The Word

There’s even a word for it: “anagnorisis.” It is a moment of discovery. The moment when you realize that things are not what they seem. Now what could one mean by “things?” One might call on scientific discoveries, the kind that broke out after the church lost its grip on everybody’s mind, or when new systems of government broke out across the land, new lands discovered, or when books were published for the first time, or when the first photographs of earth from space showed this little world in the context of an unfathomable space of things. Seeing is not always believing, as we have discovered; however, if one were to back up a bit and not focus on particular things, just things themselves, all things, then a real anagnorisis might occur. 

Personal Note Sixteen—In the Prison of Normalcy

The job was hell but good. At first I had so much of the other reality coursing through me that I could hardly answer the telephone. Everyday before work, I practiced meditations that further immersed me in the place I needed to retreat from in order to eat, pay the rent, and speak intelligibly to others. Eventually I abandoned all forms of meditation in order to maintain my sanity. Insanity was a real issue. It took years to bring myself into the world but even then it felt only like a big toe testing out waters I would never learn to swim in. I did a fairly good job at work—eventually—but I was always struggling to maintain the world reality because no matter how much I managed to fit into what I was doing in the concrete world, that world always felt less real than the indefinable core of my being, which was increasing in its presence.

Eventually I found a woman whose life, although much different from mine, nevertheless had enough parallels with mine that we changed our lives so that we lived together. We helped each other restore a modicum of balance and now live together engaged in the maintenance of life on flat ground, which she occupies more firmly, while I integrate into daily life that place from which nothing can move me. After seven and a half years working, I retired with her to a house on the coast of Washington. I continue living that cosmic reality while keeping at least one foot on the ground. I live in relationship, write blogs and tweets, watch movies, cook, read bizarre novels, and look at death as the other side of the coin that was tossed in the air years ago.


End of biographical posts.

Personal Note Fifteen—Touchdown on the Concrete of Seattle

I carried my shattered mind north with the intent of marketing huge numbers of processes that popped up almost daily, whether I was writing or not. Manuscripts went out in the mail and thin envelopes returned. My mind became more fragile as my sense of concrete reality became more distorted. Nothing I did connected with people who were supposed to become clients. Instead, I got farther out there and stayed isolated in a little cottage on the property of the people who invited me to live with them and enhance their financial intake. These relationships flamed out, and when the opportunity arose to leave, I took it, even though I was skateboarding down the street on a thinly worn credit card. The transition from cosmic delirium to school teacher was a painful experience. As a substitute teacher, I rarely overcame the blankness that had overcome my intellect, and as a result was not ready to return to classroom teaching. After returning home from school and people who had no idea, I would evaporate into godspace as a retreat and restore my connection with the cosmic beings who had no resonance with the world my body had to walk in. Their agenda did not take into account the suffering inherent in the human condition. It was a war. Concrete vs cosmic reality. Staying focused to find a job and lifting off from this hell as soon as possible at the end of the day. Eventually the job came. Condensing back into walking and talking human being took years.