A Warriors Call

We were awake at 3am. Plan was to get to the Nashville airport by 7:30 to make a flight to Palm Beach , a little work and a little beach time. I could feel Lola's feet on my back in the night and knew she was hot, another fever, another cold. Laying awake in bed before sunrise I went through the possibilities of what we might do rearranging our June schedule to fit it all in. No worries, all the choices were great so what does the order matter.

Being a Dad is my closest connection to God. I can't imagine loving more than I love these little girls...all my girls, from 26 to 2. Lola, Bella, Ana , Alexis and now two granddaughters, Sydney and Avery.Unconditional love is always with me just under the surface of my relationship to the world I live in outside of me.

Feeling Lola's feet didn't make for an Oh No , We can't go reaction...in fact I just felt how much I love having this little character for a daughter and her Mom for my wife.

My main reason in flying to Palm Beach was to see a man I respect and feel a connection to cuse we have both done our best to create a doorway for those trying to undo their addictions and suffering for the sake of living a life they love. Call it recovery if you want..I'm not sure that word is accurate..doesn't really matter, it is the evolution of our human legacy and Don Mullaney and I have very different looking approaches to our work while both work from that place within us that is so grateful for our life and transformation that we had to share that gratitude the best way we know how. Really very simple and sometimes very challenging when you can't settle for less than what you feel is the best for your people, the ones we serve in our work.

From the outside we don't appear to have much at all in common but I would bet you through the eyes of God we look like two brothers who have their own style and way of getting the job done.One thing I have come to see and know about the truth of life, looks don't have anything to do with substance and real truth brings great respect and honor with it. Among warriors there is always a mutual respect that will come forward at some point, whether in victory or defeat, in argument or agreement, true warriors live for the closeness to life's integrity, a closeness that being the warrior brings.Going with the flow is usually just an annoyance to a warrior. We do it to get in position to act sometimes but I don't think we ever like it.

Being a warrior is sure not a popularity contest either. Popularity is another one of those social conventions that seems to breed soft, lazy actors rather than solid courageous Characters, warriors. I've become such a jackass these days that I almost don't trust anybody who is too popular in any field, recovery,politics, film, music, doesn't matter, authenticity brings uniqueness and social compliance as a culture has a hard time with unique.It also has a hard time with the truth.

When I realized we couldn't make the flight this morning I came down stairs and got online cancelling the flight and re-booking the Singer Island Hilton for the end of June. I'm going to see Don Mullaney, the exact day is not the point.

Many times in my life I have had powerful feelings that I needed to do something and wouldn't "understand " why..today I know that is God directing me and I don't need to understand why. Actually it's more fun not knowing, I get to figure it out as I move forward, with faith, rather than believing a head full of bullshit thinking I know something.

Palm Beach will be there and I'll play on that sugar white sand beach with my girls and visit my warrior compadre...sometimes we need to check in with each other because we are here to learn and share who we are with each other as individuals not as business people or friends or any other roles we have given so much value to. We need to check in Man to man, human to human..life to life.

Today I'm going to The Ranch and work with some wild two year old colts of ours...Now that's a mirror of Spirit for you, a two year old colt all fat and wide eyed.

To all the warriors out there I salute you and look forward to meeting you along the way...we do recognize each other and there aren't that many of us in circulation these days. To death I say "I see you and when the time comes we'll dance and sing an old Sweatlodge song to the Great Mystery" Weyah hey hey Weyah Hey......

