I appear to be in a strange mood tonight.

I learned so many interesting things today!

1) If you leave sour kraut in the fridge too long, it becomes a disgusting slimy mass of gelatinous ick.

2) It is way easier to peel a sweet potato shortly after you've cooked it, then after you've left it in the fridge for a while.

3) I have developed a nervous eye twitch.

This last one I find hilarious. I suppose I should be worried that this is probably due to an excessive amount of stress, but I can't help imagining someone talking to be about... man, it could be just about anything. The rent is due. Did you remember to do X? How to you feel about our current political climate. Is it alright if I eat the last bit of ice cream?

And then imagining my eye starting to twitch... I just cracked myself up again. It's just so...extream. It's like a description from a pulp fiction novel.

I also kind of feel like it's yet another badge of becoming a real adult: congratulations, you've developed a stress-induced uncontrollable physical idiosyncrasy. Welcolm to being an adult in the real world. I'm pretty happy I didn't wind up with the irritable bowel one. And really it's pretty minor. I had to get really close to the mirror to see it.

Also, it's kind of useful. When my eye starts twitching, I now have an immediate reminder that I'm taking things a bit too seriously and need to mellow out a bit.

It's also kind of strange, really. I don't feel that stressed out. I mean, sure, I'm seriously behind on many, many projects, and there is no reprieve in sight. But it will work out alright. And it's not different than my fellow graduates. I don't feel much deep worry and concern, except sometimes for my SSE class, which is super important to me and I sometimes worry about letting my kids down.

I feel rather resistant to worry and stress overall. Certainly not impervious, but...thick skinned. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the idea the majority of people are more stressed out about life than I am. I guess this is more work for a more extended period of time than I've ever done before. And I tend to trust my body to be honest about what is going on with itself. But it's kind of like a friend telling me,

"Hey man, whoa. Whoa. You need to take a serious chill pill. Go for a walk, get a massage, take a hot bath."

And I'm saying, "Ok man. You're usually right about these things so I'll chillax a bit. I don't mind taking a break. But I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Dude, your eye is twitching when you say that."

"Yeah? So? Let it. I'm doing fine. I don't even care. Let it twitch. Inside I'm all good."

"Look, I'm just saying, involuntary eye twitching is usually a sign of SERIOUS DISTRESS. So, y'know, do take that breather and stuff."

Thus goes the conversation with myself.

Hah! It just came back! Right now! Seriously, there is NO stressful trigger for this right now. I think there really make be some physiological thing going on, rather than a mental one. Like, maybe my heart beating faster can trigger it in some conditions, but so can purely physiological things.

You know what would be AWESOME? If I gained control of it, could make it twitch at will, and used that to give my opponents a false tell in the final high-stakes game of televised professional poker and won millions. That would be a sweet story. They would be like, "how did you do that?! We SAW your tell! you had nothing!" and I'd be like, "What, tell? This tell?" and make my eye start twitching. Camera would zoom in on my eye, pan back to the stunned looking poker opponents, cut back to me, "well, catch ya later." then I wink, with my twitching eye, and it stops twitching. I turn and walk away, whistling a jaunty tune. Bam. Acadamy award. Best director. Best actor, best script, best musical even though it's not a musical. I am accepting bids to write/direct/compose/Orsen Wells the script and we'll start at $115,000 for the preliminary treatment and go from there.

If I get any takers I can just write it in the five hours I open up every night by consorting with extra-terrestrials for a pocket dimension in which time flows at 1/5th the normal rate. Or, if I can't find those, by splitting my personality Fight Club style so Tyler Durden Isaac can sleep for me while I compose the script every night from 1-4am. I should have it done in 9 months, but I'm not starting without full payment in advance since I'll have to induce severe psychic trauma in myself to cause the split and that will be a pretty expensive operation to fix once I'm done.

I'd say I should be doing homework right now but I think this was a rather productive bout of writing so I'm happy with it. I suppose we will see how I feel Wednesday night when only one of the three huge projects is done and my eye is vibrating so hard I can't see out of it and need to start wearing a pirate eye-patch. (because come on, if I'm going to wear an eye-patch, then it should have a skull and crossbones on it. I can't squander that opportunity.)

