"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur Clarke
Whenever new technology is presented to a more primitive culture it will seem magical, but “primitive” by whose standards and on occasion, in which direction? Carlos Castaneda introduced the world to don Juan Matus in 1968 when he gave us The Teachings of don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. In 1998 he gave us an anniversary edition with new commentary. That new commentary contains information which bears a striking resemblance to what, in 2008, could be termed as a discussion of the human biofield and quantum physics.
A bit of basic background in energy medicine and energy fields is helpful as we compare cultural descriptors to scientific ones (see areas within this website, or NCCAM / energy medicine). The lack of a common language to describe events has been and still is a key issue. As a result each human observer has been left to flounder on their own, inventing their own terminology and letting the chips fall where they may. With no common language, how do we compare and evaluate an experience? How do we begin to identify and separate, observe then re-associate and correlate descriptive events and begin to look for patterns?
Drop the language. Forget the language. Across time, across culture, across region, and even gender, it won’t match. Convert the information you are being given about the experience into pictures and /or symbols. Look at it from a fresh perspective and then, and only then begin to evaluate the situation. Begin to branch out, look at it from the outside, then the inside, and then the inside out. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like, sound like, taste like?
That being said, let’s look at a brief summary of the specific information in the “Author’s Commentaries” section of The Teachings of don Juan. Please note that all italicized terms are sourced directly from the “Author’s Commentaries” (xi-xix). What picture is the don painting for us?
As explained by the don to Castaneda, the shamans were able to see and perceive energy as it flowed through the universe, labeling it “energetic facts.” The ability to perceive energy in this way allowed them to observe human beings as energy fields with the appearance of luminous balls. Each of the luminous balls was connected to a mass of energy of inconceivable proportions, which they labeled “the dark sea of awareness,” and the point of attachment was even more brilliant than the ball itself. This point of attachment was called “the assemblage point,” and this is where perception converts energy to sensorial data.
Let’s look at that again. The sensorial data is then reassembled in the human mind and interpreted according to the lifelong frames of reference built by that individual. In other words, they mentally assembled the sensory information being given to them from the “dark sea of awareness” and converted it into “cognition:”a working version of a mental image. They recognized the image, labeled it and gave it a name. Once a “tree” was mentally defined, it was forever a “tree.” In the future it could have variations but it was, forever, a “tree.” According to Castaneda, these Yaqui shaman were the first to see individual vibratory energy in this way.
Being able to see “the dark sea of awareness” gave them the ability to see that the universe was filled with infinite, huge clusters of luminous filaments. They also saw the universe of “intent” and for them intent meant intelligence. The don described that the “assemblage point,” where the data from the energy field is transformed into sensory perceptions and translated into the world as they knew it, is “located at the same place on the energetic luminous spheres: at the height of the shoulder blades, an arm’s length behind them, against the boundary of the luminous ball.” You will find a similar description of energy and shoulder blades in Aesthetic Emotion: Abby’s Story, another Empirical Vignette here on Aesthetic Impact.
There is more information in the “New Commentary” than what I have given you in this short empirical vignette, descriptions and definitions about concepts and working realities such as “infinity” and “animate” and “inanimate” energy. Historical human observations such as this could be very valuable as the study of quantum physics, nonlocality and biofields continues to emerge. Especially when the don goes on to describe that “intending” the movement of the “assemblage point” allowed the shaman to move into other worlds, where different sensory data presented entirely different perspectives, analysis and outcomes. “Other worlds” are merely inches away, if we only knew where to find the key and how to fit it into the lock. Imagine what that might look like. I am.
I am documenting on August 16, 2008 what I will term two separate events which appear to have some elements of entanglement. The first occurred on Monday, July 28, 2008 and the second on Saturday, August 2, 2008. I spoke with Lyn Buchanan by telephone on the evening of August 2, 2008 and related the events below.
I left my home in Troy, Ohio at 0810 on July 28 for an appointment at 0900 with Julie B. in Greenville, Ohio. I have only passed through Greenville once or twice so I used MapQuest to determine the route. Traveling west, it took me through the tiny hamlet of Gettysburg, Ohio. As I passed through I noticed an old one-room brick schoolhouse on my left. These schoolhouses are common in northern Indiana and they are part of my heritage. I grew up listening to stories about them from my family. Schools and children are high priority with me, and I was also very active in the PTA and various booster clubs while my own children were in school.
