The Past Portal Pothole

The Past Portal Pothole is a spot in the time-space continuum where one can step into a corroded mental image and plunge into feelings of ruination. Hurled into this black hole, gravity grows heavier and heavier until one implodes into self-referenced despair and feelings of annhilitation.

This mistep into the portal of past time could be avoided with mindful awareness. But as with a riptide in the ocean after a hurricane, struggling against it courts diaster. In order to survive a descent into the dark portal of despair, relaxation holds the key to survival. Allowing oneself to flow with the momentum, its energy will abate and suddenly the outer reaches of the pothole come into view and one is flung into the open air of sunlight.

Watch the movie called "My Life" and know that for every Past Portal Pothole, there is a beginning, an end, and a new beginning.

 

 

Dick Cheney, War Criminal

With the public revelation of systematic torture by the C.I.A., a policy engineered by the Bush administration, something we already knew appeared in black and white (as in printed documents). Although George Junior has remained characteristically nonverbal, Dick, on the otherhand, has publically expressed no regrets.

This outright confession warms my heart. Theoretically, it means that he can be prosecuted for wanton violation of the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - among other international laws pertaining to the humane treatment of prisoners.

Dick, in all senses of the word, had waxed rhapsodic about the new ticker that renewed his lease on life. No longer would he gasp his way through the woods toting his shotgun to take down a deer or duck or a friend. Oh joy!

It remains a total mystery that a man who can appreciate the heartache of sickness and the joy of good health and freedom NOT understand that others might want that too. Even more puzzling is that interrogators have substantially more successful outcomes when they befriend a prisoner. Torture apparently is a less effective method.

How about a national movement to indite the Dick so that he can spend the rest of his life behind bars enjoying his nice new heart?

Old Haunts

The Los Angeles suburb in which I rest my bones was envisaged in the early 1980's by developers of wealth and endless access to mega-bank loans. Spacious homes on square patches of lawn sprang up, and the American dream appeared almost overnight: a squeaky clean neighborhood with towheaded kids, SUV's, and pets galore; a vision realized by the lucky few of mostly caucasion persuasion.

The fickle hand of fate swept my favorite cousin into a nest right in the town where I grew up - a New York City suburb. Contrary to my west coast environs, almost nothing has changed in Mamaroneck, named for Chief Mamaroneck shortly after the white settlers obliterated him and his kind to live by this sheltered harbor of the Atlantic.

The same Miller's Toy Store, the same Strauch jewelry store, the same Mercurio's Italian deli to name but a few. These hangers on were landmarks of my childhood, fascinating the five year old who turned into the ten year old who turned into a 17 year old who left for college and never looked back.

And now for the strange part of this tale. No nostalgia gripped my soul, no longing to remeet the lovers and friends of yesteryear. I came back here wanting to feel something alive about my past but the memories had no charge, positive or negative. Actually, the positive experience was that my brain tissue was capable of calling up so much detail about the childhood haunts.

Then I reflected: this pilgrimage to the place of my youth held no energetic resonance. The girl that grew up here is not the same person anymore, nor will she even exist on the planet in 50 years. The only place I ever thrilled to was a monastery on a mountain top in Bhutan where a 14th century sage wrote down his wisdom in 26 volumes, to be handed down through the ages.

Blood ties bind us together in genetically programmed tribal nuances. Connections of spirit, energy, consciousness are our true heritage. And I suppose that the lucky ones find it right on their doorstep.


 



 

Who Is Looking Through Your Eyes?

When one has no destination, everywhere and anywhere is cool. Although this might seem like the plight of a homeless person or a lost soul, it can also be the mindset of complete and utter freedom.

"No destination" does not mean that a directional position cannot exist. You can take a plane from Los Angeles to Kathmandu, or New York to Cairo, and drop into an entirely different universe with a distinct mission to accomplish. But, in the words of St. Francis, "What you are looking for is looking out of your eyes."

The constancy of conscious awareness knows no place or time. The normal disruptions of the ego mind simply become moving dreams with ever-varying plots that have the same underlying theme - life itself.

Patience, equanimity, appreciation, mindfulness and acceptance are some of the rewards for simply being aware of awareness itself. In that mode, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, yet it is the opposite of boredom. In this dance through life, every moment has a freshness, a presence, a vivid experience of nowness.