Oddly yours,
the number three

Note: I revised the last post

Just a note that I did a very large revision of my last post. (After sharing it with my writing buddy.) So if you saw it before this post it might be worth re-reading at some point. I spent way too long on the revision so I don't know when I'll post something else of any length, though I'll try to post some more small things.

The Most Important Thing: Oranges, Miracles, and Magic.

I just ate an orange at a friends house that had more seeds in it than any I have eaten in working memory. 90% of the time I spent eating it was maneuvering the seeds out of my mouth. In thinking about this, I suddenly created/was struck by a new joke. Here it is:

At what point did I realize my oranges were inferior to other oranges?

When I noticed they had been superseded.

I feel like I just witnessed the birth of a star. I know stand-up comedians make up jokes all the time, but I guess I always thought of jokes as a static resource, something to be discovered and memorized. I knew someone must have made them up, but perhaps the were cognized by ancient sages or placed conspicuously by aliens where we would find them. But now I have seen one spring into being in my very own cranium. And I still have no idea how they are made. It just appeared there. This is why people make up stories about muses and divine inspiration. You can't explain or understand where brilliant ideas come from. One moment they're not in your awareness, the next they are.

Certainly the environment contributed, but that's no excuse. The environment is always contributing. Perhaps you can up the odds by certain actions, but ultimately, whether you come up with something unexpected and new, or not, is up to some mysterious working outside our conscious awareness.

Speaking of mysterious workings, this orange was eaten at a friends apartment. A very special apartment, and a very unusual friend. The apartment is littered with the aftermath of miracles. Paintings of Tibetan gods and goddesses and saints with sacred white ash growing on them, looking a bit like bread mold or frost on windows, organically growing out in small circles. There’s some on a picture of the Dalai Llama, and a few other saints. The largest picture also has a dark stain down the front of the glass, starting at the saint's heart. At one time, gallons of some substance that smelled and tasted like rose flavored honey was coming seemingly out of thin air, manifesting on the chest/heart area and flowing down, where the surprised owners of the picture put a pie tin underneath the picture to collect it and keep it from getting all over the table and floor. These friends don't advertise these occurrences. In fact they sometimes hide the pictures when they have people over who they don’t want to have to explain what happend (like their business partners.)

If you visited their apartment you probably wouldn't even think to ask about the light dusting of ash on some of the pictures or the weird stain on the big one and they don’t mention it unless someone else brings it up. You would just be put at ease by their hospitality, easy humor, and simple, unassuming manner. Then they would try to feed you delicious food and that would probably be the night. Maybe they’d ask if you wanted to meditate together, if you were obviously into that kind of stuff. That would probably be all you knew of them, unless you already knew to ask specific questions.

But if you start asking them about stories, they can keep you up all night, with one physical impossibility after the other. Not embellished, not long in the telling. About the countless miracles that happened, mysteriously, wondrously, for years, and then mostly stopped. About dreams predicting things that happened the next day. (“You’ll get the money you need for your project” “what? A million dollars is just going to fall into my lap?” The next day: *ring ring* “Hey Mary, we’ve got a backer and we’re set with the money now.”) And on and on, as long as you wanted to stay.

And they are not the only ones. I have heard person after person tell me more and more of these things. Reliable witnesses. Normal people, normal lives and jobs. Good people. Friendly, humble, simple. They don’t talk about the miracles unless someone asks.

This is an uncommon thing that I have been witness to. Like the birth of a joke, or a star. First, to be seeing the echo's of miracles, the stories of people who've witnessed things beyond sketchy and subjective feelings, phenomena that might be attributed to the subconscious or the placebo effect. This is not, “I he waved his hands over me and told me he was doing energy and then I kinda felt better.” or even “he waved his hands and along with traditional medicine, I got better from my serious illness.” This is gallons of something like honey coming from nowhere. Sacred ash completely covering pictures. People coming out of comas, being raised from the dead, cured of incurable cancer riddling their bodies with a touch.