Whirlwind

It is Friday morning, Febuary 13th, the day before Valentines day.I'm sitting in the basement of our newly leased home in Nashville. This is my space, the "man cave" as Mee, my esposa, tagged it. These last few weeks of moving , shifting, driving back and forth to the Ranch, have been a whirl wind of feeling, inspiration, sadness and creativity. I left Tennessee 7 years ago when Mee and I hooked up. I left for the west coast, Malibu and the waves of my childhood dreams. All through those seven years I felt a thread of connection that kept pulling my attention and heart to look back toward Tennessee but not enough of a pull to come back to stay.
My m.o. has been to create and move on, while looking for another or other home base. Tennessee will always be a home base but like leaving your parents house as a kid it's not where I want to settle down.Working in Malibu with three different recovery programs was a good experience and a frustrating one..frustrating cuse what I would see as vision seemed to be lost to the people I worked for or with. When it comes to creating doorways back to integrity I won't compromise for the sake of fear or maximizing profits. Staying with my vision has been a big part of The Ranch, here in Tennessee, evolving into a most spectacular offering to those willing to recreate their lives away from suffering toward what they are inspired to live as happy, joyous and free individuals.
Over time people have come to refer to what I do as "Spiritual" work or spiritual recovery. With my friend Gary Seidlers encouragement I started SPIRIT RECOVERY as a brand name to use for what would be created in addition to the treatment center work. Spirit recovery is an accurate label...that is what we are offered should we decide to really undo our attachments to how we were taught, as children, to see and live in this world.Our Spirit is our truth, our essence. Our spirit is born into this world and is not of this world. When our physical body dies our spirit is free to return to source should we die with the awareness that we are not "of this world".
Working in the treatment business leaves very little room for a practice of Spirit as the truth of who or what we are and who or what we might recover. When recovery is all about measuring up, then fitting in and following rules is more important than authenticity and connection to that Great Mystery that is the truth of life.We throw around the term Spirituality as a component of recovery as though it is a separate external part of us, something we aspire to that's out on the horizon with our higher power or God..somewhere "out there".
There is no out there. There is no separation between recovery, spirituality, clean days, peace, freedom or suffering. Those are all just words that all have a different exact meaning depending on who you might be talking to at the time. Even the word spirituality will morph and shift as we move through life, if we are paying attention to anything beyond what we believe.
My relationship with myself is my relationship with God or Spirit. I can't possibly treat God or spirit any better than I treat myself. I am an aspect of the one that created me so my closest relationship with God or spirit is me. If I would honor God then I must honor myself , if I would love God then I must love myself. When I've had this conversation with others, many times I'm told that I have a selfish point of view...I don't think so. Me being less than is a self important, excuse for not having the willingness to accept the truth within me as my guiding light. There is no program or Church or book of prophecy that can even begin to touch the living presence that animates this form of mine.Unless creation is an inconsistent factory of life then there is perfection within each creation and how that perfection is expressed is Creators business, not mine. My role is to love it all and have faith in that mystery that I'll never "understand" ,and, will always live in closest relationship with.That mystery is the truth, how we define and measure that mystery is our folly and choice. So what, big deal...
With all that said, my return to Tennessee is my honoring that calling from within that I just can't ignore today. I tried, even when I'd be surfing in my beloved Mexico I'd hear that voice within say.."it's time to go back to The Ranch for a while", "oh come on". I'd plead, "this is where I belong, we love it here, this is our mothers land and I'm being good"...no reply, just that feeling that, damn it, I gotta go back.You see I love that voice and the feeling that comes with it even when I don't like what it's saying. I honor that voice because I honor myself and that voice comes from the deepest aspect of myself.My personality won't be happy, not at first anyway, and my physical body still feels sad about leaving Mexico but I am not bound by the yearnings of my physical body.I take care of my physical body but my body does not own me.
I learn from life as I live my life and I pay attention as well as I can to all the aspects of my being human. I am Human and through that relationship I gain experience and wisdom and that's between me and life not me and the World. There are very few institutions in this world that I choose to give power to. As I have learned that peace can only be found within I have let go of needing the world to validate my insecurities. I have methodically taken my power back from all those places, people and things that I had given power to prior to my waking up.There is no judgement involved only an exercising of responsibility. I am completely responsible for what I empower in my life.
As my whirlwind of movement settles back down this heartland of America will be our home again....until the next mission or adventure or "spiritual" calling. Meanwhile , back at The Ranch.....it's time to go to work.

Way too Much Thinking

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! Heard that before, right? I've said it to myself a million times, what were you thinking....

Thinking is the problem here, not the solution. I think because I've been taught, programmed, demanded of and supported in thinking being the way to live my life.As long as I'm thinking I'm pretty much out of range for any other source of inspiration or source of wisdom. In my working with people that are in "recovery", italicized because I don't care for that label being an identity as though people in recovery are separate from all the other people walking around on the planet.Once again, recovery people have been taught to "think" they are different, not normal, as though there is a normal, not.In my work I've asked many times "If you have a problem what do you do about coming up with a solution?" You think about it, right.

