Stretched Between...then a Release.

It was a sunny on a warm white sanded beach. I stood in the sand, between two taught stretched white cotton panels, hung between two coconut trees by ropes. I was supposed to meditate while standing up, and the two tight panels hugged me front and back to support me in case I relaxed and fell back or front. I could, if I opened my eyes see through the loosely woven cotton to the ocean and the light slope of the water. Playing in the surf were others who are not part of my history of familiar people, signaling forced seriousness perhaps.  I guessed the panels referenced the suspension while I wait for my partner’s visa, but I have never felt I was missing out whenever I meditate.

With this dream in the back of my mind, I wanted to go back to the south of Sri Lanka to just chill out. My partner said, “Go!,” since he was busy days and offered to pay for my flight, but deep down I was torn. We still don’t know about his Visa to come back to the US to marry and live with me. The embassy has his passport and their last request, “a single certificate” was not on our checklist from them, nor had our lawyer heard of it. He found out how to get one, with his Mom’s help from his home city government, completed it and sent it in. These are only good for 6 months, and if the embassy drags this out longer our visa fee, and other stuff will expire. They can demand anything, I heard from another chap who finally got his partner's visa. This has been frustrating to say the least.

If I take off not knowing, I may be shortening our time together if his visa doesn’t pass. Surely, we have thought about this and have a plan b and c and have dealt with our separation remarkably well for 13 years, but we have strengthened our bond these last 5 months over all the paperwork driving home our history. Looking into increases to almost all costs of this trip, to do alone it really felt selfish. There is a whole new appreciation for the other, which makes an upcoming potential separation seem even more difficult. We can do it, as we have in the past, but then it will push me in making another decision reflecting on the visa's failure. With all this in mind, I decided at the last minute not to go and in my partner’s formally stoic reply... to go ahead and go, he radiated the love that we felt. We try not to mess with each other’s idea of happiness, but when the hearts meet again it is lovely.

Two hours after I posted this ....and after a whole years process my partner received his fiancé visa. Our 13 years are finally recognized by our government. And I was around to see his reaction!

A New Skin Stretched on the Skeleton

I recently dreamed of my passing from a previous life, seemingly making concrete my connection to my partner as a young boy when I did not know him. Saying good-bye in dream like form not as I am now.  It was not really dying in the dream, just alluding to it, so there was no fear or panic. It was intriguing, which then prompts me to think about upon awakening about our desire to find meaning in our life. This dream may have come out of our talks about our connection, seeing his photo as a young boy or just purely wishing it so. 

On further examination it seems to me that there is really no meaning to our life, it is all a fabrication of my over-active mind. Thus trying to live a virtuous life, is really just a way of simplifying life, wiping half of the complications brought on without living this way. Living with virtue may seem selfish at times....we still want something. But it does bring about more connection with others and the world, so in the other way, you end up feeling less like the “boy in the plastic bubble.” This might freeing you up to serve others. It has been said in many books that service is one clear path to liberation. Liberating what? The self-concern whipped up by the “me” who projects himself as separate? Most people who have children would just say, “duh!” because this is a natural product of such a life. I chose this route when society gave me no other option. It thankfully has been changing rapidly in the last ten years, with gay marriage and parenting. 

If I put aside any choice I may have had as far as direction when you consider the universe directs every possible combination of life. Then it puts me back into not finding any meaning, but relaxing into what is here, right now, however it or life manifests. Relaxing is not something I do easily when things are difficult, but it points us directly back to that imaginary “me” that perceives this all.

Looking back, I was forced to relax when my brain injury happened in the hospital. I had no choice, zipping through life as though I was invincible to a complete dead stop. It is weird to think you consider yourself lucky to have a brain injury which exhausts you so much that you have to relax in a fog of unknowing. That fog, should be exactly the same as the “What is” that one should naturally arrive at for real happiness. A wild ride on the way there, at least, but way smarter than running looking for meaning in life.

All That's Left

Aware of my partner sleeping beside me, he morphed into the dream along with the fan’s breeze and the slight chill it made.  Blurring into this vignette... I was consulting an old friend from my past, who came out of my partner's body, about the wisdom we learned have so far. There were jokes and seriousness, and then our conversation slipped into a story, of us running with others along a dry-river bed. The others with us were a cross section of humanity, every race and age. It was a hurried pace, had a seriousness to it, but without panic. And we were rushing to our respective spots up an old water drainage hill that was covered in black oil. Where we each had our own spots were we could slip into cracks to our underground pods of safety.  Kind of like a dust devil we would spin ourselves in. That is, before the huge black hulk of a hill broke away from the valley floor and slid upward on our way to a new galaxy and a new planet to our surprise.

