Living Uncertain from the Certainty of My Gurus

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My experiences in life are no better nor worse nor more profound than any one else's. I am sharing this to show how I worked through it all. My body of work, unlike people I so admire like Wade Frazier, is the peeling off of one life and choosing another. There is no rightness or wrongness about how anyone does this. There is only different.

I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of god whether or not he actually existed or not. I just don't believe he was the only son of god. I believe deeply in god; I just feel the one thing I do know for certain is that god is not encompassed by any theology we now have. I generally think of God and the Universe encompassing everything. I say thank you alot and it seems to be very effective.

So with saying all that, what I think I most have to offer is the beauty of getting old is the ability to look back. Looking back does not mean dragging resentment; it means redeeming with understanding. As Kirkengaard said life is lived forward but is understood by looking back. Or as the Oracle of the Matrix says: You have already made your choices now you are learning why you made your choices. The Frenchman then follows up with it is only when you have the answer to why do you have any power. Choice without why is powerless.

I will tell you what happened and how it effected me then and how I see it now. But the paradoxes remain. I am just sort of beginning to grasp the enfolding of time and how perception changes it.

I have no problem with people commenting or asking questions. Just before you do ask yourself why. Because in this body, I am still sensitive to all the things that move us and stop us. I have never attempted to do what I am going to do and how it is received or not effects how I can continue.

I will do it in segments. I will start with my grandmother, my first guru.

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My Grandmother was incredible woman. I always knew that in a way but could not express it for a long time. In the beginning, it was just who she was. I did not really understand how truly gifted she was until I saw the movie Shine with Goeffry Rush in the mid 80s. By that time, she had been dead a decade.

My grandmother lived almost 80 years. In that time she saw her rural country go from it being a big deal to stop and wave at the train that came through twice a week to flying across the country in a plane herself. To her, time and the country flew. She went from rich to poor in the depression to self sustaining and content.

My grandmother was a devote Catholic. She attended high mass every Sunday and all High Holy Days. I don't know when she started dragging me, being there is just some of my first memories and being conscious about it comes around 4.

My grandmother was French Canadian and spoke perfect French and was educated by the nuns until the eighth grade which was considered enough if you were not going to be a nun. Wife or nun were the only choices. Her church was huge and Gothic, full of all these statues people were kneeling in front of, beautiful spiraling light from the stain glass windows, gorgeous body lifting music, candles everywhere, and the smell of god (incense) throughout. Just the feel of it made me know it was a house of god.

Seeing all these people showed me that everyone had their special god that they chose to be their favorite god and they had a personal relationship with just like my grandmother who was devoted to the Infant of Prague. She had a special place for him. He was about my size looking like a three year old. He had a whole wardrobe of stunning beautiful clothes that she had made for him. Different colors and seasons and high holy day specials. And the big bad pink out fit.

My grandmother talked to him several times a day out loud. She would say the magical mystical words in latin and then she would tell him sometimes in French and sometimes in English what she wanted and why and what she thought about him that day. When she really wanted something and didn't get it, she would warn him that if she didn't get it soon, he was going in the pink outfit that he disliked so much. He really didn't wear that pink outfit very much.

Since we shared this experience all the time with full family participation, it certainly seemed real to me. And it gave me the basis of life that god has many faces and different things to different people. It stayed that way because I watched what people did-- not understanding most of what they said. I have always remained grateful for these experiences because by the time I understood the words, I still felt the feeling I saw as a child were more real as to who these people were by choosing who was the face of their god.

My grandmother taught me so much I could write pages and pages. She taught me to read by age 4. She had me memorizing big chunks of poetry starting at 2. She taught me hand sewing--we started my hope chest at 4. She made me pick out any embroidery that was not perfect. She taught me self discipline to the nines. She worked hard all the time---keeping house in upstate New York in those days was a big deal. She was rigid with her routine. Monday wash day, Tuesday ironing etc. Spring is hand the rugs on the clothes line and beat them--no vacuum cleaners yet. Living with the seasons with each one a different work focus. etc.

She was a stunning beauty with flaming red hair and green eyes and white skin. Great taste in clothes. An entertainer to the first degree. Any record she heard no matter how difficult she could walk over and play on the piano. People came from miles to her social events. She included everyone. She watched to see everyone had a good time.