Either there is a conspiracy of probably tens of thousands of sociopathic, expert liars, lying in wait, as sleeper agents, going about normal uneventful lives full of spiritual practice, unrecognized selfless service to those in need, and simple, un-ostentatious lives so they can give credibility to their mutually supporting lies when the rare curious spiritual seeker manages to find out their identity from other kind, simple, moral, service oriented people. All for the nefarious sociopathic purpose of occasionally instilling a little bit more faith in God to those rare few persistent seekers. For zero materialistic or social gain (always denying being personally responsible for the occurrences, or specially ‘good’ and deserving of them.)

I suppose you could play the mass hallucination card? Or they all have split personalities, one of which sets up elaborate fake miracles under the noses of their families?

At some point a while back, I realized that not believing this huge number of reliable sources would be denial and paranoia and irrationality on a massive scale. Honestly, it was quite a while back that I realized, at least logically and rationaly, that the world worked in ways people would call miraculous or magical. But after all this additional reinforcment, it’s finally sunk in to an emotional gut level realization.

The thing about this that is both delicious as rose-flavored honey and frustrating as slow drivers in front of you when you're late for work, is that the Dresden Files is right.

The Dresden Files is an urban fantasy novel series, and one of the things frequently mentioned, is that magic and the supernatural is all around us, but people don't know about it because they don't believe in it, so when they see it, they just explain it away as something else. Coincidence, hallucination, or a weird memory.

The reality seems to be, very clearly, that there is magic in this world, honest to goodness magic as magic as anything you've read. The really flashy stuff is way less common than in most of the books and seems to work differently that the imaginary magic systems (though sometimes not so different). And absolutely there is much, much more fake stuff. And there is some very confusing stuff that seems to straddle the line between fake, placebo effect, and something beyond what science currently can explain. I can usually tell myself when to wake up. I can often think myself out of being sick. Occasionally, in deep meditation, I know things and there’s no good explanation of how. I can meditate and feel a deep sense of joy and peace, for seemingly no reason. This stuff lies in a fuzzy realm that can maybe be explained by science, but sometimes it feels like the scientific explanation is getting a bit weak. Or starting to sound very unscientific.

But reliable second and first hand experiences seem to clearly verify that sacred substances can manifest on pictures, people can levitate, supernatural beings exist, life doesn't end when the body stops working, and there is an Omni-everything, deeply loving being that is intelligent and could rightly be called the Creator.

I'm super foggy on how it works, but you can develop what could easily be called, and viewed as, superpowers, or magic, and you can achieve something incredible as the culmination of human existence on earth, and it's called a lot of different things, but it's definitely worth the trip.

I wanted to be here for a long, long time. I wanted my proof. I wanted assurance. I wanted to know if magic, of the stories of saints, were real. I was a long haul, and I had to take several careful leaps of faith. And exert a tremendous amount of effort and persistence in the face of disappointing results. But I'm here now. I have my proof, beyond any reasonable doubt. And I would love to tell my about it, but, it seems that almost none of them belive me.

I have so many friends, interested in fantasy novels, gaming, star wars, etc., who would be ecstatic to know that the world is magical beyond anything they'd dared to hope. I've tried to tell them about what I’ve seen, but, though they put up with my eccentricities because they love me, perhaps even accepted that what I’m saying might be true, I wasn’t able to convey my experience. I wasn’t able to make them get up and dance for joy. Which is what I assume would happen if people realized deep down that the world is super magical.

Perhaps that is right and good. Perhaps you should not belive incredible things that go against your previous understanding of reality, on the say so of another person. Perhaps it’s even important that you yourself go through a long arduous journey of searching, repeatedly finding false leads and fake magic, before getting to step across that threshold. Perhaps the value of that knowledge requires you pay for it in sweat and dedication.

But imagine: you’ve just run into a wizard. They’ve told you with a wink that Harry Potter is basically true, and they they’ve whipped out a wand and transmogrified a lamp into a duck and back again. They take you home to a place like the Weasley's house for dinner, complete with family ghost, self sweeping brooms, and kits flying around the yard playing tag. You ask if it’s alright to tell your friends and the wizard says you’re free to try, with a little wink, and so you go home and tell your friends what happened to you. And they smile and nod and say that’s very interesting. None of them even ask to be introduced to the wizard. You always assumed those books about how magic is real and people just generally choose not to see it are a bunch of hooey, and yet, it seems like if your friends actually believed you, they would be going a bit crazier with excitement.

