The Tree of Life

I don’t often see the “tree of life” symbol like the one etched into the cover of the Dream Book that Shakti Malan gave to Tiffany Stone, shown above. (See article, "Are you paying attention to your dreams?") That symbol was the first “hallucinated” image I saw while on a spiritual quest 30 years ago when I was still an atheist, and for most of those years it was the only one.

An older girlfriend who, years before, had an amazing Oneness experience with a tree while on LSD, told me the story and wanted me to have a similar experience. She looked for some LSD and couldn’t find any, but was able to find some pharmaceutical-grade MDMA (ecstasy) for me, and had me fast for a day before taking it, then be with close friends who knew what I was doing and why, and have them drive me if there was anywhere to go.

As I was riding in the car with them, the image of a full tree -- with roots rising up to nearly meet the leaves, enclosed in a perfect circle -- appeared before me long enough for me to get a good look, then disappeared. That image made a lasting impression on me, and the Oneness it conveys gave me insights into consciousness that finally bore fruit for me 4 years ago.

We can more safely access the unconscious through our dreams, meditations and hypnotherapy though, and even the world before us when we think we are awake is really a hallucination of duality -- "the knowledge of good and evil". As we view that which appears to be an external world, we are really looking at the intolerable or inadmissible within. Our very bodies are a mental projection.

The symbol itself reveals the unseen subconscious mind constantly giving life to visible reality. "By their fruits you will know them."

As we bring our subconscious mind up to our conscious awareness for inspection and forgiveness, may we be blessed. And we are blessed!

Soft the Evening

The quiet rain that passed is quite past now The hour is coming soon for me to sleep I linger longer in my dinghy's bow to hear the nearby birds that softly cheep Then wander through the woods and wonder how the fireflies play their games of hide and seek.

This Was No Accident

One year ago today, my new car got T-boned by a guy fleeing the scene where he had stabbed the mother of his child multiple times. (I was not injured, but my car was totaled.) I could have been very disturbed by this, but having recently completed A Course In Miracles, I remained calm and peaceful, and ended up getting a nicer, cheaper car.

There were strange synchronicities associated with the event -- like the night before I was inspired to pull out an Elton John CD to listen to the song Nakita, about a Russian girl, and the guy who hit-and-ran my car was named Nikita. Also the night before I shared on Facebook an upbeat spiritual dance-music video by a black man with dread-locked hair, and the guy who hit my car was a black man with dreadlocks. The newspaper report showed a photo of a white witness to the stabbing who also wore his hair in dreadlocks.

While I was still at the hit-and-run site, a white girl named Chasity from work stopped to check on me, and it turned out that the black girl who was stabbed was named Chassidy. (She survived the attack.) It all seemed like a bizarre psychic blending of genders and races and spiritual energies, with everyone being equal and innocent and related.

I am interested to know on the other side what this was all about! Obviously I agreed on a higher level to participate in this stage play. Maybe just to slow the guy down so he would be caught later on miles away.

Today a friend posted the following quote from Tina Louise Spalding's book, Love and A Map to the Unaltered Soul - "It is very difficult on the fearful, egoic mind to appreciate the potential in what seems like a difficult situation, but once you apply loves principles which are forgiveness and staying present and keeping out of the fearful future scenarios that the ego consciousness wants to elaborate on, you can acquire benefits and rewards beyond your limited ideas and understandings at this time." (Mary Magdalene.) When I read this was when I realized today had been a year from this "accident".

Chicago Skyline Proves What?!

Most people who have seen arguments attempting to demonstrate that the earth is flat, have seen the famous photo taken of the Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan from Grand Mere State Park, taken by Joshua Nowicki, a professional photographer. The photo was aired on the news, and the reporter made the unfortunate blunder of saying it was unusual to be able to see the skyline across the lake, and that it was only possible on this day due to the cold weather producing a "superior mirage".

The unfortunate myth that has developed is that – since the curvature of the earth is 8” times the mileage (about 60 miles) squared, any of the skyline lower than 2,400 feet would not be visible, and since Willis Tower is only 1,450 feet tall, it would be 950 feet below the horizon. Since the photos show the skyline, this is supposed to prove the earth is flat.

This would be true only if the camera was held down at lake level, and there was no atmosphere. Even if this simplistic calculation was correct, the fact that you can’t see the shoreline and trees all around the lake should be proof enough that the world is not flat. By itself this doesn't tell us how large of a sphere we are dealing with, but it does prove that the surface of Lake Michigan is not flat.

