Overview

I sit here typing at 3 a.m., an hour I have always found compelling. The whole world, at least in this neighborhood, is asleep. No other human consciousness to telepathically intrude. Flagstaff is a dark sky city. The observatory is just up the mesa from here, a short walk. Moon and stars blaze outside and I sit here cocooned in the light of my own awareness.

Where shall I begin? Ah yes. I was told that when my Daddy held me as a baby, I shit in his shirt pocket. I do not remember who told me that. Must have been either my Mama or her mother, my wonderful grandmother, Momee (Lena Birdsong Lane). Perhaps that shit drop slide was my comment on his physical absence in our future relationship.

My earliest memory is of the smell of fresh rain on hot pavement. I was being given a ride in what must have been a stroller. All I remember is the lovely smell and a large figure or figures behind and towering over me. No doubt my Mama and perhaps someone else walking with her. My Daddy? Momee?

My experience (not my belief, my experience) is that I come from “out there,” from the infinite Cosmos. I was born in human form, this form. I opened into the world of Earth matter and, in doing so, the realm of human society. Determining to burst beyond the realm of societal form, I quickly learned that anti-conformity is shaped by conformity. My goal was neither of the two, but independence. I did not wish to merely re-bell (thus striking the same old notes) but to re-volt (to open to new voltage).

As a result, I sank deep into matter, into darkness. I let go. I let go of everything society holds dear (a promising career, a stable marriage, salvation through conformity to church doctrine, the search for security through money and property, the quest to look good in other people’s eyes, etc.) and opened to the immediacy of Now. I fell into the Ground of existence and died. 

Over time, I opened more and more to the Light. A new “plant” began to grow from the seed that fell into the Ground and died. I learned the ways of science, of experimental testing of formed hypotheses, of examination of the data, and discussion of its meaning. I read widely and digested the core writings of the cultures of East and West, of the so-called “primitive” and the so-called “civilized.” I pushed the understandings of the energetic realms of the martial arts as far and as deeply as I was capable. As a psychologist, I sat with hundreds of people over time as they recounted their spiritual, emotional, and relationship problems and I searched with them for resolution.

I have lived in and as this ever-changing material form for 78 years now. I know how to exercise the soul I am in this light-dark arena of human life.  I continue to fall into the dark and bounce out. I continue to open to the light and radiate. I will exercise in this gym of fluctuating energy until I leave this physical body. The Light has brought me here and the Light will see me home.