Age and decay were evident. The roof was caved in, the rafters were exposed and foliage had seeded and grown high. I was travelling at the speed limit on a country highway and didn’t linger, but as I passed by I thought, “old pueblo mission / dangerous for kids / needs torn down / good fire exercise.” I continued on to Greenville and when I came back through Gettysburg I noticed the old, hazardous building again and wondered about its history. After that I thought no more about it.
I had a follow-up appointment with Julie at 0900 the following Saturday, August 2, 2008. This time I was running late and left home at 0820. Unfamiliar with the route, I wasn’t sure exactly where I was when I saw smoke in the distance. One continuous cloud, darker at the top, was rising in billowy sections as it grew and drifted south. I had a strange feeling of dread. I couldn’t quite accept that it was going to be the schoolhouse, and ultimately a fire exercise, but somehow I just knew it would be. I knew that I was going to be right again.
Worried, I looked ahead, hoping that if it was a fire there was no “mayhem.” Sure enough, there was one fire truck and a few firemen alongside the old school. They were apparently conducting a “fire exercise” and started a controlled burn. As my father would say, they “just touched it off.” In my experience, fire exercises are often conducted as a community service for the two-fold benefit of teaching firefighters and removing unsafe structures. As I slowed down for a closer look some of the firefighters, including the Chief, or Commander, looked back. I continued on to Greenville and my appointment.
When I came back through Gettysburg the fire was almost finished but the firemen were still there. I passed by, headed east for Troy but my curiosity got the better of me. I had to investigate this! I turned around and went back, but now the schoolhouse was on the opposite side of the road. This necessitated that I turn around again and head east. The berm was narrow but I pulled over and rolled down the passenger window. The fire Chief came over and I laughed, apologizing for being a bother as he smiled and asked if he could help me.
I explained that I had gone by the old school the week before and noticed it was in a hazardous state. I thought it would be a danger to children, needed to be torn down and felt that it would be a good fire exercise. As we chatted he told me that it was a Pontiac dealership several years ago and the owner used to sell cars there. The owner wanted it torn down, so he called the local fire department to see what could be burned first. A second crew was scheduled to follow-up and haul away what was left. Our chat was short and pleasant but I hesitated. I had come this far and he hadn’t given me a hard time yet but I had to ask the Chief one more thing before I left.
“How long you guys had this exercise scheduled?” I asked.
“’Bout two days,” he said. “The owner called us up a couple of days ago and asked if we’d take care of it.”
Putative energy (NCCAM) involves energy fields that in early 2009 are not measurable, and the term “biofields” has been added to the current list of acceptable terminology. Reiki (NCCAM) is one of many healing therapies described by various names and cultures for centuries, all involving biofields and energy centers (Hoover-Kramer, 84).
I am a student of Reiki, and would like to give the reader an example of an event directly related to positive emotion and energy. This event occurred during an interaction between another nurse and me while we were on duty in the Emergency Department. To build your frames of reference, my friend has graciously given me permission to re-tell the story to give you, the reader, a snapshot of “what it feels like / what it looks like.”
It was a normal day in the Emergency Department where we work. Typical of ER’s, as the day builds so does the patient volume. We were very, very busy, and no, we don’t wear roller skates. We just walk faster.
I had taken a team of patients on one of the several stations. My friend was holding down the Triage 1 (T1) assignment, meaning she greeted each walk-in patient as they arrived and using our electronic system, registered them and the reason they came for treatment. T1 is an extremely busy and critical assignment. This experienced nurse 1) uses critical thinking and intuitive skills to evaluate the newly-arrived patient and 2) in the five-level triage process assigns an acuity level for the next phase of the triage history and assessment to be obtained by the Triage 2 (T2) nurse. As a chief facilitator of throughput, or flow throughout the entire department, T1 also handles the role of prioritizing appropriate bed assignments after the T2 nurse completes the secondary history phase.