Thinking seems to mostly come from old experiences, thoughts, ideas, info, etc...from stuff we've ingested over the course of our lives.All that knowledge is fuel for our minds machinations about who we are, where we are, why we are, are we this, are we that, how do we fit in, how can we be better...Lets go one more step..the mind says, " Is that reasonable?" and we answer our mind, that's what we do, we answer our own mind as though our mind were in charge..is it? Is your mind in charge of your life? Have you ever asked your other self, not the mind self but the one that listens to the mind self, have you ever asked, " Am I my mind", Of course unless you have some awareness beyond the tyranny of your mind you won't get an answer that the mind doesn't craft to fit into it's familiar program. That process alone distorts any new sources of perspective from getting through unscathed.

Beyond all the chatter of mind voices there is a presence that speaks from a deeper, softer, place. Listening to the presence touches feeling and our body. We literally feel the words within. This presence is of the Heart, the sacred heart, eternal heart, the heart of the Mother, Creator, Dreamer. The voice of the heart will not compete with the voices of the mind. Truth has no sense of competition and no need to be right. Truth as brought forward through the voice of the heart is the Divine speaking as Human.

The challenge for all of us who live with "reasonable" as our guide is the challenge to take attention away from the relentless chatter of mind blabber and shift that attention to the feeling and presence of heart language. Living loyal to the mind is living with reaction as the great decider, no W jokes intended but it fits. Our world is the result of how we humans have reacted to our experiences in this world. There wasn't much choice involved, not really. The choices were all limited to the reasons list of options.While we create all this history the Heart goes along for the ride waiting , waiting, for our attention to return to that space within us that has never forgotten what the voice of truth sounds like.That space within us that has been the witness to all the insanity of how we've come to live life in this world.

In my recovery work I've seen over and over people trying to "get it" when getting it is just another aspect of the mind ruling it's domain, you, me, them. We already have "it" we just don't know how to listen and feel with "it"."It" is the presence, truth, Love of life speaking through us and too us. No amount of thinking can make that connection, no amount of figuring it out or being good enough or doing it right can make that connection. That connection has never gone anywhere. That connection is what we are.

Thinking is great as a tool to work through this matrix of life on Earth. Thinking is a great gift when used responsibly. Funny thing is the humans have become thinking junkies and the thinking has lost it's connection to the source that gave it a home in the first place.

My last year living in the Heart of Mexico has brought my attention back to that presence within me and now I see that presence as my guiding light and greatest companion. I'll still think too much but not for nearly as long a time. Ok..time to go...I love you life...Thanks for the little things...Lee

2009 Earth Log- Deep in the Milky Way

The morning came soft and quiet. Middle Tennessee, January, Sunrise.
It's cold outside, white frost blankets the pastures around our double wide. I gotta get up and turn on the heater, the electric heat is too much to sleep well ,so one of us turns it up to 70 degrees when we wake up.
The cows are in the pasture across the road, too far to hear them from inside the house, it's Silent except for the sounds of Bella Lola and Mee sleeping.
Memories flash, I still visit my Dad in the early morning memories that float around my consciousness, he loved Ranch life, cattle, early morning and cold clear air. The storm door on our trailer lets me open the main door and let the light in without freezing us out.
There is a fresh buzz in my body. A new vibe for what I've connected to in my dreaming what my returning to The Ranch will bring. I feel alive and excited and, flash, I'm back in our little beach house in Sayulita looking at the waves, sad creeps into my feelings, sad to be moving on and excited to be coming back to home , Tennessee.
Over the last year I've lived a fantasy and a reality. I've tried to soak up as much of my being in Mexico as I could and know completely that She, The Mother, the heart of Mexico and her people, now beats in my body, in my cells and will do so until I've moved on from being the me in this body. She is only as distant as my attention is turned away from her place within me.

2009 the day of the Lord, When the divinity returns to us....That's Miguel's "Circle of Fire Prayer", I send you my love and respect don Miguel, and thank you for showing up for the children of San Pauncho last October.Dreaming Heaven is our business and what a great business it is.This is the day that I make the commitment to The Mother, La Virgincita, Tonantzin,Maya..our Divine Mother embodied in this Earth and in our form, I make the commitment that for me this is her year and I will carry within me her presence and compassion stopping to remember that she is with me always.

