i arrived at 5:15 a.m., and met the girl who would show me the ropes. her name was paige. after conversing for maybe two or three minutes, sharing the basic "how long have you been in hawaii", and "where did you work before this", questions and answers, i said to her, "this may be a strange question, but just out of "curiosity", when is your birthday?
"december 14th", she said...papa's birthday. i had written it down on the envelope in the middle of the night.
* * *
i took all of this to be a grand message from mom about the ORDER that is inherent in life, even though we are usually pretty much blind to it. just as they say now that physics and metaphysics are one in the same study; i think the nitty gritty numerical formulas that essentially bring us "pi", "negative numbers", "imaginary numbers", lines and rays. meaning, these are "technical" mathematical terms, used to build the complex equations that are inherent in every aspect of the physical world. but think about what these things mean. for example, a "LINE": in math, we think of a line as having two end points; but beyond those "end" points, the line EXTENDS FOREVER IN BOTH DIRECTIONS (until it bends and eventually becomes spherical - since we are in a closed physical system in our universe). and a ray: we may think of a ray as a "straight" line that begins at a certain point and extends forever in one direction. look how paradoxical, though, and analogous to physical DEATH actually being the ultimate (metaphysical) BIRTH: the point where the ray BEGINS is known as its ENDPOINT.
i believe that when our human minds become more like dolphins', and we are thus better able to comprehend the complete, perfect, and absolute UNITY of the PHYSICAL and NON-PHYSICAL elements of the universe, we will be better able to communicate with our beloved ones who have transformed and risen to the higher planes of existence.
another analogy: when we "feel" communication with our hearts, rather than trying so hard to legitimize it in our minds, then we will be able to "get" it.
peter gabriel (birthday 2.1.3) sums up what i am trying to say beautifully in his song, "more than this", which came into my head that strange night of the numbers and brain fusing:
i woke up and the world outside was dark
all so quiet before the dawn
opened up the door and walked outside
the ground was cold
i walked until i couldn't walk anymore
to a place i'd never been
there was something stirring in the air
in front of me, i could see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i stand feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
it started when i saw the ship go down
i saw them struggle in the sea
and suddenly the picture disappears
in front of me
now we're busy making all our busy plans
on foundations built to last
but nothing fades as fast as the future
and nothing clings like the past,
until we can see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something out there
more than this it's coming through
and more than this
i stand alone and so connected
and I'm all there right next to you
oh then it's alright
when with every day
another bit falls away
oh but it's still alright, alright, alright
and like words together
we can make some sense
much more than this
way beyond imagination
much more than this
beyond the stars
with my head so full
so full of fractured pictures
and i'm all there right next to you
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i'm alone feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
more than this
more than this
more than this
* * *
a few nights later, i had another "dream". it took place in the garage of our house on foothill drive. dad, you and mom were getting ready to "leave". i don't know where you were going, but you were off to someplace else. you both started out the open garage door; and i called you back. i wanted to give you both a huge, long hug. because - i remember thinking - you never know when it might be your last one in this world. that dream reminded me to cherish every minute i have with my dear family and friends, and to tell them/you how much i love you every time i am blessed with the chance. so...I LOVE YOU!
* * *
last night...i was in the house, downstairs, in front of the t.v. i had all of my photo "stuff" - poster board, glue, tape, photos, mattes, pens, scissors, paper cutter, exact-o knife, etc., spread out all over the floor. i had to work on the floor, there was no room elsewhere for such a spread. but i was nervous - kind of paranoid, actually - because i had seen (either) two CENTIPEDES, (or one centipede, two different times), on that floor recently. both times, i had been (thank god, not on the floor) sitting in a chair facing the t.v. and from out of the corner of my left eye, had seen the poisonous creepy crawly beast, creeping and crawling across the carpet. needless to say, i was HORRIFIED. it didn't help matters that star then encouraged me to check inside all of my shoes - and my bed covers (!) - before getting in them!