Working as a team, monitoring throughput and length of stay is also a key responsibility of each staff member. I had been watching the tracking system, and the flow of walk-in patients had been more than brisk. My friend was more than busy, she was getting hammered out there. The incoming patients were steady, one after another with no let-up but she was on top of it and her assigned shift would be over soon. Patients were being assessed and moved into available beds like clockwork. She was “one with the department.” She was in the zone, and what I hated most was that I was going to have to interrupt her. I was busy and she was busy, but I needed to give her a message…. and I had delayed as long as I could.
This may not seem like a big deal to you, but being in the zone has an etheric quality to it. Best I can describe it, your concentration is maximized, your senses are heightened and your radar is on. Your subconscious, intuitive mind is automatically pulling information in from the surrounding environment, anticipating and troubleshooting. If you have “been there, done that, got all the T-shirts” over and over again for years, you will have a feel, or understanding of what I am trying to explain. You aren’t separate anymore, you’re part of the whole and any interruption is like sticking a pin into a balloon, startling you. God forbid somebody questions a decision you’ve made when the place is rocking and you’ve just gotten off the phone with three people trying to facilitate a piece of flow. I was about to interrupt my friend and bring her out of the zone. She would have to recapture the ambience and flow and I knew just how difficult that could be.
I saw her as soon as I came through the triage door and caught a scene straight from Norman Rockwell. She would have done Nightingale proud. It was that palpable.
She was the epitome of what a nurse should be. The team of T2’s and techs buzzing behind her, she was sitting at the T1 desk working with a patient to find out why he had come to the ED. Corny as it sounds; she was the model of “earnest, intent, and bent to her task.” Similar to a controlled remote viewing session, it was question, answer, regroup and rephrase to clarify. She focused on him, honed it in and wrote it down.
It only took me a few steps to cover the distance between us. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, much longer than my friend and in that moment I felt like the older sister watching a novice nurse grow into herself and her profession. I was so proud of her!
She had what it took. Compassion, intelligence, and grace under fire. She had it all, and right then I was overwhelmed with love for this little sister. I paused, still not wanting to interrupt her as she worked, and in the pause it happened. Hesitant, I reached out and put my palm between her shoulder blades to get her attention and I felt it. Completely spontaneous, my emotional response had triggered a flow of energy from my palm directly over her heart chakra, or energy center. I felt it leave me. Sometimes it’s from my thorax and my biofield changes, but this time it was focused directly from the energy center in my palm.
My friend looked up and to her left, acknowledging me. I delivered my message and quickly went back to my station. End of story, or so I hoped. Nobody else in the department was into studying “unconventional” and “unproven” complementary medicine except a couple of nurse massage therapists and one who had practiced polarity. I already had a rep and this wasn’t going to help.
No such luck. First opportunity she had, my friend came looking for me. Eyes big as saucers, words in a rush she said “What did you do to me?!?!?! When you touched me, you really touched me!!!”
Great. I was busted…. again. I couldn’t explain these phenomena. Not to myself or anybody else, and it had gotten to the point that I couldn’t hide it anymore. I took a deep breath and tried to formulate a synopsis of energy medicine / biofields / Reiki and quantum physics in my head…. for somebody who had never heard of any of those terms except possibly one.
Abby was almost dancing in front of me in her excitement. Her face a mirror of changing emotion, mind racing, she pelted me with rapid fire questions. “What did you do? How did you do it? Can you teach me that!?!?!?”
Stalling while I searched my head for the right words to explain something she might be able to associate, I tried to be low-key, nonchalantly asking “What did it feel like?”
Her face was a study of intense excitement and I could almost see her mind shuffling through its database of words and experiences. She had none. No language, no vocabulary for what she had just felt. This was a new experience and she had no words to describe it, let alone formulate or frame her question.
Still vague, she came up with “warm…..!”…. “tingly…..!” and then the ball was back in my court. I never quite know how these impromptu teaching sessions are going to go. I just wing it, one sentence at a time, trying to connect with each person and where they are in that moment. Right then we didn’t have any time. We were working and it was busy.
I took a deep breath and asked her if she remembered learning about Therapeutic Touch in nursing school, or maybe Healing Touch. Excited, she said she did, but not much was actually “taught,” that they were only mentioned in passing. I smiled and told her that I had been instructed in Reiki, then proceeded to explain a bit about it and the energy body and energy medicine. All smiles and excitement, back to work she went.