I won't bore you with my detailed calculations, but the top portion of the Chicago skyline on clear days can be easily seen across Lake Michigan from the 53-, 56- and 61-mile locations from which Joshua took the followings videos (below), as long as you are atop the dunes 240 and 183 feet above lake level, or on the roof of the 10-story building on a bluff, respectively.

Besides the high observation points, refraction is another factor making the skyline visible. Atmospheric refraction is the reason why the sun can be seen for about two minutes before sunrise and after sunset. You probably recall times when you’ve seen the sun distorted when it’s at or near the horizon, for the same reasons the Chicago skyline is distorted in these videos.

My calculations take into account both the curvature of the earth and atmospheric refraction. I started my career way back in 1981 as an instrument man for a power- and pipe-line land surveying crew, and we had to calculate these things to carry our elevations properly over long distances. (I still have a machete scar on my shin as evidence, and I can tell you tall Texas tales of poisonous snakes, and what it feels like to get mosquito bites on your sun-burned poison ivy.) Message me if you would not be bored by the calculations.

You can see "looming" (severe refraction) and both inferior and superior mirages (upside down reflections) in these videos, taken in the days immediately following the airing of the infamous photo.

If the earth was really flat, you should be able to see the ground and trees and the bases of all the buildings in Chicago from the lake shore even further away. The mirages would be awesome! On especially clear days, you might even see mirages of the Rocky Mountains dancing far beyond the city!

From Tower Hill in Warren Dunes State Park: https://youtu.be/mAWAHAEvAzc

From Baldtop in Grand Mere State Park: https://youtu.be/FTFEu-Tod7s

From the Whitcomb Tower on a bluff in St. Cloud, MI: https://youtu.be/-_du4A37Pjo

Ubuntu Contributionism in Australia

While on the east coast of Australia, in the Byron Bay area, I had a chance to visit with my new friend Liam, who ran for state senate in his district under the Ubuntu banner. We were able to spend parts of 4 days together! We swam in a river, went to a film festival with several of his friends, volunteered at an organic farm community, and met with an activist attorney who is working with him to start an Ubuntu community on indigenous land, with mostly indigenous people, at least to start.

His necklace in this photo is a puma tooth he got several years ago in Peru, where he had a life-altering experience assisted by a shaman. Ever since, he is very aware of the oneness of All That Is, and also when his ego is kicking in to block that awareness.

Liam feels that the One Small Town concept (see www.onesmalltown.org) will not work in Australia, and so he is taking a more grassroots approach. He participates in a small organic farming community and enters into discussions with whoever he can engage in the idea of Ubuntu Contributionism. He even recently started a conversation with the mayor of Brunswick Heads, one of the two towns in which we met.

Right next to another of the two towns, Mullumbimby, is an odd-shaped mountain peak. As soon as I saw it I thought there must be a pyramid buried under there. And the local indigenous people say there is. And there is another one very similar in size and shape a few miles away. Halfway between them, according to one of Liam's friends, is an ancient stone circle with a giant egg-shaped stone in the center. This stone circle is apparently at a leyline intersection, and is said by the indigenous people to be a mother portal.

On my way to South Africa, I took a long enough layover in Perth to briefly visit with the head of the Ubuntu movement in Australia, Branwen Morgan. We had a great conversation and it will be easier to continue the dialogue now that we have met in person. She is interested in having periodic online meetings with any Ubuntu people from around the world as are also interested.

Branwen has gotten as many as 20 people coming to meetings in Perth (when she lived there, which was until recently) to find out more about Ubuntu Contributionism. She gave me several copies of the professionally printed tri-fold brochures she created to introduce people to Ubuntu.

Although they have been working towards organizing as a political party, she indicated that she and her core team of about 5 or 6 may consider organizing as a nonpartisan qualifier and endorser of independent or party-member candidates if they feel they would gain a wider audience thereby.

Despite Australia having a small population spread over a large area, there is a feeling that a core group is developing that can hold the space until such a time that everyone feels the need to move toward a world free of the scarcity principle inherent in any financial or barter/trade system.

Resurrection, and Little Red Foxes

I am here on my devotional stay at beautiful, peaceful, Wilbetree estate in Mudgee, New South Wales—currently serving as the Living Miracles Center in Australia.

 

A few mornings ago we discovered that a male mega-bat of the species known as the Little Red Flying Fox (it’s a little smaller than the other three species of mega-bat) had gotten hopelessly caught in a barbed wire fence in the night, apparently struggled fiercely to get untangled—bloodying his mouth and chest in the process—and had died some time before we happened across his ugly, mangled, lifeless body.