My grandfather adored her. How do I know that. Because his eyes lit up whenever she walked into the room. I never heard a bad word about her from anyone other than my parents. She raised 22 children. Two of her own and anyone in the family that got in big trouble in any way.

My father had 5 kids--three sons and two daughters 17 years apart. I am the only one that got to live with my maternal grandmother for five years. I am the only one who went to college, the only one who left the patriarcal family, and the only one who had sustanstive personal success.

How was I so blessed. The way the Universe often works. From great pain or great fear comes the experience. When I was almost 2 my father in fighting with my mother grabbed me by my pig tails and threw me across the room into a brick wall which fractured my skull. It was my grandmother or probably death for me and my parents had just enough goodness left to let me go. Or this is an instance of the Universe compelling behavior.

Not once did either of my parents ever say in any way they loved me throughout their whole lives. Their great gift to me was that by ten I knew if I wanted a helping hand the first place I should look is at the end of my wrist. The next gift was teaching me very early that some people are just toxic and being denial about that is very dangerous. There are degrees of toxicity but once known, it always has to be acknowledged and made a factor of understanding any whys.

Nest up my maternal grandfather.

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My grandfather started out his young life in the coal mines. When I knew him he was already retired on social security permanent disability since he was 50. His legs from his knees down were swollen like sausages with that kind of look. The skin being all mottled and purple and black. The skin peeled off in big chunks on a daily basis. He walked badly with two canes. I never heard him complain or express pain. I was told he was once buried alive in the coal. He was very good with his hands and a gifted fixer. His last job that gave him social security coverage was working for Reinsler Polytech Institute. He was the janitor that kept the ice rink for the hocky players when all that was done by hand before the Zambonis.

My grandfather took me for long walks in the country. We lived close to the catholic cemetary outside of town and he always took me to the big funerals. In those days few people could afford a big church service so often the big service was at the grave. My grandfather was really into me understanding this was the summation of your life -- the last thing people had to say about you. Once in a while he would point out what they didn't have to say about you.

He would take me for these walks because as much as he loved and understood my grandmother and never ever criticized her, he would recognize enough of the sewing, or whatever. Time to be out under the sun walking with him and seeing him practice use it or loose it. The best of time and life, deeply embedded in my psyche.

In the walks he would teach me about the local plants and animals and how they lived. They had once had about 100 acre farm which they had kept selling off in five and ten acres and were now down to the last 25 acres. So we had a barn, a natural spring and pond, natural blackberries and strawberries--no one would bother eating them today they would be consider so tiny. They still raised chickens and rabbits.

My grandfather was a very quiet man. I don't remember him ever speaking to me unless we were alone. From him I learned the meaning of the words faithful and duty in a way I still can't express but I still don't even come close. My grandfather got out of the coal mines by being drafted for WWI. He spent two years in the trenches and was mustard gas sprayed. He suffered tuberculosis on and off over his life. He spent a year in that five year period at Saratoga Springs VA hospital for it. Those days they just could put it in remission. We would visit him once a week because my grandmother had to wait for her grown son to drive her---something she never learned. Each one of those visits were a celebration, I guess of just having time to be together.

I don't have alot to say about my grandfather. He was a simple man who lived life profoundly. He was an experience that has had profound effects on my life. I write about this particularly for men who will become grandfathers. There is nothing about my grandfather's life that would make him a hero in the realistic world. Yet, he absolutely was. I am done because just remembering him still brings so much water to my eyes, I have to stop.

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Thank you so very much, your writing is beautiful and powerful. These are the real heroes - ordinary, decent folk who quietly go about the business of being good.

I would like to share a story about my mother, who also had her own relationship with God. I have posted this here before, but let's hear more about the real heroes I say, and I would love to read anything else you would like to share with us.

When I was 12 or so, I was at the train station waiting to get the train to school, and two of my friends said “Let’s go tease the old drunk who sleeps under the bridge". It didn’t sound in the least bit interesting to me, but I tagged along anyway, mostly to see they didn't go too far. As they were yelling things to the man, my mother, who had caught the later bus and was heading to cross the bridge to her work, walked by and saw us from the other side of the street.