My friend and I still talk about it from time to time, and she tells people that I have the “healing touch!” Our conversations teach a few more nurses about this part of our human selves that is still not understood, or measurable. After the initial excitement wore off she was able to describe her experience a little better. It lasted about six hours and it was like being lit up from the inside… all warm and glowing and tingly.
The spring of 2007 found me at a conference in Mystic Lake, Wisconsin. I was hoping to expand my knowledge of Mind-Body Medicine and had signed up for two of Lyn Buchanan’s post grad Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) courses. CRV was developed by the United States Government as a form of military intelligence, and can assist with finding the answers to questions, whether those questions are asked by military, law enforcement, medical personnel, or business. Lyn’s Medical Applications course had been my goal from Day One, but I needed the foundation of learning CRV basic through advanced methodology first.
Some helpful resources include: Invisible Acts of Power by Caroline Myss, and The Creation of Health: Merging Traditional Medicine with Intuitive Diagnosis, co-authored by Caroline Myss and Dr. Norman Shealy. Dr. Shealy had also offered a foreword for The Body of Health, written by Francesca McCartney, PhD. I hoped that by studying Med Apps I could both develop my intuitive “gifts” and correlate them with my nursing intuition. Somehow, someday I hoped to find a way to actually help people by using these “abilities” that I couldn’t, as yet, name or define.
Organized by two CRV students, the conference was located at the huge Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Minneapolis for several reasons. The first half found CRV methodology being taught at all levels. Instructor Lori Williams introduced several new students to CRV Basic while Lyn Buchanan taught an Advanced class. Coleen Marenich simultaneously moved several of us through post-grad mini-sessions using tools designed to hone specific skills.
The group had also gathered for an extra-special reason. Mel Riley, another member of StarGate, the military intelligence “psychic spy” program was at the conference. Mel is a natural psychic, and a “Mel sighting” is rare. As Lyn says, “If Mel says that something is there you can take it to the bank.” All of us were privileged to be able to learn from him and we knew it. Mel’s wife, Edith was going to be there with him. Edith is a fellow nurse and Reiki practitioner, and I was looking forward to meeting her and sharing some stories of our own.
Class was held during the day, and in the evenings we had Mel and Lyn swapping stories. The privilege of seeing those two naturally talented people together was a gift that none of us will ever forget. The first half of the conference drew to a close with the now familiar sense of sadness, the feel of a family going their separate ways. As we scattered across the country, and sometimes the globe, we never knew if we would see each other again.
The second half of the conference began with eight of us gathered to study Med Apps with Lyn. Seated in an L-shape, I was across the long table from him, about three or four feet to his left. As always, he began our lesson by laying the foundation, reviewing terminology and methodology and building into teaching through analogy and storytelling. At one point my mind wandered, as it is wont to do, and as we were talking about healing, I noticed that Lyn had a large vein on his forearm. We nurses are very bad about that. Give us a big juicy vein and most of us immediately think about how easy it would be to pop an intravenous needle in there.
I focused on that vein and immediately and simultaneously realized that if I was starting an IV on Lyn, then that meant he was sick. My immediate emotional reaction to that unpleasant thought was sadness and dismay that Lyn would be sick. I didn’t like it, and thought “awwww……. Lyn’s sick!!!!!” Lyn, in turn, simultaneously began scratching his arm at the exact place I was staring!
Sitting very, very still, I silently stared while Lyn absentmindedly scratched his forearm and talked on. Another new thing had just rocked my world. I knew intuitively that I had just “done something again” but I had no idea what. I also had no idea that I was about to get a double-whammy in personal paradigm shifting.
Still watching Lyn scratch his forearm, I was snapped out of my state of shock by a bellboy knocking on the door, then opening it and asking what we needed. We all looked at him and pausing, Lyn replied that we didn’t need anything. Confused, he looked back at Lyn, and then glanced at the intercom by the door, asking again what we needed. Lyn repeated that we didn’t need anything, and explained that there must have been some mistake. He must have the wrong room because we hadn’t called. This bellboy wasn’t about to take “no” for an answer and he was, by golly, going to do his job. He dug in and did that casino proud.