You look at your friend Pete. He owns all the Harry Potter books and knows all the lore, he plays Harry Potter role playing games. You can imagine him foaming at the mouth with joy to discover it is basically all real. But he doesn’t believe you. Oh how you wish you could give him that gift of knowing, but alas, you are not a wizard yourself. You cannot show, only tell.

One of my nightmares: I know something important, I’m trying to warn people, but nobody believes me, so something horrible happens.

This reminds me of a game I played last night called “The Resistance” where some of the players were secretly spies trying to sabotage the mission. As the leader went around the circle interviewing each player to hear their pitch why they should be on the mission, and why he should trust them, I said, “I am a spy. You shouldn’t trust me” Everyone laughed. I don’t know how many people believed me. I decided I would be an honest spy, so I simply did not lie for the whole game. That one guy actually ended up trusting me. (And I did not betray him or my word.)

In fact, the final round that determined who would win the game, ended up having me as the leader who chose the team. I told people point blank, that I would vote for the mission to succeed, and would let them determine who else was on the team, so they had an actual shot of not failing. But I think they didn’t believe me, and so most just gave up and didn’t even try to pick the non-spies. We failed the final mission. (So I guess I won, as a spy?)

I understand why most of the players didn’t trust me. And why people don’t just take my word that the world is totally different than most people believe. If the situation was reversed, I probably wouldn’t believe me either. But I feel kind of bad. Like I’m just not going about explaining it right. Like if I was just a bit smarter, I could convince people through simple obvious rational explanation. And then Pete could realize all his dreams have already come true, and if he really wants too, and works hard, he too can be a wizard.

That seems like a pretty awesome gift to give.

The most important thing about all this, though, is not the magic. Not the super-powers, not the fact that fantasy books are pale shadows of the fantastic-beyond-human-comprehension truth. No. The most important thing is what this means.

It means there are beings of truth and light. Not magicians or shamans or wizards, which are also real, (sometimes), but sages and saints and avatars. Beings that can lift up a mountain on their little finger, or create a mini-universe with a thought, or live forever, or have access to seemingly any information they want or do basically anything. And who are contented within themselves, and need and want nothing from anyone. They just want to see others happy. The most important thing, is that they exist, and what these beings of varying levels of omniscience say.

They say love all equally and unconditionally, and serve everyone without expectation of reward. They say cultivate good character and do good deeds. They say listen to your conscience and do your duty, with heart. They say seek the kingdom of heaven within, because realization of who you truly are is the greatest achievement in life. Far greater than any amount of super-powers (This from one of the more superhero-esk and magical personalities.) They say there is only one ultimate Truth, that is what is meant by the word “God,” and all paths, religions, names, and visions of it/him/her are fine, and all are referring to that same One thing. And you don’t even have to talk about it as God or name it at all, but it is the place you end up when you either seek the ultimate, or seek the truth of who and what you really are. They say it’s nature is Love, and Truth. (And if someone does something in the name of God that is not love and truth, it’s coming from that person, not from God.)

 

That's it. And in a world where monkeys with the intelligence of humans can grow to the size of a mountain and fly through the air like superman, that (not the super-monkeys) is what is really important. And that’s not because super-monkeys (I wonder how Hanuman feels about being called Super-Monkey?) are normal and ho-hum. Super-monkeys and wizards and gods and legendary heros are AWESOME. But this other, seemingly less flashy stuff, is actually even MORE awesome.

Your effort is not wasted. The goal exists. Not a watered down version of it. A full blown version of it. More significant that the ability to literally move mountains. So go for it full throttle. Or don’t. But know it’s there, waiting for you whenever you decide 100% to go for it.

Wizards are real, Pete, and you can be one. Though you can also be God, which, y’know, sounds even better. And doesn’t preclude being a wizard as well.