One of my creations will be here at The Ranch where we have an old well that's waited for me to hear her voice..."remember me?", she asks, " I am the well of the Place of the Women in Teotihuacan, I am the heart of the world and I am here within you and around you. Bring me your love and your wounded and we will heal their sadness and fears. Build me a Capilla and decorate me with beauty and dreams and a great light will shine from this place." She called me back from my beach in Mexico to be her helper, of course I say yes,,,although I did ask more than once "are you sure, you know I love my spot in Sayulita and I'll be good"..That's what faith is for me, the willingness to do what needs doing before I let my personality limit me to what is known.

Deep in the Milky Way there is a beautiful green and blue planet that is inhabited by a species of amazing Dreamers who are coming closer to awakening to the truth of their Dreaming. 2009 is here, we are here, the truth is here..all of creation is supporting our coming to the light. That calling has been building for years and all we need do is let go and Dream from Faith.

In the background Mee is running the vacuum cleaner, Bella is decorating a New Years cake for the Laughing Winds Party later and Lola just dumped a whole bottle of chocolate chips on the floor. Thank you Creator for Loving me like this..I am so grateful for it all....Feliz Ano Nuevo...Listen! ....Our Mother is calling you too and she's so happy to have you listen.
Peace Be With You....Lee

Back Home

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I just got back home, hot , humid, green, Pacific in the front yard home. Another journey to the Dreaming capital of the West Coast, Los Angeles. I had a meeting with an all-time great film producer, Jon Peters and my friend Bob Waldman. Dreaming up new deals, I love it.

While I was there, I got to stop by the Interventionists Conference at The Lowes Hotel in Santa Monica. I know the Lowes well. We hosted our SPIRIT RECOVERY Conference there a couple years back and it's also where our family holed up during last year's Malibu fires. Half of Malibu seemed to be living at The Lowes for a few days during those fires. High-end refugees for sure.

While I was at The Lowes this time, I got to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen for over a year. The conference was a gathering of the business people of the Mental Health Addictions treatment world. World-class characters who'd found a day job helping others help themselves. I've lived the last 10 years close to that world and that community of people. The Ranch's CEO, Miles Adcox, was there with Ryan Martin, our master intake director.

Walking in the exhibit hall felt like a new experience. With hundreds of people all talking, either to each other or on their cell phones or both, there was a dull roar ringing through the building. As I looked around I realized I was completely detached. It was great seeing The Ranch exhibit and Miles and Ryan but for the first time in my 12 year relationship with whatever the word Recovery means I was not affected by the scene at all.

This was cool, to be walking through a situation that for years would get me all jacked up and to have no reaction at all was freedom. Saying hello to people I've known or worked with over the last few years in California was great and I had no agenda or need for anything from anyone. I talked to who I wanted, not to who I felt like I should talk to. It didn't matter who they worked for, or how much business they were doing with us, or anything else. I didn't care, it was just good to see some of the faces.

After an hour I met up with Keith Arnold, an old friend that dedicated many years to Sierra Tucson the treatment program in Arizona that I had checked myself into 11 years before. I always respected Keith and on several occasions tried to figure out how I might get him to go to work with The Ranch. He's a good guy and a smart operator.

Keith and I walked outside and sat on the boardwalk that runs from Venice Beach to Pacific Palisades and talked about the reality of the Recovery world, and what we'd seen over the years and what we were seeing now as opportunities to create a better opportunity for the people trying to help themselves, and how we could contribute to that. This was not a conversation based on bottom line or business deals...none of that stuff. This was two men who know that reality is really just beyond what we call home here on Earth and that doing our best is what we live for today.

Several years before, on one of my visits back to Tucson, I had invited Keith to a Sweat Lodge Ceremony and he'd accepted with great enthusiasm. That was his first sweat and the beginning of his relationship with the Great Mystery of Life's magic. Before we headed back up to the bustle of the conference he said he was going to be with our old friend Albert Sombrero, a Dine' healer and an all around funny human on Saturday at a Ceremony.