but sitting there among all of my art supplies, looking anxiously over my shoulder every two minutes for some monstrous creature, i decided that i couldn't live like that. i figured i had better somehow make "peace" with the centipede civilization, if we were going to be sharing a living space. so i looked up some of the spiritual and mythological symbolism of the centipede in various cultures and/or religions. what i found was interesting, and i of course related it to mom, life and death, logic vs. abstract thought, and FEAR. here are a couple of the excerpts i found:
Most of us have heard the story of the centipede who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, could no longer do so, but tangled his legs hopelessly in the attempt to intellectually figure it out and ended up on his back, helpless. This is not unlike the person who attempts to plumb the depths of oriental scriptures. Right away it becomes evident that they consist of incalculable layers, nearly all symbolic in nature. Furthermore, the meanings of the symbols are not consistent, changing according to the levels on which they occur. For example, on one level water symbolizes the mind, on another level the constant flux of samsara, and on another the subtle life-currents known as prana. This being the case, our Western linear mode of thought becomes as entangled and disabled as the fabled centipede. (from the Bhavagad Gita)
Snakes are respected and were regarded as transitory figures. The snake was a powerful force of transitional spiritual energy. Like centipedes, snakes could encourage the growth or transition of individuals from one stage of being to another. As lightning symbols, the sky serpent brought change in weather. Snakes were present near springs and rivers and used in rituals that maintained the vitality of water sources. (from information derived from 4,000 year old petroglyphs in the southwestern united states).
yesterday at work, the SECOND following one of my "little requests upward" to hear from mom, i went into the office to find my paycheck. it wasn't there, but the first envelope i did see was one addressed to:
JENNIE ROSE (yes, jennie with an "ie" - this is rare). and my middle name, rose!
john edward says, "what would you do if someone you loved all of a sudden didn't speak or understand english anymore, but only could speak some bizarre foreign language?...of course, you would learn that language." he also talks about how spirits use symbols, references, and vehicles that we, still here in human form and working within the great limitations of human perception, can comprehend, and which we will recognize, and with which we can connect...so often, i will hear a song on the radio JUST as i am asking for this connective validation from mom. and usually, they are either songs that were very important to mom, favorites of hers, songs and/or artists we shared a love for...or songs whose lyrics, not only describe what her words to me might be, but simultaneously, what my words to her are. it's hard to explain; though john edward confirms this as something he knows to be true also.
...this evening, as i was driving home from starbucks, thinking about mom, john edward, and the complete mystery and wonder of it all, the following song came on the radio. i will leave you with its lyrics - and the message that - i believe - came so clearly from mom, to all of us, through its words.
STAY WITH YOU
by the Goo Goo Dolls
These streets
Turn me inside out
Everything shines
But leaves me empty still
And I'll burn this lonely house down
If you run with me
If you run with me
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Fooled by my own desires
I twist my fate
Just to feel you
But you turn me toward the light
And you're one with me
Will you run with me?
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Now come in from this storm
I feel you sweet and warm
Take what you need
Take what you need
From me
Wake up this world
Wake up tonight
And run with me
Run to me now
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
I'll stay with you
it was the night before my first day working at lava java. the date was ("dates were" - as it happened over night between) 4/5/06 and 4/6/06.
did you get the e-mail that was circulating on april 3? people were noting that: at ONE o'clock, TWO minutes, and THREE seconds of that night/the next morning...the precise instant would be: 01:02:03 04/05/06. i got this e-mail twice, and andrea and i had talked about it just before we went to sleep (i slept over at her place that night, and knew i wouldn't be able to sleep well because i had to be at work by 5:15a.m. the next morning). so we hit the hay early - at like 9pm (remember, this was on 4/4).
as i lay in bed, i decided to try and meditate, so that i could relax, and hopefully fall asleep. so i began thinking consciously about two things: (1) a practice i have read about called "clicking the amygdala forward", on a "brain explorers" website. here is an excerpt from this website. the information is really interesting, and VERY significant to the rest of my story...
This is the fourth lesson from Brain Magic by musician and teacher Neil Slade. The book is a one-a-day activity, step by step workbook designed to increase creativity, intelligence, pleasure, and promote access to paranormal abilities.
(from his website):
There are two amygdalae in your brain, one inside the left hemisphere of your brain and one inside the right hemisphere, about one inch inside from the temples midway between your eyes and ears. Point there with your fingers, now. Your brain is in fact divided exactly in half, into two separate although connected right and left halves called hemispheres. Each brain hemisphere gets its own amygdala switch which controls and gives accurate feedback as to how well and how well your brain is working.