Drawing himself up, he regrouped and proceeded to point, then touch the intercom, explaining that it had come on across the casino and it had definitely come from this room. The group assured him that we were fine, we had plenty of coffee and juice and we didn’t need anything. His facial expression said that he still wasn’t convinced but he gave in, closed the door quietly and left. Lyn resumed our lesson and once again I sat there staring, but not hearing a word he said. I knew that the bellboys’ office was by the front door to the casino / hotel and the conference rooms were sequestered….across a very large and spacious lobby and down a side hall.
It was a very long way from the conference room to the bellboys’ office, and I had affected something electrical and summoned one.
I sat there for a minute or two, and then decided that this was a witnessed event and the class might as well learn something from it. Head down, dismayed, staring at the table, I stuck my hand in the air and abruptly interrupted Lyn before I lost my nerve. Lyn is a “people-whisperer” and can read us like books. He knew by the look on my face that I was upset.
He indicated that I had the floor and I blurted, “Anybody gonna take credit for that?” We all knew each other by now. Wondering what was up, people both directions leaned forward and back to see me, some staring and some beginning to smile while I waited… and hoped. Nobody spoke up. I tried one more time.
“Uh... anybody want to take credit for calling the bellboy just now?”
By now they were all grinning expectantly and were watching me squirm with obvious amusement. Lyn, meanwhile, was trying very hard to choke back a laugh. He knew what was coming because he has PK himself. Thoroughly chagrined and bemused, I raised my hand and said “okay…. I did it. I admit it, it was me. I just had a PK event, and I know what I did. Sometimes I affect electrical stuff and since you were here I figured I might as well let you in on what you just saw.”
We psychic-types appreciate this kind of thing and after general round of kudos, Lyn once again tried to resume teaching class…..and once again I interrupted. In a rush, I went on to explain that I thought I might have done something else. Maybe.
We made eye contact, and I know mine were huge as they were glued to Lyn’s. As my teacher, I was looking to him for reassurance and an explanation about this strange knew thing that I seemed to be able to do. Plus the fact that I seemed to have been able to figure out that I had done it. I had vowed to myself, no regrets. I would not stay quiet anymore. I was scared to death but if I didn’t ask now, if I let it go and walked away then I would lose the opportunity to learn something and I would wonder about it forever.
I explained that I had been staring at the big juicy vein on his forearm, and being the nurse that I am, I thought about starting an IV in it. This made me realize that I didn’t like that thought because it meant that if Lyn needed an IV, then he must be sick. Realizing that my emotional response had kicked off an electrical psychokinetic, or PK event, I put two and two together and made the mental jump. When I thought “awwwww…. Lyn’s sick!!!!” I had also had an “AI.” An AI, or aesthetic impact, is the emotional response a viewer has when they realize they’ve established a spatial relationship with a target.
I asked him if he scratched his arm because I was staring at it. Surely that was it; it had to be that because he is so sensitive that he notices everything. He looked me right in the eye and didn’t hesitate, saying “No, I scratched it because you poked it!”
Thinking, “Oh God, what else?” I essentially went numb and the rest of class that day is a blur. The next day we studied the theory, methodology and potential metaphorical concepts that might promote healing behind events such as this.
I will add one last thing. One last piece of information for you, as the reader, to ponder.
Lyn was concerned that “unfriendlies” might try to access sensitive information through him when he was a member of StarGate. He developed a protective CRV methodology structure for shielding and tells us that he protected three things with it. The first he will not divulge, the second is the history of The Story Stone (he has it at his home), and the third is his head. If anyone tries to make it past this shield and establish mind-to-mind contact they will supposedly develop a severe case of gastrointestinal upset. To this day I haven’t asked about his forearms.
On March 3rd, 2008, I was looking for some of my early attempts at writing. I had made up a book of poetry for my ex-husband before we divorced, and while I was looking for it I came across a very special shirt. I designed that shirt in 2002. It was white and trimmed in school colors and had our last name across the shoulders. Our youngest son was a high school senior that year, and it was a very special year, indeed. We wore those shirts to every cross country meet, eventually going to State. The last time was when he came in 7th place and made the podium.
With a momentary flash of happiness, I lingered, my hand touching the shirt, remembering those happy days. A friend and his wife had a business and had made several of these shirts for me. Standing there, I could see his face and hear his distinct tone of voice, but I couldn’t remember his name. I closed the drawer on the shirt and the memories and resumed looking for the album. Eventually I found it, copied the poems and came home.