So there it was, one of those big circles in life passing through the two of us on the beach in Santa Monica. What had been set in motion in the Sweat lodge in Tucson years before, was still evolving and coming back around through us and we were checking in between rounds. If you know what I'm talking about, that great circle of integrity that flows around and through us all the time but only gets snapshots of recognition in this world today, then you must smile at it all like I'm doing now.

It was great to check in Bob, Keith, Miles and Ryan and all the rest...we are doing it.

In a few minutes my little girls' friends and their families are coming over to our house so we can walk down the beach and watch a big hatch of baby sea turtles set free in the surf for the first time. I'm gonna take my long board so we can paddle out as they swim for the horizon. All of us and those little turtles making another one of those great circles of life that when you catch them in motion makes everything around you feel like magic. It is good to be back home, in this body, in this world , in this life. Peace be with you , Lee

The Sound of The Eboga

A week ago I joined some friends who work with addicts here in Mexico to experience an ancient ceremony that involves the African plant Eboga. They use this power plant to detox Alcoholics,and drug addicts while also eliminating almost all withdrawal symptoms. It is quite amazing to witness after having watched people detox in the U.S., that this ancient African plant eliminates the need for all the meds that the U.S.detox protocols put people on.

I wasn't there to detox. I was there to have a first-hand experience with the Ibogaine so that I could say that I've done it and......This is how I do research and development. When I was invited to my first sweat lodge 10 years ago I said yes because what I had experienced as "recovery" was just not that interesting, and it seemed to me that recreating your life should be a bigger experience than what I had been offered through traditional channels. The same has been true with many experiences over the years. If something feels to me like it holds potential to support people reconnecting with their authenticity, then I jump in personally.

Recovery is simply a doorway to being who we are underneath all the stuff we've come to believe about our self and all attachments, stories, expectations and fears that keep us looking outside of ourselves for what only exists within. To be with the Ibogaine was another opportunity to learn about pathways back to me.

As the drug in the plant began to take effect I heard a buzzing sound, a big buzzing sound that was louder than the soft music that was playing or the ceiling fan whirring. I asked Brian, a nurse that was there to support those who were doing the Ibogaine, what that sound was. He couldn't hear it. Ok so I'm hearing this buzzing like a giant insect sound, Brian looked at me and said the spirit of the plant is coming to you, that's the sound of the Eboga.

During the next 6 hours I had a very deep intense experience with this spirit plant that showed me something amazing. As I lay on the bed watching my mind like you'd watch a T.V. screen, I realized that each thought I had would move like a drop of water toward the screen. As the drop touched the screen there was a ripple effect through the entire field of the mind and then the energy would move beyond the mind to the energy field of the world, creation. I could see the quality of each thought and the subsequent form that would begin to take shape from the impact of the thought on the force field of the mind and then the world. Every thought, no matter how insignificant I may believe it to be, moved through this same process and every thought impacted my mind and the creation around me. With awareness I began to think different types of thoughts, thoughts of fear, love, questions, doubts etc..all of them had impact and all of them took form within the energy of the mind and rippled out through the creation.

So what does all this mean? Well for me it was a big time wake-up call that everything I bring into thought and send out through my mind and into the world becomes a part of the whole creation that we call reality. If I'm angry, afraid, lustful, loving, joyful, expectant, whatever, the thoughts I give power to (and if I follow a thought through I have given it power), they all are woven into this matrix we live in everyday that we call the world. A typical person on a typical day has no awareness at all of all the seemingly unimportant thoughts that they give birth and power too. We think if we don't act on our odd thoughts then nothing happens. That is not true. Creation is a giant soup pot and we are all adding our two cents with every thought and feeling that passes through us.

I don't expect to all of a sudden think only nice things. That won't happen. What I will do is take responsibility for what I am bringing into the world and be way more mindful of where I put my attention. If I keep my attention away from situations that cause me to react in frustration or anxiety, like watching all the insanity that we call news, then I won't be feeding the continuation of this dream of hell on earth that we've become so familiar with that we call it normal.