These other structures shown here are other internal structures, the brain's "limbic system" (the "mammal brain"), of which the amygdala is part. Additionally, the amygdala is a gateway/switch that turns on the most advanced part of your brain: the frontal lobes.
AMYGDALA CLICKED BACKWARD:
A) Your brain is working poorly and "Life stinks!". Brain energy moves into your brain stem and the small primitive core of your brain- your "reptile brain".
B) Being clicked backward means you are only using a fraction of your potential brain power.
C)When your amygdala is clicked backwards you are primarily computing primitive reptile brain thoughts and behaviors: self-defense and counter attack; fight or flight; basic survival.
D) Being clicked backwards automatically results in negative emotions.
To get things working better (an understatement), and to turn on limitless amounts of creativity, intelligence, and pleasure, you need to click your amygdala forward and turn on "the other 90%" of your brain.
AMYGDALA CLICKED FORWARD:
A) This opens the neuro-pathways in your brain to allow energy to effortlessly flow into the rest of your brain and your magnificent frontal lobes.
B) Your frontal lobes are the entire front 1/3 part of your brain. Hold your forehead. Everything under your entire hand is frontal lobes.
C) Your frontal lobes compute "CICIL": Cooperation-Imagination-Creativity-Intuition-Logic.
D) Clicking forward automatically results in positive "Life is FUN!" emotions. When you control your amygdala and click it forward into your frontal lobes, true Brain Magic happens.
MEMORIZE the paragraphs above. Test yourself by writing down the key ideas on a separate piece of paper- Backward, A, B, C, D; Forward, A, B, C, D.
The brain's advanced electrochemical circuits are controlled with THOUGHT. To click your amygdala forward you don't need any machines, gadgets, pills, nor do you need to sign up for expensive retreats or courses.
Clicking your amygdala forward is like wiggling your finger. Only it happens inside your brain instead of on the end of your arm. Do this: wiggle your right index finger. Easy, isn't it? Okay, wiggle your left big toe. Easy too? Now, locate your amygdala (see chart above). You click it forward using your frontal lobes- IMAGINE that your amygdala is like a click toggle switch- Now "click" the switch forward towards your forehead. There! You did it. It's a thought process that changes how you think, and how your brain works. Click it again. Smile!
okay. so that was the first thing i was thinking of, and trying to do. i kept imagining "clicking my amygdalas forward". ALSO, i was concentrating on a really cool dream i had a few months ago.
in the dream: i was in a swimming pool. the pool was an exact rectangle, divided down the center lengthwise by a perfectly straight line. i was at one end of the pool, my spine perfectly congruous to that center line. and i was head to head - more appropriately, mind to mind, with a DOLPHIN.
his forehead was pressed up against mine, and he began swimming forward, thus pushing me - moving me - backward, down the center of the pool. if the pool had been unzipped, i would have been the zipper, and the dolphin would have been the hand pulling the two halves of the pool together, creating the look of a seamless whole.
in the dream, i explained to a concerned friend who sat on the side of the pool watching, that the dolphin was not acting aggresively. and that what he was actually doing, in essence, was "zipping" together the two seperate hemispheres of my brain, so that i would be able to perceive life and the universe and myself more cohesively; with a unified vision. ironic, because everything about the dream was LOGICAL. all lines were straight, and all movement was along those straight lines. because this is what the human brain strives for - ORDER in his or her world. we want things to make logical sense, so we deal in squares, rectangles, and straight lines. of course, a "line" is only the shortest distance between two points. in this case, the line went from one END of the pool to the OTHER END. of course, we know that in the true physical and metaphysical state of the universe, there are no lines that actually "begin" or "end". they are all actually circles, that connect, and rotate eternally into deeper and deeper cycles. SO - this was the second dream i have had, in which whales and dolphins were present to show me - in a way that would make sense to my still-human mind - that there IS a GREATER ORDER to life, and that mom's ascension was NOT her "end", but rather, her birth into a deeper cycle of existence. and i had both of these dreams after falling asleep to desperate pleas to God for any of this - about mom's illness and passing - to make "SENSE" somehow.
