April 10, 1998

A silence broken "That scream, vigorously thrown, tore up her dreams. Standing up on her feet, she quickly directed herself towards the beach. Her glance scanned the luminous blue of the ocean, running then into the old man. She remained on her feet, still, like an animal in tension...she looked at him one more time -- his clothes were totally wet. She then spread her arms wide open, and held him tight and her fingers grabbed his hands. The silence seemed heavy to her, and she looked inside her for an excuse to break it. "Is the water real?" she noticed then the artificiality of that question. For a moment she felt embarrassed, but the sensation of happiness that seemed to have impregnated everything, even the air, relaxed her once again. "As far as the question goes," he said, in a tender and sweet voice, "there’s never been the slightest doubt."

April 9, 1998

In This Forest A dark forest. Viewed from above, it seems endless, reaching far beyond into the horizon, away into the vast, never-ending blackness of the cloudless, moonless, starless, empty sky. In this forest there are swamps, with ancient trees, many of them thousands of feet high, some over a million years old. In this forest, the weather is always too hot or too cold; it is sometimes stuffy, mostly suffocating, and never pleasant. In this forest, unknown and unseen creatures are heard in the distance, running through thick bushes, breaking small sticks and cracking dry leaves. Fast, like a flash, you can hear them sneaking away, trying to hide, on your left side, on your right, right behind you; no matter how fast you turn, you never catch it. Always out of sight, just in the corner of your eyes, almost beyond the farthest reach of you peripheral vision, like a shadow. And sometimes, when the cracking of thin, dry branches from a bush, or the restlessness of the leaves underneath beasts' feet are heard close to you, with out warning, in the dark, right behind you or right next to you, you freeze. Or when you awake from a dream to find everything around you has hushed and the only sound to be heard is a slow, contained deep breathing coming from the other side of the bush right by your feet. You freeze. You just lay there, in the dark. You can't move; you never know what to do. Fear becomes you. An unseen, intangible force keeps you pressed against the floor where you lay. Images of ten-feet high demon like creatures invade your thoughts...with bloody foot-long fangs, tiny red eyed slits, two-feet long spiky tongues pointing downward to hell itself and moving from side to side; saliva hanging three feet long from their foul stinking mouths; huge, hairy paws with dragon bloody claws pointing upward, as if to say either "up yours" or "come here..."; and with evil, devilish, mischievous, cheek to cheek smiles that seem to say something like "dam, this is fun!" or "god, I love this!" all the while... they walk up to you, slowly, and you know they want to eat you. Your breath begins to choke and your heart pounds at your chest harder than ever, and all you hear is the breathing behind your neck. You can feel its presence right behind you, sniffing your hair, ever so slowly closing in on you. You can almost feel the heat of its breath, almost smell its stench. It wraps it arms around you; it pulls you up three feet off the ground, and it wraps itself around you - suffocating you. You freeze. You can't feel your body, only an uncontrollable trembling from the deepest part of you being. You also feel the demon hugging you tighter, lifting you up even higher than the trees. Flying, transporting you away from the forest, into an empty space, where the temperature is warming, fresh and relaxing. There you float, unable to do a thing, when it begins to lick your head.  When you then try to move or squirm, you realize how powerful a grip it has on you, and how it tightens even more when the slightest movement is perceived. It continues to lick your head, and you can feel it huge tongue, at least three times the size of a cow's, slobbering all over your hair and your face. You seem to fly higher and much faster then. Its grip tightens until it prevents you from breathing and you feel as if your ribs are beginning to break. It begins to move in...it is eating you up. In this forest thousands of deformed, malignant creatures are born. In this forest, thousands of voyagers and adventurers loose their souls, wondering aimlessly in the dark, with fear in their hearts, always hiding and running, never knowing where to go nor who they are. In this forest, millions of creatures roam through endless night. In this forest, everyone is alone. Viewed from above, the forest seems endless, reaching far beyond into the horizon, away into the vast, never-ending blackness of the empty sky. But when you look closely, when you remain still and attentive for long enough, you can almost see flickering lights within the depths of the forest. Almost like faint, far away stars as seen on the sky of a bright, smog infested city on a foggy night. And if you concentrate real hard and pay a certain kind of special attention for a long time, you begin to see more and more of these lights. They get brighter, and you can then see them more clearly. As bright as the stars on the sky in the middle of the ocean on a clear, moonless night, but not nearly as many. Only a few here and there, within the vastness of the forest, and they don't shine on and on in the same place, instead they flicker on and off, in different places. They appear on one spot and then on another, remaining only momentarily on each place. From within the forest, the lights are seldom seen; and so, from within the forest, not many know about the existence of the Espers.