Earlier I said I wasn't detoxing when I took the ibogaine, that's not entirely true either. I am detoxing. I'm doing my best to detox from the automatic opinions and reactions that go on in this mind of mine if I leave it untended to. I had an amazing experience, and it for sure was not some groovy acid trip. It was a reality shaking wake-up call that I am grateful for.

Recovery is a big deal and when it gets real it goes way beyond socially acceptable guidelines and norms. In fact if recovery were to be of absolute integrity then those who recover would most likely be outcasts from society much like Jesus and Buddha were. It is all a choice and for me there's no choice at all. I'm all in...deal....

Between The Worlds

It's Saturday Morning...There's a storm brewing out over the ocean, gray sky, wind chop on the water. I hear the kids playing in the living room and I'm sitting here looking at the screen wondering what's next.

For the last 10 years I've lived in varying degrees of proximity to the recovery world and the whole business scene of recovery. I remember when I went to Twelve Step meetings a lot, the first 5 or 6 years, that there was a reference to recovery not being a religion or even like a religion. A lot of people seemed to get some relief from that idea.

Now after 10 years of being in and around the whole scene I gotta say there's way more similarity between recovery and religion than first meets the eye. They are both organized to be of support for people and both have become institutions that you'd better know the rules both spoken and especially unspoken or you'll be a fringe member at best. What I see is that we, people, have used both as a parking lot for our personal responsibilities. If I join your church then your version of God will be on my side or even my Saviour, but of course the deal is completely conditional on my agreeing with the official version of who and what you say God is etc...In the recovery biz there's the same conditional, meet the panel of judges, criteria if you want to be a full fledged member of the not church. In both cases I'm supposed to go along because that will keep me safe from...me, I guess.

Living afraid of me was a big part of my problem though. I am me and that's all I am so how might I learn to trust me, I am. So, the idea that we have to be all in or all out, that we are either for something or we have to be against it, is another aspect of the same way of thinking that feeds so many of our problems today, both personal and global.

There is a space between these worlds of demanding that I participate on their terms or I can't play at all, and making everything that I don't like wrong. There is a space between feeling and my reactions, between my thoughts and my opinions, between the light and the dark, good and bad, right and wrong, up and down........There is a space between.....everything.

If I give my faith to the church or recovery or anything else, that still does not make the church or recovery responsible for the life I live or the space I'm in with my life. If I'm not comfortable where I'm at, then I leave or at least turn to myself for the why am I not comfortable here. The not comfortable is in Me not in the place I'm at.

Recently living here in Mexico, my wife and I had as profound an experience of something that sets me totally off on attack mode as I can get. This involved kids at my daughter’s school that were acting out symptoms of being physically or even sexually abused. When we spoke out about the situation there was a reaction that, first ,we must be wrong because the topic is too creepy to deal with, then it was openly discussed with the teachers and some of the parents and there was, as I'd expect, an amazing range of responses, from the behavior of the children was normal, to there's something really not okay here, to, but this is "our" little ex-patriot community and we're all friends so we don't want anyone to get upset....What the fuck, these are 5 year old kids and the situation was not good. Well, my wife and I decided to take our daughter out of the school and cut loose from the group of people who were more invested in their Something Else's than in the children's well being.

Now the point is that we both found ourselves feeling creepy toward the whole scene in our little Pueblo. The creepy was a feeling we had in us about the situation, that feeling was not something the village was doing to us, in fact there were only 6 or 8 people involved in the mess at school. We could pack and leave and never see that we were living our own reaction or we can stay put and sort this out.

The truth was, that what was happening was the truth, and we were outside the set of agreements that the people involved at the school, parents and teachers, had been operating from, so our interjections created an issue that they didn't really want to deal with. As it turned out, several people admitted that they knew something was not okay but hadn't known how to address it. We became the bearers of bad news for the adults and good news for the children. Now it's our, my wife and me, our opportunity to allow that space between the worlds to show us how we can stay true to our integrity and not let our reactions make the next choice for us.

We both Love so much of our world here in Mexico and we are not from here, so when we get uncomfortable we are learning to really rely on our self and each other in a whole new way. All the while we are both clear that we are first responsible for our self then our children and then each other. We are living between the worlds of home U.S.A. and choice Sayulita, Mexico just as we live between the worlds of separate, individual and married, together, parents. There is a space between the two and in that space is who we really are, where we really are, living life, the best we have to offer, one day at a time.