Of course, this was an amazing spectacle for me, having never seen anything so horrific, and so I had to take photos. Later, I was tasked with taking the little upside-down devil down from the cross, er, I mean the barbed wires. This was no easy task, as the black, leathery wings had gotten tightly wrenched onto the barbs. This gave me awhile to deeply engage with the thought of the creature’s certain suffering as it wrestled with the fence wires before succumbing to its fate in weariness.

I kept reminding myself that this is all a hallucination, that I am not a body, and so the bat was not its body either. As I tossed the body out into the field behind the barn to be food for fowls and maggots, I felt that this was the end of the whole incident, and I went on with my day; and the next. And the next.

I thought the whole thing was behind me until last night in the dark I woke up with this image of suffering on my mind. I wanted to do something to fix the problem, to prevent this from ever happening again. I wanted to blame the owner of the property for putting the fence there, or for not putting something on the wires that the bats (which are an endangered species) can see. (They are not the type of bat that uses sonar.) But I knew that seeing it as a problem “out there” to be fixed is a misdiagnosis, that there is another way I needed to look at the problem to get to its source. I am learning to not suppress feelings that come up, so I allowed myself to feel the suffering, knowing that at some point I would be able to turn these feelings over to the Holy Spirit to resolve for me.

This morning—Day 6 of the Course In Miracles Workbook lessons—the lesson was “I am upset because I see something that is not there.” This only made me more upset! If it wasn’t really there, why was I still upset, and why could I not make the image go away? I discussed it with Geoff, my assigned “link” or “buddy” during my stay here. Our conversation made it clear that, for my mind, this image was the perfect symbol of suffering and crucifixion! Here I am in Australia, where everything already seems upside down and backwards to me, and here is this ugly, bloody body hanging upside down with black leather wings stretched out, nailed in mid-air; a creature of the night which, despite being vegetarian (so was Hitler!), represents the epitome of fear and attack in my mind.

I decided to go out to the “Levels of Mind Labyrinth”, which is a short walk down the hill from the barn, to process this perception.

The circles of rocks that form the “labyrinth” had only been placed recently, but had already been knocked about, probably either by kangaroos or by Sue’s horse Max.

I spent a few minutes straightening out the rocks, meanwhile glancing around for the Levels of Mind chart and Instrument for Peace worksheet that Sue had told me was somewhere nearby in a plastic bag. The instant I finished restoring the last rock circle, I found the bag, and sat on the old, upside-down bathtub placed near the labyrinth for that purpose, going through the levels in my mind of this image.

My Perception was of an ugly, suffering, bloodied, mangled, crucified-upside-down, foxlike bat. My Emotions behind this image were of sadness and helplessness, as if the image were real, and guilt, due to the realization I am the one who made this false image. My Thoughts behind those emotions were of death and pain, the futility and struggle of life, and my responsibility for having put myself here. My Beliefs behind those thoughts were that I myself stand accused of the death of this innocent animal, and that I too must suffer and die.

The last query on the worksheet is “What I wanted and expected is for … “. I think the desire that led to these emotions and images of suffering stemmed from some wrong desire, but I didn’t bother myself with that—I realized that my true Desire has always been for peace of mind and eternal life. The instant I was in touch with that desire, I looked up and saw a red fox eating in the field nearby. Immediately I recognized this as a gift from the Holy Spirit, to replace the image given to me by ego.

Sure enough, I watched it for a while and it started heading in my general direction. There was a huge gum tree in the fence line between us, and as the fox started sauntering up the trail toward me, I got out my camera and approached it from behind the tree. It got very close and stopped with its head in a spot of sunlight. I snapped a photo and it looked up and saw me, then turned and loped away, but only a stone’s throw distance.

It found other things to eat in the tall dry grass, then wandered off past the pond (called a dam here). It saw me move so it loped around the pond and into some trees. I waited a minute to see if it would come out the other side of the trees, but it did not so I walked down there in time to see it walk through another field and toward another pond, sauntering calmly and finding little things to eat along the way. It seemed so free!

Later, Sue told me it is very rare to see foxes during the heat of the day; that they are usually only out in the early morning or at dusk. But this was a special occasion I know was arranged by the Holy Spirit to replace that horrid image in my mind with one of a “real”, living, daytime fox!

They had told me the purpose of everything we do here is for our own healing. I didn't even know I was in need of any healing, but I think now I have an inkling what they mean. When I came back up to my room, I sat for a long time, looking at the photo of the fox, overcome by joy and gratitude for this miraculous event.