The next day was work as usual in my ER. It was still early morning and our usual controlled chaos hadn’t hit. It was simply the nature of the beast. As I came around the corner, my view the length of the department was unobstructed. The only person in the hall coming straight at me, smiling, was my friend: firefighter / paramedic… and the guy who made the special shirt that I had nostalgically lingered over the day before. A guy I hadn’t seen in years.
My smile was the size of Texas as I watched him come toward me and we met in a huge bear hug. I, however, had already shifted into that all-too-familiar surreal state. While chatting about work and our families and maintaining a conversation, I was simultaneously analyzing something mentally before I lost the details. Instead of wondering about entanglement or retro causality, I was wondering about subjective reality and multiple universes. And there was that common thread again: emotion seemed to be tied to, or had maybe even kicked off the event.
My friend worked in another county and didn’t routinely bring patients to my ER. Plus, he was working a second job in yet another county that day. The singular odds of seeing him at all were huge. The odds of my friend transporting a patient to my ER the day after my “happy-shirt-he made- for-me” event were astronomical!
This was beyond weird but something tells me that we’ve progressed way beyond déjà’ vu. Lyn Buchanan says “document, document, document.” I agree. It might mean something to someone someday. Like a quantum physicist, maybe.
Our country home was bordered by a large wood and stray dogs would frequently make their way out of it, stopping by the pond for a drink on their way up the hill to the house. I am a really soft touch when it comes to dogs and I can’t stand seeing them hungry for food or love. Sometimes I fed them and sometimes I took them in and tried to find homes for them. We always had dogs for pets, so whenever I did this, I risked life and limb myself and put our pets in jeopardy as well.
One mild fall morning found me outside, trimming flowers before the inevitable frost at the end of the week. Something rustled to my left and I immediately froze, wondering what sort of creature would be so close to the house in broad daylight. Being very still, I finally spotted two big brown eyes and a snout peeking through the rust-colored chrysanthemums. A beagle!
Beagles are big-time “talkers.” I knew, because I grew up with them and I can mimic their whiney little puppy cries. As soon as I did, it began nudging out of the mums toward me, one tentative paw at a time. He was hesitant, but not too spooky. He still responded to coaxing, his ribs weren’t showing and he wasn’t covered with burrs. These were all good signs that he hadn’t been lost and on the road for long, and it was only a few minutes until I had him in the garage with me. At that point he decided that I was “friendly” and that he was going to be at my heels no matter what.
Keeping him in the garage and away from our miniature daschunds took on all the machinations of Houdini, but I managed to make it through the door and into the kitchen. I grabbed an old bowl and filled it with table scraps and dry dog food, cringing while he began howling loud enough to wake the dead. Worse, he was beginning to scratch on the door that came into the house. I was already going to be in trouble for taking him in but if he scratched that door there would be hell to pay when my ex-husband came home. Argh!!!!!!
The two doxies were raising hell on the inside and the beagle was braying on the outside. Me? I was trying to juggle the chunky portable phone, the bowl of food, get the door open, keep the doxies from defending their habitat and the beagle from claiming it as his, all while trying not to fall out of the house and down the steps. I was due at my second shift job at the hospital in six hours and breaking my neck was not in my game plan.
I made it, but don’t ask me how. He was a cute little thing, all shiny black-brown and had those big, woeful eyes that only beagles can claim. He began wolfing down the food while I sat on the steps trying to figure out who I knew that I could talk into owning this wonderful dog. There we were, settling into our respective spots with me, as usual, trying to make it right for everybody and manage to stay out of trouble myself. The beagle began dozing on the rug at my feet while the doxies whuffed at the sill, seriously hoping they could make it through the door so they could get a piece of this guy.
I called my usual sympathetic cohort in stray-dog-crime, my friend Vickie B. Vickie lived just a mile over as the crow flies. She was home and knew the drill. A fast call to the county animal shelter was a bust. No lost beagles in yesterday’s lost and found ads either. This wasn’t good. Her family had just gotten two border collies and they were full up on their dog quota just like we were. The two of us agreed that there was no way we could let him wander, but the bottom line was that no matter what we did, we were the ones who would be in the proverbial doghouse for taking in another stray.