All day at school, I was worried about what would happen when I got home. She would be very disappointed and upset with me. When she arrived home from work, however, she was quiet on the matter. Must be waiting for dinner I thought. Dinner came and went, still with no word. Hmmm, making me sweat no doubt, it’ll come after dinner. Eventually I went to bed, with no word from mum, and I began to think maybe she hadn’t seen me, and there was going to no punishment?

In the morning at breakfast, and as I got dressed for school, mum still said nothing, and I decided I’d been right – luckily, she hadn’t seen me. As I walked out the door to get the bus, however, she called me back. In her hands she held a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and tied with string. “These are some old clothes of your fathers. Do you know the old man that sleeps under the bridge?” I nodded. “Could you please give these to him, it’s starting to get cold and he will need them.” I grabbed the parcel and headed out, but mum called out “and don’t just throw them under the bridge – I want you to hand them to him and tell him what they are.”

So, being a curious sort, as I handed the man the clothes, I asked him why he slept under the bridge (as she knew I would), and received my lesson in compassion. The man had been a fairly successful sort, had a home and a family, until his wife and children were killed, ironically, by a drunk driver. He turned to drink, lost his job, then his house, and had ended up there, under the bridge.

I made sure nobody teased him again, at least if I was around.

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Your mother was a wise woman and it is the simple things we often remember most deeply and all our lives. It is why, first, do no harm works so well.

Thank you for your kind words.

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My First Near Death Experience from now on NDE. Part of writing now by looking back is that you can see the connection of many things that had no consciousness when they occurred.

So I have lived with my grandparents for about two years. I have no memories of parents in that time at all. And I don't think I give them much thought, I am happy and secure. I know what works in my world and what does not. I know what the rules are and why there are rules. So I don't seem to be into challenging the rules. I feed the chickens and gather the eggs every day. I have learned how to handle bullying roosters. There are natural consequences for not following rules on a farm. So one day my parents show up and I am consumed with fear. I get instantly that they are there to get me back.

My grandparents gently protest that I am not ready. Things are getting very intense and my grandmother does not fight in front of children period. So she packs me up in my snowsuit with boots and all and tells me I need to go outside and play so I can get some roses in my cheeks. I hate the cold. I hate the snow. Always have. And I feel this is just the beginning of the end.

I am now 4. I am a mass of feelings, there is no linear thinking of step one to step four etc. I have no idea what the concept of suicide is and with the church and the cemetary; death is not quite real . What I know is I have this song in my head about nobody loves me, everybody hates me I am going to eat some worms. Have no idea where is came from just I am going out of here.

We have about a half an acre natural pond down the road quite a ways for a child--I think now about a quarter of a mile. I have spent a lot ot time wondering around the farm by myself usually with my dog HowdyDoody. This was not uncommon and not considered dangerous then. I know what the rules were and I had been warned dozens of time not to go down to the pond by myself. At this time it is frozen but everyone knows there are always soft spots that adults point out. I immediately walk down to the pond and walk right out to the soft middle and fall in with absolutely no one around.

I remember being absolutely stunned at how cold it was and how fast I sank. My boots filled up and I just went down to the bottom. I was too stunned to flail around. I just quietly sank. As soon as I hit the bottom, a bright blue light appeared and I was warm. I heard somekind of music and then the silver lady appeared in my head. She was a part of me but she was distinct from me. She told me to be calm and just not breath that she would breath for me but I would have to get us both out of there. She told me to reach out and feel all the pussy willows on the bottom of the pond and to pull myself along the bottom of the pond til I got to the bank and then pull myself up the bank with pussy willows and I did. And it all seemed so simple til I got out of the water and then was freezing cold and I still had to walk home.

When I got there I had started to go into frostbite but my parents were gone. There was never a discussion about what happened with them. My grandmother took one look and rushed me into the bathtub where warm water hurt. I tried to tell her about the silver lady etc. but she was totally not into hearing about how I was saved but totally focused on my disobediance. Looking back I know I scared her to death with what she considered reckless, she was into fixing what she saw not contemplating miracles.

In the walk back home the silver lady talked to me the whole way. I truly felt like one person went into the water and another person came out. I never felt so awake or so energized and so aware. She was telling me about how it was now my purpose to observe and remember and then write about what I had seen. The music was still there and it was lovely and I just said yes yes yes. Everything seemed wonderful. I was part of a destiny but I did not have that word or that concept. I just felf for the first time that I belonged to this world and at this moment I gladly chose to be there.