I suppose I should caveat: though all this is true, it's also true that there is LOTS of fake stuff and people who don't know what they're talking about and people who kind of know what they're talking about and etc. You must use your discrimination and common sense at all times or you're going to get turned around in circles or sent up a dead end.

Sorry. No giving over responsibility for your life to someone else. But I’ve found if I listen to my inner compass in the silence of my own heart with deep yearning and openness, that the inner wisdom will always give me the help and guidance I need. And I’ve heard similar reports from many other people.

I'm thinking now of something one of my teachers said. "I don't ask you to believe me. I just ask you to prove me right or prove me wrong." Perhaps it's not possible to really get, deep down, that magic is real, just from some words on a page. Maybe that's asking for too much. But what I can give is this: I searched for it, and I found it. You can too, though it may be a long journey, and probably many who start looking will end up giving up before the end. I'm happy to give suggestions for places to look, and maybe it can be a shorter journey for you. 

But the other stuff I mentioned, about love and seeking within, is much more important, so if you're already fully committed to that, and you don't care that much about the magic, then don't waste your time. In my mind the only real use of this knowledge is to strengthen faith and resolve for the great work necessary to realize who you always have been.

Love,

I

Intrigue

Just finished with the nadi leaf session. Not sure what to make of it. He was there, right on time. Perhaps he felt bad about the last session. It was not suspect at all like the previous nadi leaf reading was, where the guy obviously had just picked one of the few photocopies of leaves he'd brought with him and was re-using it along with some general astrology skills.

This was legit, this guy had a pack of palm leaves, sandwiched between two wooden boards, and put on a string. He asked me questions, about my parent's names, my name, profession, etc. Here's an odd part. Near the very end, he apparently had... I think it was two leaves, that were Isaacs, maybe Nevas as well, but he was asking if there was a third part to the name, that started with certain letters "R or V" for example. This made me wonder: are there actually two other Isaac Nevas's, who are going to get their nadi leaves read? That seems... kinda crazy.

He then said that he'd gone through the three hundred leaves, and none of them quite matched, so he was going to have to send away for another packet of leaves that he didn't currently have in his possession, and that would take a month or so. That seemed fairly legit. That is what would be expected if this was for real. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have wasted his time, rescheduling an appointment. Likely he would have just made something up.

Now for skeptical Isaac: As we went down the list, things seemed to be getting more accurate. The last two questions were about my name, and he was asking if there was a third name that I had. Which I probably hadn't written down. And another skeptical thought: if I wanted to seem impressive, I would ask a bunch of questions, get answers, record it, wait a while (the month he says it will take to get my leaf read) and then feedback all that information as if I was reading it from a leaf. However, I have recorded our session, so I can check back to see if he's giving me any new information. Also, he's a busy man, I don't see him wasting that much time on me.

One other thing: one of the leaves seemed fairly close. He was asking questions, to which I was replying "yes" quite a bit, but they were kind of more vague things, rather than specifics, that could have applied to several people. But then he moved on eventually. He probably could have kept going on that one if he'd wanted to, but he didn't. Seems like something someone would do who's used to having very accurate predictions, not so-so predictions.

In any case, I got called on time, he behaved in a non-suspicious manner, and I didn't get my leaf read. The journey continues. Mainly I'm happy not to have my time wasted like last time. But I'm also happy that he has not yet done anything that seems super sketchy, so it's still possible that I will actually get my leaf read. Also it's totally fascinating to hear the very beginnings of all those other leaves. Oh my god, could you imagine getting to read them? All those stories, written far in the past about people whose grandparents hadn't been born yet. With very specific, detailed information. none of those leaves were mine, but were they somebodies? Somebody who hasn't come yet? Or who already came, hundreds of years ago? What do they do once somebody finds their leaf? Do the put it in a separate pile?

Why have I kept getting delayed in getting my leaf read? Is it going to say something that would change the course of my life if I heard it too early? Am I just being teased to remove my attachment? Do I not have a leaf? What does that mean? Somewhere I think it says something to the effect that if you have the impulse and go to get your leaf read, that means you have a leaf.

This will all just have to remain an open mystery, for now.

Humiliation

The bittersweet taste.