The newspaper was due any minute and she agreed to take him, hoping to find his owners. She had a fenced in back yard and I didn’t, so her house was better. I only needed to transport him the mile and a half (not as the crow flies) over there. He, on the other hand, was not at all happy about the short trip. As we climbed into the car and his wails became crescendos in tempo and volume, I considered the fact that he might become so upset that his generous lunch might come back to haunt me every time I got into the car. As always, I was pushing the envelope and courting disaster in one way, shape or form.
I am a firm believer in seatbelts. Midmorning traffic was usually light on the highway so I made an exception, even though I didn’t like it. I kept my right hand on his hindquarters, propped his front paws over my left forearm and drove with my left hand on the steering wheel. So far, so good. He was effectively pinned between me and the steering wheel and I wanted to keep him that way, but in the meantime I was going deaf. I had never heard such howling!
I remembered a skittish terrier puppy that someone gave to us when I was seven. We second graders had just learned our first song: “When The Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along.” Corralled in an old chicken coop, my dad told me to sit very still in the far corner and try singing to the puppy. It worked then, but this day I just wasn’t up for warbling the Robin. For whatever reason, I started hearing Ray Charles’s smoky tones singing “Hit the Road, Jack” in my head so I went with it and began to sing.
That was back in the day when I could actually carry a tune. I thought it was probably my alto, or the almost monotone, or the repetitious nature of the lyrics. Whatever it was, that beagle didn’t just calm down, he totally relaxed and rested his chin on my left forearm. For the duration of the five minute drive I sang quietly, over and over:
“Hit the Road Jack and don't you come back No more no more no more no more, Hit the Road Jack and don't you come back No more What'd you say?”
Beats me. Like remote viewing, instead of “just get a perception and write it down,” change it up just a little. “Just get an experience and write it down and get an experience and write it down and get and experience and write it down…..” until the next time. Do it enough and we may just figure it out yet.
My 1940 Cape Cod still has the original pair of matching bow windows, complete with tin awnings facing the street in front of the house. One on each side of the door, they are the focal point of the house and create that first ambient, cottage-like impression so classically characteristic of Cape Cods. Ten feet across and forty panes each, I loved those windows but I wasn’t looking forward to being perched on a ladder for the hours that I anticipated that it would take to repaint them.
Showcasing the front of the house, they were works of art. The architect had specifically built the 3D effect with trim that pulled the eye into their design, and it was that offset trim that begged to be defined with subtle shades of color. I couldn’t just paint them white. Those windows had personality and I wasn’t going to be able to rest until I did right by them and the person who designed them.
The house also faces west and there is no shade on the south half of the house or lawn. The summer sun was brutal and it rapidly became apparent that I needed to strategize. Divided in half, the south side of house, that window and portion of the lawn was completely exposed to the elements. The north half had the benefit of a shade tree. Dew clung to those eighty panes until the sun made it over the roof at noon, but once it did and they were dry, they were too hot to touch. I learned the hard way that the only good time for painting was late afternoon bordering on evening. Before five the paint didn’t just dry, it sizzled. After seven, the shaded north window began collecting evening dew and tiny winged creatures would come calling.
Gradually, The Plan evolved: every evening, five o’clock sharp, start on the north window, move to the south window, avoid the heat, beat the dew, dodge the gnats, and maximize the fading light. It was an experience and the neighborhood began to watch the saga. Some folks became my cheerleaders.
My front lawn is barely larger than a postage stamp. When I started, the turf was green and thick and luxurious but then August arrived in all its glory. It wasn’t long until my lawn turned brown and crispy and desperately needed rain. I wished that it would but I didn’t want the windows to get wet. If I watered it then I risked watering the new paint. Worried, I kept painting. The sooner I finished the better.
Then one week a curious thing happened. Not once, but twice. Six o’clock and halfway through my allotted paint time, distant rumbles of thunder behind me threatened to ruin The Plan. Looking up and west, huge dark clouds were rising over the rooftops on the opposite side of the street. Minutes passed while ominous warnings filled my ears and the air turned palpable. My two inch paintbrush and I pushed our luck, gambling that the paint would dry on the still-warm wood. Dragging the ladder and juggling the pail and brush, I escaped into the house just ahead of the rain.