Theme Park America

The last two weeks have taken me from Mexico, to Tennessee and The Ranch, then on to Jacksonville, Fla. my old home town where I met up with my beautiful wife and our daughters, then down to Orlando and theme Park Landia, back to Jacksonville, and finally the long flight from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast of Mexico. 

While we were in Orlando I had a most interesting dream...Dream Time U.S.A. Standing on a street corner in a typical American town looking around at all the busy people...everything seemed so familiar. Fast pace, overweight, staring straight ahead, the people moved like they were on a conveyor belt. When I looked down I could see that they all appeared to have their own unique path, but underneath the level they perceived themselves on, there was a greater escalator that allowed a perception of individuality, and that perception was an illusion. 

In my dream there was a hummm that resonated through the reality of Dream Time America. I could not hear it as much as I could feel the vibration. When I would put my attention on the vibration the entire visual of the world around me would begin to distort, like having interference on your television screen. A couple times I would make eye contact with someone and just as I would ask them a question or simply say “Hi,” they'd look away and redirect their attention to the dream or life they were living in. 

I say “living in” because by now I was completely aware that each individual was living a reality unique to them, while at the same time believing that everyone was seeing and feeling the same way they did. My being in their reality was a disturbance to how their attention was locked into their bubble of reality. Talking to me would open the door for them to see through the illusion of where and how they had defined their world. 

From down the street I saw a bus coming. It rolled to a stop and a few people got off appearing to be more awake than those walking through the dream world. I watched as they looked around making small talk. A larger group got on the bus, as the door closed and the bus pulled into traffic I saw a sign that read “THEME PARK AMERICA.” 

Wow, Dude. Turning back to the people who'd just gotten off the bus I realized they were from another country. Their language wasn't familiar. This was a trip. When these not Americans began to walk down the street it was clear to me that they were not connected to the conveyor system that the locals were on. Their bubble of reality was a different frequency from the vibration that I had been feeling. Looking up there was a great neon sign that flashed “Theme Park America Now Serving Over 300 Million customers.” 

Then I woke up...What's all that mean? You tell me...how’s your conveyor running these days...Do you hear a hummmm just beyond your ears’ ability to define it? I can't get that picture of our culture as a giant theme park out of my mind. In many ways it seems to fit better than the official version...Gotta go, my Bus is coming... 

Do We Create Our Own Experiences?

The following story sparked an interesting email conversation between myself and Brother Bruce...

Father confesses to abuse in Austrian incest case:

by Philippe Schwab

Mon Apr 28, 12:51 PM ET An elderly Austrian confessed Monday to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, prosecutors said.

Josef Fritzl, 73, "admitted building the dungeon and to holding his daughter and three children there," prosecution spokesman Gerhard Sedlacek told AFP.

Fritzl admitted incest "but insisted there was no force involved," said Sedlacek.
One of the children died shortly after birth. "He disposed of it in the furnace of his building," chief investigator Franz Polzer told a press conference in the eastern town of Amstetten, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Vienna, where the family lived.

Fritzl was to be brought before an investigating magistrate on Monday and faces several more days of questioning over the case which has shocked Austria.

His daughter Elisabeth, now 42, has alleged she was drugged by her father in August 1984 and had been his prisoner ever since, giving birth to seven children in the "dungeon".

The six surviving children are three boys and three girls aged between five and 19.

The case came to light after the eldest of the six children, Kerstin, was admitted to hospital on April 19 with serious health problems. Doctors looking for background information stepped up efforts to find the mother and the whole horrific story came to light when Fritzl allowed them to establish contact with his daughter.

Elisabeth Fritzl and three of her children, who had until now never seen sunlight, were kept in three cramped underground rooms in the family house.

Photographs of the rooms, measuring "50-60 square metres in all," with a ceiling just 1.70 metres (5.5 feet) high, according to Sedlacek, were released by police. They showed a well-furnished living area, with sink, shower, a small kitchen area and two small bedrooms.

The cellar was hidden behind a reinforced concrete door which could only be opened with a numbered code. There were no windows and the prisoners' only contact with the outside world were a radio, television and VCR.