The Suitcase

Over the course of several decades, my placid husband routinely morphed into a growling bear when he had to lift my suitcase into or out from a car, train, bus, or baggage carousel. He simply didn't understand the concept that a woman might want to have a choice of outfits in a foreign location, since he felt perfectly fine throwing a few shirts and pairs of pants into his smaller and lighter bag. Accepting most of my behaviors with grace, he had the one flaw of refusing to embrace my penchant for overpacking.

I, on the other hand, would grow petulant that he continued to make a sour face year after year as he heaved said luggage about, occasionally with distinct distain.

Fast forward to my favorite topic, the news. If anyone has seen footage of millions of refugees streaming over desert landscapes, mountain passes, or winding their way through jungles - at best with a suitcase in hand but more often with the clothes on their back - one comes to appreciate the insanity of overabundance. 

What would you bring if you had to leave your home postehaste, perhaps never to return?

The All-Powerful

Various regions of the USA have distinctly different cultures, reflected in their architecture, regional accents, food, religions, and political views. (There is a reason why the map of the United States, now mostly all red, has been renamed "Dumbfuckistan" with all its tribal factions.)

When planning a trip to the Boston area to visit family, it never dawned on me that I was venturing into an entirely different milieu than Southern California until the ride from the airport to a lovely New England town.

Hundred-plus year old colonial houses lined the quaint suburb, and in a pre-Revolutionary War tradition, a single light in every window. In the olden days, these must have been candles in every window, perhaps to scare off the devil or provide a welcoming light to wayfarers. In 2014, they are little electric lights (hopefully LED) that have more than likely lost their original meaning but provide a stunningly peaceful ambiance.

A nippy walk through the winding roads of a seaside town provided this visitor the feeling of being a tourist in an enchanting land. Although I had been here before visiting family, the uniquely different atmosphere from the lower west coast gave me renewed joy.

Later in the evening when the little ones and the adults had turned in, the night owl was still hooting and hollering that she wanted to absorb still more of awake time. With no one to stop me, CNN was the station of choice.

As I watched CNN, lying on a couch with my feet propped up on pillows, the charm of a new culture fell away and I might as well have been in my SoCal living room -- the ubiquitous couch and television news amalgamized anything unique or beautiful into one world of similarity. Not Oneness, not global consciousness, but a bland pablum eaten by everyone with a TV and antennae.

Pick your poison. It might as well have been Fox News or some other local TV station drivel. In the meantime, the only solution, at least in my universe, is to download the golden light so that if we are to be "one," we are One.

The End of the Line

My husband departed from the physical mid-2014. Five months later it dawned on me that preparing tax information for our stellar accountant would fall to me and me alone. Although bill paying and life-maintenance tasks were shared in our household, Michael was the Commander-in-Chief when it came to organizing our finances for the IRS to peruse. 

Mundane tasks have been difficult to complete since his passing (and before that too), so I decided to start in early lest the multifaceted details of our life fall into oblivion if things were rushed at the end time - April 15, 2015. My first resolve was to begin a new habit of recording written checks in the checkbook, as he did so meticulously. I always relied on mental calculations and online banking to guess our bank balance but now his motto - always to have a paper copy - haunted me. The need for tangible evidence in the face of death's intangibility?

By sheer happenstance I came upon his most recent checkbook today, which had been mixed in with other ones old and new. It was positively thrilling to discover that it started with January 1, 2014. I thumbed through the pages looking for tax-relevant information with bittersweet nostalgia: his handwriting, his reliable accuracy, his patience in attending to the drudgery of detail. 

And then I came to May 20, 2014. The entries stopped abruptly and then blank pages followed, one upon the other. May 20th was the day the doctor called us to deliver the news. Stage four cancer: incurable, rampant throughout his body, ravaging almost every sector of the physical.

Michael had been lucid and able to get around for another three-four weeks after this date when his checkbook entries ceased to be. Why, I wonder, did he stop the day he learned his fate?

Perhaps he realized something precious - that the dead would have no need for checkbooks or bank accounts. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, he knew he wasn't taking his material world with him. Perhaps he didn't want to waste one iota of his ebbing time on earth for what would soon be past. Perhaps he poured his entire will into the forward trajectory of his entrance into the next world.

Sweet Michael, you were so wise.