The thunderheads were moving directly over my house, west to east. I watched in stunned amazement as a deluge of quarter-sized drops splashed straight down. The sun shone as splatters gave way to mist and mist rose into steam. First the street, then the sidewalk, then the lawn and in two minutes it was over. The steamy asphalt and grass were glaring proof that neither of my neighbors got one drop of that liquid sunshine, but my crispy lawn did.
I wish now that I would have grabbed a camera but instead I grabbed a roll of paper towels. Back out I went, preparing to wick any moisture away from the new paint. Blinking against the glare bouncing back at me, I stared. One drop. Eighty panes and only one drop hit a newly painted surface.
The possibility of quantum entanglement doesn’t sound so far-fetched to me.
The story that I am about to tell you happened November 14-15, 2005, and is one of the reasons I studied controlled remote viewing with Lyn Buchanan. Whatever this “gift” was, it was finding me whether I wanted it or not. I felt I needed to try to learn whatever I could about it, sincerely hoping I could use it in a positive way. Maybe I could use it to help people somehow.
As I studied myself for some semblance of rhyme, reason or patterns, events like this were becoming a standard part of my day. They were also escalating. What I mean by “escalating” was that it used to be three or four days between an event and some form of feedback. On some occasions, the time lapse had gradually decreased to as little as twelve hours. I was afraid that I would literally begin to know that catastrophic events were going to occur and I would be powerless to do anything about it.
I work in a large and extremely busy Emergency Department. My shifts were twelve hour days, 7AM to 7PM. I was driving in on I-75 at 6:30AM when something unusual happened.
First, a bit of background. My father drove an eighteen-wheeler for years. My brother drove dump trucks, or tri-axles, hauling various forms of gravel or rocks for my uncle’s family business. Part of my working knowledge of heavy-duty trucks is that occasionally part of whatever these vehicles are loaded with will fall off the back. If it comes through your windshield the score is usually Object: 1 :: Human: 0. I grew up in a rural area and from the moment I learned to drive the Falcon, part of the checklist was never, ever drive on the berm because of pavement washouts and, “Don’t get up too close behind that truck, Sister. One of those rocks is liable to bounce off and come through your windshield.”
So when I was driving to work on I-75 the morning of November 14th, 2005, at 6:30AM and found myself behind a truck, I automatically noticed it and paid special attention. It was like a dump truck, but the sides were low, maybe only two feet high. I needed to change lanes just then and absentmindedly dropped in behind it while I backed off the accelerator. My father taught me that the potential of eating the back of a large truck was also not worth the fuel saved by drafting in too close.
The weather was good, visibility was good, and the pavement was dry as we started the turn from the 75 ramp. I was staring at the back of the truck when I started to do something like daydreaming. The truck in front of me looked wavy, like a mirage, or as if I was looking across a desert through heat waves. In my daydream a friend of mine was driving and I was in the front passenger seat. I was nervous because I thought we were too close and a rock might bounce off the back of the truck. My friend decided that I was a worrywart and that he was going to show me that I was worrying over nothing and he refused to change lanes. Back and forth we went for three or four sentences until I blinked and sort of snapped out of the daydream and refocused. Five minutes later I was at work and nothing else unusual happened.
That was Monday and I worked Tuesday as well. Late season tornados were brewing and I noticed a story line on the right toolbar area.
“Large Rock Snarls I-75 Traffic”
My friend noticed my dismay and I told her about my daydream. The story was only three lines long. A large rock, four or five hundred pounds, had fallen off a truck around 3AM on November 15th, in the middle of I-75. Eventually I posted the scenario on Lyn’s CRV egroup asking, “can premonitions be target acquisition?”
Lyn tells us to document, document, document. Luckily I saved the article and my work schedule and I found the posting in the egroup archives. I know that still doesn’t “prove” anything because an outsider has to take me at my word that it happened, but consciously acknowledging feedback shows the subconscious mind that you noticed. Do that enough and your subconscious and conscious minds learn to trust each other, just like during a controlled remote viewing session.
I will include the calendar, news report and egroup post to complete my documentation. If you look closely you may note that the calendar looks a bit fuzzy because the original ink was red. I traced over it in black because the red was too light to read.