 

While running with others, we had brought the only thing we could take with us, the wisdom and knowledge that caring for others, is really all that we have that has any value. We made sure each other had slipped into our underground places with this knowledge in an orderly fashion before it left Earth to take us to a new home. Then the room with a faint glow, and dusty aura slipped back, awareness of the fan’s noise and the early morning birds singing…

I awoke at 4 am groggy, to my partner's showering once his awareness of having crashed earlier… exhausted and unwashed had rose him again to shower and brush his teeth, just so that he could hug me in appreciation for putting up with his mood the previous day. Then we slipped back into a loving slumber.

The Final Straw

In early at work cleaning up and getting things ready for a new day.  Acid Jazz, is playing on the music system, and after my first coffee… I am jamming. Up on a tall standing ladder the store had, where I often clean the upper windows, and ventilation fan from spots of dust so that they don't rain on expensive furniture fabrics. The doorbell rings and I crawl down the ladder to find who is there. For some reason, I am not disturbed being taken away from my work when not open for the day, yet. I see a husband and obviously his wife first in line, with the UPS driver right behind, anxious to drop packages off and have me sign. The driver’s are notorious for dropping by with damaged packages while you are busy, so you can’t catch and refuse them. And by the looks of husband and wife team, carrying their own box, this is not going to be fun start of my day.  I decide quickly to try as best as possible not to match others moods. Touching his shoulder, and greeting them with a friendly, “I know you are first, but let me sign so UPS can leave us alone in peace.”  Jeff and his wife Katy, smile sardonically, but I can obviously tell they are ready to pounce on me with their problem. In our narrow doorway, the heavy set UPS driver like a bull in a china shop bumps into them while going past and while leaving, after I sign.  Did he do this on purpose? So disruptive to any peace I am trying to bring to this situation, but at least that is one less thing to negotiate.

Even though I still closed, I invite them to come in, seeing Jeff’s eyes a slight bit teary with anger, and Katy is pacing behind. The first thing that strikes me is I should hug Jeff(but don’t), to help show compassion at this tipping point, before speaking to them. This is S.F. and most of my clients can handle it. Anyway, I could sense that Jeff and Katy’s relationship is more the problem than whatever product they are not happy with. One of the things I sell is high-end lamps with hand-blown shades, and I could see that they are returning one by the box’s label. Often times people ask me to describe the wiring pattern or whatever problem that they don’t want to hire a professional electrician to do, way beyond the scope of selling them the fixture. Well, Jeff did it the wiring right, but really Katy hated the non-returnable fixture she ordered. He was just trying to make her happy, and his embarrassment was turning to anger almost without him knowing.  The whole thing is unraveling in how they are presenting their problem, or my new problem when they open the box to show the damaged glass globes. What they don’t know is a business owner quickly learns all the tricks. He says, “Well, I got the fixture all wired and when Katy opened the boxes for the globes found them damaged.”  Katy is looking away sheepishly. Many times, when told the real truth, I work on making clients happy by putting a fixture on the floor and getting them what they really needed. First of all, the special ordered fixtures are not returnable, and second, I personally check all boxes before giving them to the client. This lamp is Jeff and Katy’s last straw, and it is fast becoming mine.

This dream came to me last night after that final body jerk when you fall asleep, and is not of real people but like many of the problems I have encountered in life. My compassion came through in this dream, as a first reaction, and maybe it was supposed to be directed at myself. Spurred by an impatient waiter standing by me, earlier in the evening when I just got the menu. This is hell for a brain-damaged person, and by me not answering he still did not get the clue, so I just deflected him to my partner to do all the ordering. I just stared in space and brought to mind that I will soon die, and this meal will never be that important.

My father one day, decided his final straw was the ugly 70’s wrought iron divider between our dining and living room had to go. The kids loved it because you could climb up it like a monkey. This wasn’t the reason…pressure, expectations and dissatisfactions with the world were. In a shocking display of aggression he went to the garage and got a small hand held heavy hammer in front of all the kids and bashed it out of the ceiling and floor anchors throwing out the front door in the yard. Not sure if he was drinking or not, but life with him had the same flavor. At first I thought that was cool, but still embarrassed by the whole scene. My father spent the next days, not apologizing but explaining why it looks better, while postponing fixing the holes from the damage…I think my Mom fixed them. 

I am still unlearning his way of solving problems.  Awareness is the key, and silence works well at the start of a feeling of frustration, because once you speak you are more apt to spiral into unwise speech. I will go on my first 10-day Vipassana of 2556 on the 2nd, just to work on the roots of frustration(weeding to put in mildy) ...based in my body, played out through my mind.