okay - so now back to me, lying in bed, thinking about these things, and attempting to meditate on them. attempting to let that dolphin blend the division line in my logical brain, which divides life into beginnings and endings, into one seamless whole. and as i tried to BE in that place, with the dolphin's forehead pressed to mine, and as i was gently moved backward, i tried to consciously CLICK MY AMYGDALAS FORWARD. lastly, i asked mom to come through and let me know she was with me. i specifically "requested" a signal with some electronic connection - like a light turning on by itself, the fan starting up without the switch being flipped...or the phone. something with my phone. that would be good.
keep in mind, it was still very early, because both andrea and i had to be up before the crack of dawn. so i'm lying there, thinking i am awake, when suddenly, i awaken to find that i had actually fallen "asleep". but it wasn't "real" sleep. it was the very relaxed, meditative state of alpha consciousness. this is the state we fall into when we're taking one of those drowsy naps on the couch in the middle of the day, and we don't even realize we've been dozing until we wake up from our daze! it also happens to be the state of consciousness that dolphins EXIST in when they are resting. because they must surface to breathe, they cannot truly sleep. so essentially, they meditate. they SHUT DOWN ONE HALF OF THEIR BRAINS(perhaps, "click one amydala forward, and one backward, into the 'off position'?); and all of their systems slow way down. their metabolism, heartbeat, everything. this way they only have to breathe every once in a while, so as not to be interrupted during rest. kind of like a REAL POWER NAP!
so...i'm lying on the bed, tossing and turning. andrea wakes up and finds me kneeling on the floor, "sleeping" on my knees, and picks me up, and puts me back in the bed; then she wants to trade me places in the bed, because she says i am practically hanging off the edge of the bed, which i am. THEN MY PHONE RINGS.
i say to andrea, "i'd better answer that, because at this time of night, it's gotta be important. i mean, it's ONE a.m. here, which means it is already THREE a.m. in washington, and FOUR a.m. in colorado (figuring one of those would be the only logical place from which i might be getting this middle-of-the-night call.
so i answer. and i hear a conversation on the other end. i don't say anything, but i am LISTENING...to a conversation between YOU AND NAN on the line! i get the message coming through from mom - that she and nan, aunty karen, their mother...they're all still here, and we can talk to them. and we can USE THE PHONE sometimes to do it - just not in the way our logical minds would have us believe. remember, dad, when you had that "dream" that you were talking to nan on the phone (shortly after she died), and she sounded really happy...well, she sounded happy in this "dream" too. SO THEN I WAKE UP; never realizing or knowing that i had even fallen asleep.
i reach down and pick up my phone, and look at its screen for the first of three times i would end up looking at it that night - each time holding major significance. on the phone clock, the time read 12:01 a.m. i spent several minutes wondering why it wasn't 1:00 a.m. that would make much more sense, and be a much more brilliant point, because in the dream - i thought to myself - i noted that it was 3 in washington and 4 in denver. but then it hit me like a ton of bricks: it WASN'T 1 in the dream, it WAS ACTUALLY 12:00 - BECAUSE WE DIDN'T JUST RECENTLY SET OUR CLOCKS FORWARD, like everyone else did!!! we don't do that here!! oh my god...
so, in other words, i woke up from a dream i didn't know i was having, in which i heard you and nan talking on the other end of the line of my phone...at the PRECISE moment (or one moment later) than my phone had rung in that "dream". are you following me? 'cause there's more. a lot more...
it dawned on me. it was 12:01 a.m. - the clock had - one minute earlier - rolled over to bring forth the next new day: 04/05/06.
i fell back asleep, dazzled by what had just happened. the next time i woke up, i immediately picked up my phone again, expecting nothing less than something way too trippy and synchronistic to be either real or unreal. it was 12:46 a.m.
hmmmm, couldn't think of any significance there. but i knew at that point that i HAD to get up and write all of this down. i couldn't risk forgetting it.
trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake andrea, i tip-toed over to the one place i knew - even in the dark - had something i could write on. it was the 8x10 white envelope that my photo prints were in, and i had set it right there on that chair before i went to bed.