The silver lady talked to me until I was almost 12. We had many adventures. And then she disappeared. I thought for a long time I just made her up but I could never quite figure out how I could do that because my mind and imagination could not encompass the thoughts of the universe. What I do know is from that moment I was different from my family--by the time I was 12 I had the concept that I was a mutant. And I have spent most of my life pursuing the why of that.

Now here is where we get to look back. My grandmother's house is exactly nine miles from Whitney Striebers's house when he began his abductions as a child. I recently saw a video about his book some 25 years later and until I saw it--I had no idea how much it effected people and the similarity of their reactions. Like many people, I saw it in the window of a bookstore in Century City and I was compelled to go in and buy it. It took me three days to read it and I usually read a book like that in about two hours. I had a massive migrain the whole time. I was either reading it or sleeping with highly lucid dreams. My husband was so disturbed by my behavior he asked if I wanted to see a hypno therapist. I said that was the last thing I wanted. I have never been hypnotized and the very thought of it is completely repellent.

What really astounded me about the book is that Streiber and I are very close to the same age and in his signigicant times and places of his life--I have been there at the same time -- ie: were both at the University of Texas during the first mass shootings in the US---just in different buildings. I have never read the book again nor its sequels. And I still do not want to nor can I remember most of what it said and I don't want to either. This is not typical for me. For me the more grist for the mill has always been that life is stranger than fiction.

Next is a synopsis about the silver lady.

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Interesting indeed. Trauma has a way of fast tracking us, that's for sure. I was sexually abused as a young child, badly and repeatedly, and what this gave to me were some of my greatest blessings. As a defence, I cultivated my already healthy inner world. I spoke little and observed much. I became aware of the protection of external entities (though now this is the role of my mother, whose voice I still hear calling my name when I am in danger, or when my attention is required). At age seven, about 18 months after the cessation of the abuse I had my first vision on the true nature of the trinity, and it's function in human development.

I wonder, as you must, just what the Streiber connection means? I know the worm song too, by the way, my partner sings it to our child :)

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Thanks, music that helped. I am finding sharing these childhood memories that make any kind of sense difficult. I have never tried it before. As child I thought everyone had their own special way of talking to god thru the saints whatever and since I was told saint stories all the time--the silver lady was no big deal to me requiring sharing or explanation to people. When I was growing up people really did not talk about their religion all the time. They did not go around saying god bless etc. They also did not brag nor puff. There would hav been instant repulsion to anyone on the radio--I am before TV--saying they were so smart they tied one part of their brain behind their head etc. Breakfast with Arthur Godfrey was after the animal chores were done and you were warming back up and sitting around the breakfast table listening to substantive discussions about new and different things.

The sense of privacy was a right not a priviledge. I miss that. Yet, there was an openness about what we were doing. One of the people who held office for a long time--forget his name--congressman who was in favor of horse racing big time. He would actually say on the stump you know I am crook but I am an honest crook.

It was really only after JFK when I was 18 that I got that there was something seriously wrong with the country and the people had no handle and no control over what was going on. Between 45 and 65, the players of the CFR took over big time and totally in secret and then disparaged anyone who might think otherwise. They insituted the red witch hunt and they succeed in removing a lot of professors who could have kept taps on people. I had some good professors that were invited to the CFR and turned it down. A fatal mistake. I also had one who was in FDR's kitchen cabinet that was pretty well known and talked about and now that knowledge appears to be gone. One of the reasons I feel compelled to do this all though it is not comfortable. There still remain some things that are like feel the fear and do it anyway.

When I got about 12 I decided it was all a dream and I just did what most Americans do--I put that part of me in somekind of mental box and stored it way not really intending to visit it again but just in case.

[Mark]

What is it with Texas and wierdness. Or California. Both also the scenes of my early-life strangeness, for the most part. There is much of resonance in your stories, surprisingly, to the extent that I am in the following generation and culturally a bit removed from your experience.

Being very young and having transformative experiences, being different from everyone around you, not wanting to be hypnotized. LOL

im certain there are others who resonate. Thank you for sharing.