Pointing Upward

In my home-office in an older 30’s building in classic Spanish style. It has open stairs to the roof, totally open to the sky with pillars about 8 ft high all around to shade some of the sun. In one corner of this roof deck shoots a Moorish minerat.

The building is white-washed, fading and peeling in the hot sun. I was online doing a search, and scrolled past a real estate agents’ photo who I had talked to the night before. She curiously left her camera on, so her photo was still live on this particular site. She was angry with client who she was talking to. I scrolled back to see her, kind of shocked at her behavior and how funny this looked on a web page. She noticed midway through that she was broadcasting this, or perhaps she saw me on my camera and leaned forward and clicked it off. In the background and out of open staircase to the roof, I heard a man, saying out loud, “I will see if I can destroy this thing!” with a Czech accent. I can hear a guy beating away at my building with his hand, when he decides to ram it with his body. Guessing it was the minerat, I ran up the stairs to the roof.  On the way up, I decide that no matter how threatening he is and how mad I am, that I will be kind in my approach.

I get to the roof, and say with a curiously sweet face, “Now, why would like to destroy my old building, exactly?” I walk casually towards him and put out my hand. He is already confused by my reaction and stops banging, and I walk closer even though I see he is carrying a gun with his nice cameras. He softens enough that upon touching his hand, all stream has blown out of his idea. I say, put your hand on my chest to know I am a breathing human being just like you. He reaches out, and I have already touched his shoulder. Although bigger than I am, he is blond and slightly sweating and feels warm to touch. I defused the whole situation by not meeting his anger with anger. He did not really know it was my building. I get a close look at his gun and nice cameras, and compliment him on his good taste in cameras, as I walk him across the roof and down towards my steps off the roof. But then I notice, all these framed photos I took years ago, laid out on the roof deck, like a gallery display. I say, this is curious in my head, while moving a few aside, not to step on them. I look at the man with a slightly surprised face, and can see he can provide no answers, either.

I am beginning to put it all together, that I am dead and my old photos I have taken over the years have been laid out by my family or my partner.  With a warm feeling and no panic, it is was done for me, and then I roll over and wake up from my morning dream. I usually fall asleep after my pre-dawn hour meditation, and I must be working out some part of my unconscious with a little flare.


A little aside, if I die or any else close to you dies in your presence — tap three times firmly on the third eye(between the eye brow) to help mine or their spirit leave their body, instead of lingering around. 

The Phat Truck

PHOTO: NOBODIES

Picture yourself in a tree-lined quiet neigh-borhood, which is definitely not mine with a school across the street and a bus line that runs up and down. I am on my porch and watching the neighbor across the street pulling 360’s in the street in a display of machismo for his friends riding with him in his Phat truck. I have seen this many times before, but now I happen to be outside in full view of this childish display. I am known for saying the right thing to the right person, and often will say something regardless of any danger…that is in the past.

So, I am getting heated up, and charge over once they stop their truck, mad but not stupid. The blood flushing into my face, just dying to just give him a piece of my mind that I almost float over my grass. But then suddenly, I feel a sharp pain and I am having a heart attack and in few quick seconds the only thing I see in the grass coming up quickly to my face because I am falling down ...dying. I black out just after the grass tickles my face.

That is how I wake up from this dream, and I ponder its subject. I know on my wisdom path I am slowly getting less likely to put myself in these situations, and even more likely to first go, compliment him on his truck and finesse a simple request such as... it is all good, but better in a less populated area. Also things have a way of playing themselves out…good or bad, regardless of my input. This was a reminder once again to think hard about what the real final outcome of a difficult problem, and more often that not…keep my mouth shut.

Like a Candy Apple

photo: sburke2478

I whooped a two week down cycle that is natural effect of human existence, and came back to some kind of normal, which I managed to do by doing kind things for others and taking 5-HTP. After my first good day, I had a dream that night that I am kind of like a candy apple, a hard outside protecting a soft and perishable inside. That actually came in the dream along with experiences labeling the fact that my near death was really a “death.” I was brought back to life from my hospital nightmare not like in regular human body, but with the sole purpose of making merit and helping others. In the dream I would visit those that can see me, and others I would be right beside them and they no idea I was there. It may seem like a weird calling dream, and it may have been triggered with the letter to Carlos, or a Thai friend who upon helping him figure out Paypal, and sent money so he could pay his first Ebay bill, said, “you are such a good friend.” I did express to him how much I appreciated him showing me temples and places when my partner was busy with school, so I felt I could spend a couple hours figuring out his problem. It is so important to honor people who honor you, and it came across in my dream. Perhaps, I had not done enough of that before my “death.”

So, for the ones who do see me, in the context of my dream, I am there to help them. They are not fooled because they act upon seeing a good heart, or maybe it is just a repaired one.