i took the envelope, and a pen from the table that i found by feeling around, and crept into andrea's closet, where i turned on the light, and feverishly started scribbling about the midnight "phone call" from the Other Side. the receipt from my picture order was still stuck, with tape, to the envelope. you know, that's how they do it at costco, so that they can see that you've paid for your merchandise before you leave the store. what jumps out at me? the TIME that my order was picked up:
12:46 p.m. !!!
i laid back down, drifted off for a few minutes, then got up and looked at my phone for the third and final time that night/middle-of-night/morning. it was 1:02 a.m.
not only was this the time i thought it would have had to have been (and would have, had we set our clocks forward like everyone else in the country), in my dream. but also, it was the precise moment (well, exactly 12 hours later) that i had both read about and spoken about only hours ago, for its "numerical significance": 01:02:(03) 04/05/06.
when i fell back into bed, under a moon i noticed was EXACTLY HALF of its full size (like each of our brain hemispheres), my mind wouldn't stop racing. i started thinking in numbers, and although it is virtually impossible to explain it here, i will say this: what "everything" came down to - at the conclusion of every "equation" - were the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, (and less often, but still prominently), 4 and 5.
(seperating each number, for instance, the number 12 into 1 and 2, and so on)...
my birthday: 1.2.2.3
tina's birthday: 0.3.2.0
shelly's birthday: 0.2.0.3
aunty karen's REBIRTHday: 1.2.2.0.0.1
mom's REBIRTHday: 1.2.3.1.0.4
amma's REBIRTHDAY: 1.2.3.1
(i might add that in the mayans' calculations, december 21, 2012 - the winter solstice of that year - 1.2.2.1.1.2 - is going to be not the "end" of the world - but the REBIRTH of the world; the kind of POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION that mom believed so deeply and truly was coming).
aidan's birthday: 0.3.2.4
gavin's birthday: 0.5.1.2 (also mother's day the year he was born...and, a side note, recall that last year, father's day and mom's birthday both fell on the same day) ----------
alena's birthday: 0.5.3.1
papa's birthday: 1.2.1.4
and so on...............
stay with me here. i'm going to go backwards for a minute...
two days before this one, i had come home to find a note at the top of the stairs for me in star's handwriting. it said, "liz - dentist appointment tomorrow - 8:00 a.m." HUH? what could that be about? although i had THOUGHT a whole lot about needing to go to the dentist - and every time, thinking about it stemmed from mom's (and yours, dad) continual INSISTENCE on our good dental health, and our needing to have regular dentist visits - but i had NOT made an appointment with anyone! i hadn't called any clinics, i hadn't spoken with any receptionists...i had NOT made that dentist appointment!
star and i puzzled over it. she said she answered the call, and the woman on the other end said she was calling to "remind elizabeth about her dentist appointment tomorrow morning". star said, "my name is elizabeth, but i don't have any appointment scheduled". and the woman said, "no, this is for elizabeth kover, not elizabeth star".
the more i think about this, the weirder it gets. and the more i question...WHO ON EARTH could have made that appointment? maybe it was not someone on earth. maybe it was MOM!!?? what other explanation could there be?!
* * *
earlier in the day (back to the day before i started work at lava java - the day i was supposed to have my mystery dental appointment - which i would have gone to had there been any information given about WHAT "CLINIC" to go to!), i had gone to starbuck's for an afternoon coffee. i usually never went in the afternoon, only in the morning on my way to work at the fair wind. i knew this would likely be my last time coming in there too, as the following day, i would start my job at a different coffee shop. i had been really bummed and blue that whole day. when i went to the counter at starbuck's, this young girl - probably in high school - served me. i always saw this girl in the morning, and always noticed that she looked very unhappy. she had never spoken more words to me than "may i help you", and i really thought she might not like me for some reason. but here we were, in the afternoon (closer to her getting off work time, i presumed). she actually smiled, which i swear, i had never seen her do. and she started talking to me, bubbly and bright as could be. she said, "i love your hair! i always say to myself, 'i want to do my hair just like hers!'...and i always wonder what you're doing, where you're on your way to...always alone...and i think of you as the 'workout queen'..........
compliment after compliment, and she was really sweet, and i was glad to see her happier than usual. she explained (without my asking) that she was always grumpy in the morning, and never felt like talking then. i told her it was nice to meet her. and on my way out the door, turned and asked, "what's your name"?...........JENNY (with a "y", i asked). still, the girl's name was JENNy.
also interesting to note: in the past two days, i had had two women introduce themselves to me from behind coffee counters. the first was KAREN (she works at lava java, i met her a few days before starting there myself); the second was JENNy.
anyway...when i left starbucks, i got in my car and pulled up at a stoplight behind a car whose licence plate said "GJV-123". i always look for letter combinations like that - with G's and J's, GV's, etc., and accept them as signs from mom.