This ironically helped Elisabeth Fritzl escape, after she saw the hospital's appeal on television for more background information on Kerstin and persuaded her father to let her out, Polzer said.

Kerstin was "critical but stable," doctors at the hospital where she was being treated, said, without giving more details.

Franz Pucher from the Lower Austrian police told journalists: "This case is unique in this country's criminal history."
Polzer said however there was "a wide range of questions that still need answering" such as how Fritzl supplied the woman and children with food, how the babies were born and cared for in such cramped conditions, and how he could have incarcerated his victims for so long without his wife knowing.

Fritzl legally adopted three of the children -- two boys and one girl -- when they were still babies. He is said to have told his his wife Rosemarie, 69, -- with whom he had seven children -- and local authorities that his daughter had left the babies on the doorstep.

Each delivery was accompanied by a letter purportedly signed by her saying she could not support the child because she already had others to care for.

Elisabeth Fritzl also told investigators her mother knew nothing about the sexual abuse she had endured since the age of 11, some seven years before she was locked away.

The trio went to school as normal, seemingly unaware that their mother and three other siblings were trapped underground.

Neither neighbours nor social services appear to have had any inkling, either.

It is the latest in a series of horror abuse cases to have stunned Austrians, with the Oesterreich tabloid calling it "the worst crime of all time," and the Kronen-Zeitung portraying Fritzl as a "monster, a brutal tyrant."

DNA tests are being carried out to confirm if he is the father of the six surviving children.

Austria's most notable sequestration case was that of Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped on her way to school in 1998, and held captive for over eight years in the basement of a house near Vienna before escaping two years ago.

Three young girls near Linz, in northern Austria, were also locked up for seven years by their mentally ill mother.

Brother Bruce Writes:

I was wondering who was dreaming the experience in the following story? Do believe that the daughter created her life to be used and abused? I am curious as to what your take is...

Thanks in advance

Love and Light

Brother Bruce

I responded:

Ok We humans are dreaming, living out our imaginings as projections based on distorted, insane beliefs, fears, and simple insanity and from this place within our minds we act out all the stuff that we call "real" in this world. You know that place within you that is the presence and peace of God and we also all have that place within us that we have the free will to "dream " our reality from. Being born into this world is being born into a legacy which you inherit like it or not . That legacy is what we pass on from generation to generation with or without awareness. To wake up to how and what we are creating [dreaming} with our life is the first step in taking responcibility for our personal creation and evolving our "personal" legacy from what we inherit to what we are in truth as the children of God. Free will is a huge factor here. Why we come into this world in our particular situations is beyond me t o know. What I believe is that we all have the ability to bring more love, truth and light into our personal lives when we have the opportunity to awaken to the power within us and that is the evolution of humanity ,slow but sure. The toltecs percieved the reality of the asleep humans as hell and this story is evidence that hell is right here now not some place we are sent. We.humanity, created this mess and we will create our way beyond this mess when and if we should decide to do so. Free will......Thanks for staying connected...Love, Lee

Bruce responds with:

Yes... I agree with most everything you have written. Based on what you said, Now I must ask you, do you believe Why we come into this world in our particular situations being beyond your level of awareness would lead me to believe that you would agree that there is a greater level of consciousness that is superior to that which most of us are aware of that directs and orchestrates the circumstances within what some call Creation. Orchestrating to me does not mean controlling but simple responding to what we call for. As you said, free-will is not only essential but the most sacred gift we have been given. If you are interested in discussing deeper levels of understanding, such as the difference between linear time and that which exists beyond the boundaries of time and space I would be happy to hear your thoughts and explore where most never go. P.S. Sharing understanding is what I have come into this world to do. There is nothing that I feel is more important.

Love and Light

BB

I write back yet again:

This is great. I live with this amazing feeling that becomes my experience when I'm responding to questions like this. "I don't know", is the truth most of the time when we get outside what's familiar and that answer works because the truth is not in the words but rather in the experience of putting our attention on the question and then feeling with the answer, not reducing the answer to words. We are here to bring the experience of Love into as many forms as we might imagine... we seem to be stuck on imagining other shit tho..........that leaves a lot of room for doing cool things...where were you in 69'.......