Perhaps it is nothing, and I'm reading too much into it. But the online class I teach has been having low attendance lately. I can't help wondering if it's something I've done or not done.

I dearly want to be a good teacher. I'm ok being a poor teacher on the journey to that. But being a poor teacher who is not even told they are a poor teacher is worse. If I know what I'm doing wrong, I can change it. But when nobody tells me what's wrong and how I can improve, It makes things a lot more difficult.

I know, from studying learning, that the best way to get better is to practice in a carefully thought out and structured way, practice a lot, and get immediate feedback. Learning to teach this online values and morality class, There is no carefully structured training curriculum (and even if there was I'd have zero time for it in addition to my Masters degree), I don't get to practice that much, and I get little to no feedback, except that which I collect myself, which is obviously biased and untrustworthy, since I'm not a mind reader.

But humiliation is a bittersweet taste, not purely bitter. It reminds me that I still have attachment and ego left to deal with, and it means I have something I can be learning, if I choose to humble myself and learn it.


In other news, I'm trying for the second time to get a Nadi Leaf reading via Skype tomorrow morning. Last week, I waited 4 hours, after calling twice to check on what was going on, and with my third call discovered that they had left the office. Needless to say I was quite angry. And felt disrespected. More bittersweet flavor to my life. We will see if they actually call tomorrow, and how late they are. And we will see if they have anything remarkable to say. I googled my own name to make sure they're not just doing the same and feeding me that information. Also, I'm not getting my hopes up. I got my hopes up the first time. Now I'm just bracing for a second disappointment.

I can't afford to be disappointed, or get hung up on something. I have work to do. And I've already gotten one bum Nadi leaf reading, that I should have been more discriminating about during the process and called them out. I think I can safely say that reading has turned out to be totally inaccurate in any predictive way, now that I've had a few years to look back on it. But I likely could have called it halfway through. And should have, and then demanded my money back.

Well, you'll get the skinny one way or another next time, if I remember.

A little something

Hello :-)

This is written in the few minutes between work and bed. I'm getting better at reading things quicker and skimming, but still have a ways to go. The readings are so interesting! It's a great problem to have, but still, I need to resolve it so I can keep my life balanced. I mean, I think my life is somewhat balanced, I guess. But I want to make even better use of my time.

It's kind of hard for me because I am a turtle person. Meaning I'm naturally slow. That's my pace, that's how I work. I can't just become a rabbit person. But I would like to be a get-er-done type person.

Today I went for a walk with some of my classmate friends on a bike trail. It was sunny and seventy and the trees were flame red and orange and pink and yellow. I picked up a plump green caterpillar from the bike path and put it in the grass, and saw a squirrel with three acorns in its mouth.

I woke up at 5am and did papers and presentations and my brain felt like a liquid by the end of the school day, and then I took a nap and did another paper and some more reading. Aside from the walk, I watched a twenty-minute episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" and now I'm going to bed. I'm not slacking off. Yet I'm still quite behind, and I'm not yet certain that I'm catching up.

I do feel like I'm getting better though. I think I may be catching up. I think I'm getting better at reading quickly. Small improvements, but improvements. This is good news. If I can change a little bit, I can eventually change a lot. And my struggles seem to be having the desired results (learning how to be more efficient.)

Sometimes I'm lonely, sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm not doing what I think I should be doing. The majority of the time, I'm happy, and always, I'm optimistic. Maybe that's the wrong word. I have faith. Or, I have Trust. I trust the universe, God, and thus myself. And I'm ok failing repeatedly. I know that's what happens when you're learning a lot, and I know to learn from things when they don't go well. And I'm soft with myself. It's a softness that smells like crushed cedar leaves and feels like those translucent matte red yew berries... That is to say, soft and nurturing and clean and fresh and real. (though apparently Yews are quite poisonous aside from the red cup-shaped berry part that's technically called an aril (but including the seed inside the berry, so don't eat the seed.)

My center of gravity is shifting, has been shifting, to a kinder more mature place, and it feels very honest and strong and grounded. Still with lots of failure and ups and downs, but all that happening around this nice center of gravity that keeps moving towards something bigger.