* * *
coming back to the "future", it was finally time to get up and start my new job, after a restless and bizarre night of only half-sleep. i arrived at 5:15 a.m., and met the girl who would show me the ropes. her name was paige. after conversing for maybe two or three minutes, sharing the basic "how long have you been in hawaii", and "where did you work before this", questions and answers, i said to her, "this may be a strange question, but just out of "curiosity", when is your birthday?
"december 14th", she said...papa's birthday. i had written it down on the envelope in the middle of the night.
* * *
i took all of this to be a grand message from mom about the ORDER that is inherent in life, even though we are usually pretty much blind to it. just as they say now that physics and metaphysics are one in the same study; i think the nitty gritty numerical formulas that essentially bring us "pi", "negative numbers", "imaginary numbers", lines and rays. meaning, these are "technical" mathematical terms, used to build the complex equations that are inherent in every aspect of the physical world. but think about what these things mean. for example, a "LINE": in math, we think of a line as having two end points; but beyond those "end" points, the line EXTENDS FOREVER IN BOTH DIRECTIONS (until it bends and eventually becomes spherical - since we are in a closed physical system in our universe). and a ray: we may think of a ray as a "straight" line that begins at a certain point and extends forever in one direction. look how paradoxical, though, and analogous to physical DEATH actually being the ultimate (metaphysical) BIRTH: the point where the ray BEGINS is known as its ENDPOINT.
i believe that when our human minds become more like dolphins', and we are thus better able to comprehend the complete, perfect, and absolute UNITY of the PHYSICAL and NON-PHYSICAL elements of the universe, we will be better able to communicate with our beloved ones who have transformed and risen to the higher planes of existence.
another analogy: when we "feel" communication with our hearts, rather than trying so hard to legitimize it in our minds, then we will be able to "get" it.
peter gabriel (birthday 2.1.3) sums up what i am trying to say beautifully in his song, "more than this", which came into my head that strange night of the numbers and brain fusing:
i woke up and the world outside was dark
all so quiet before the dawn
opened up the door and walked outside
the ground was cold
i walked until i couldn't walk anymore
to a place i'd never been
there was something stirring in the air
in front of me, i could see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i stand feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
it started when i saw the ship go down
i saw them struggle in the sea
and suddenly the picture disappears
in front of me
now we're busy making all our busy plans
on foundations built to last
but nothing fades as fast as the future
and nothing clings like the past,
until we can see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something out there
more than this it's coming through
and more than this
i stand alone and so connected
and I'm all there right next to you
oh then it's alright
when with every day
another bit falls away
oh but it's still alright, alright, alright
and like words together
we can make some sense
much more than this
way beyond imagination
much more than this
beyond the stars
with my head so full
so full of fractured pictures
and i'm all there right next to you
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i'm alone feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
more than this
more than this
more than this
* * *
a few nights later, i had another "dream". it took place in the garage of our house on foothill drive. dad, you and mom were getting ready to "leave". i don't know where you were going, but you were off to someplace else. you both started out the open garage door; and i called you back. i wanted to give you both a huge, long hug. because - i remember thinking - you never know when it might be your last one in this world. that dream reminded me to cherish every minute i have with my dear family and friends, and to tell them/you how much i love you every time i am blessed with the chance. so...I LOVE YOU!
* * *
last night...i was in the house, downstairs, in front of the t.v. i had all of my photo "stuff" - poster board, glue, tape, photos, mattes, pens, scissors, paper cutter, exact-o knife, etc., spread out all over the floor. i had to work on the floor, there was no room elsewhere for such a spread. but i was nervous - kind of paranoid, actually - because i had seen (either) two CENTIPEDES, (or one centipede, two different times), on that floor recently. both times, i had been (thank god, not on the floor) sitting in a chair facing the t.v. and from out of the corner of my left eye, had seen the poisonous creepy crawly beast, creeping and crawling across the carpet. needless to say, i was HORRIFIED. it didn't help matters that star then encouraged me to check inside all of my shoes - and my bed covers (!) - before getting in them!
but sitting there among all of my art supplies, looking anxiously over my shoulder every two minutes for some monstrous creature, i decided that i couldn't live like that. i figured i had better somehow make "peace" with the centipede civilization, if we were going to be sharing a living space. so i looked up some of the spiritual and mythological symbolism of the centipede in various cultures and/or religions. what i found was interesting, and i of course related it to mom, life and death, logic vs. abstract thought, and FEAR. here are a couple of the excerpts i found:
Most of us have heard the story of the centipede who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, could no longer do so, but tangled his legs hopelessly in the attempt to intellectually figure it out and ended up on his back, helpless. This is not unlike the person who attempts to plumb the depths of oriental scriptures. Right away it becomes evident that they consist of incalculable layers, nearly all symbolic in nature. Furthermore, the meanings of the symbols are not consistent, changing according to the levels on which they occur. For example, on one level water symbolizes the mind, on another level the constant flux of samsara, and on another the subtle life-currents known as prana. This being the case, our Western linear mode of thought becomes as entangled and disabled as the fabled centipede. (from the Bhavagad Gita)
Snakes are respected and were regarded as transitory figures. The snake was a powerful force of transitional spiritual energy. Like centipedes, snakes could encourage the growth or transition of individuals from one stage of being to another. As lightning symbols, the sky serpent brought change in weather. Snakes were present near springs and rivers and used in rituals that maintained the vitality of water sources. (from information derived from 4,000 year old petroglyphs in the southwestern united states).
tonight...i stopped at starbucks again for an evening coffee, a sunset, and to read from the latest john edward book i've started reading, called "AFTER LIFE". as often happens when i am reading his books or watching his show, i feel affirmed and validated in my own connective, communicative exchanges with mom. there is always a part of me - the "logical" part - that brushes these experiences off as works of my imagination, or creations of my unconscious or subconscious mind - so desperately searching for signs of her continued existence and presence. but because i am a logical and intelligent person, i am objective and skeptical enough to be very careful about what i believe is "real". and sometimes...many times...the messages i receive from mom - at the precise moments i receive them - are too "synchronistic" and meaningful to deny.
yesterday at work, the SECOND following one of my "little requests upward" to hear from mom, i went into the office to find my paycheck. it wasn't there, but the first envelope i did see was one addressed to:
JENNIE ROSE (yes, jennie with an "ie" - this is rare). and my middle name, rose!
john edward says, "what would you do if someone you loved all of a sudden didn't speak or understand english anymore, but only could speak some bizarre foreign language?...of course, you would learn that language." he also talks about how spirits use symbols, references, and vehicles that we, still here in human form and working within the great limitations of human perception, can comprehend, and which we will recognize, and with which we can connect...so often, i will hear a song on the radio JUST as i am asking for this connective validation from mom. and usually, they are either songs that were very important to mom, favorites of hers, songs and/or artists we shared a love for...or songs whose lyrics, not only describe what her words to me might be, but simultaneously, what my words to her are. it's hard to explain; though john edward confirms this as something he knows to be true also.
...this evening, as i was driving home from starbucks, thinking about mom, john edward, and the complete mystery and wonder of it all, the following song came on the radio. i will leave you with its lyrics - and the message that - i believe - came so clearly from mom, to all of us, through its words.
STAY WITH YOU
by the Goo Goo Dolls
These streets
Turn me inside out
Everything shines
But leaves me empty still
And I'll burn this lonely house down
If you run with me
If you run with me
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Fooled by my own desires
I twist my fate
Just to feel you
But you turn me toward the light
And you're one with me
Will you run with me?
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Now come in from this storm
I feel you sweet and warm
Take what you need
Take what you need
From me
Wake up this world
Wake up tonight
And run with me
Run to me now
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
I'll stay with you
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