April 8, 1998

Twice Upon A Time Once upon a time, there was a little girl dressed in red… When I was a little boy of four, I used to stare at a well – a well providing water for the field workers that looked over my father’s land. The well used to impress me – a hollow cylinder made out of cement and rock that was stuck into the ground; it seemed to have an endless bottom. I used to stare at the well, with the shade of a nearby tree over it and an immense cotton field behind it. I remember having to pull myself off the ground, hanging on the edge of the well, to be able to look inside. A bottomless pit; I could hear the water inside of it by throwing rocks into it, but I could see only darkness. That’s where I met the little girl in red… Not long ago, there used to be a kingdom with a little prince. There was peace in the kingdom ("At least," the prince was known to say, " until I turned six.")– A kingdom full of beautiful folk, with music in their ears, a bounce in their step and a smile in their face. The prince loved everything about his kingdom – the majestic castle, with its immense towers and huge walls, the colorful green volcano behind it, full of life with trees with all mixtures and variations of yellows and greens and browns. Oh, it was beautiful. On one occasion, when the prince was four and his father, the king, had taken him on a journey to one of his castles in an other, far away part his kingdom, the prince had a most interesting experience. The first thing he noticed was that the gate into the castle looked like a doorway from another world. There were flowers all around the edge of the arch shaped entrance, and the walls of the castle seemed to have banished into a darkness that could be seen on the other side of the gate. As he walked through the gate, he immediately perceived the transition into another world. The prince walked into a colder space. Familiar surroundings beginning to fade away, the prince saw how the ground beneath him, with the dirt and the rocks and the bushes, the walls of the castle to his right, and the sky above were being replaced by an empty darkness. Even the wildlife, with its birds and deer and bugs and dogs, seemed to have hushed and taken refuge behind the empty darkness, for they were completely silent and out of sight, as if they didn’t exist. The only noise to be heard were the footsteps of his father, the king, and his servants, as they walked past him and went on, murmuring something or another, towards the castle, into the darkness, until they banished from sight, the prince completely forgotten. All silent then, he seemed to be floating, not in the air, but in timeless space. The castle, the people, the trees, the animals, the flowers, the air, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, the ground, all sounds, all sight, all light, the world, everything now banished. Suspended in empty darkness, a void, infinite space, there he stood. Only his weightless, transparent, almost non-existing body, a gray, stone well to his left, with a wooden bucket tied to a rope at its side, and a huge cotton field behind it could be seen. His body faced darkness; his head was turned sideways, looking at the well to his left, when, out of the corner of his eyes, in front of him, he saw a star. Turning his head (seemed to be in slow motion), he saw it wasn’t a star, but a break in the void, or like another doorway leading to a world of light. For there, in from on him, a radiant light grew in the mists of the empty darkness, from a point of light to a little princes in a red dress. All silent, all still, he watched as the little princes began to move towards the well. She glided and not walked. She wore a velvety red dress that covered her from her knees up to her neck, and it seemed to dance, flowing behind her as if blown by air. Her arms were crossed in front of her and the palms of her hands touched her chest. She stood straight and faced forward. She had golden skin and golden hair. She was serene and at peace. She approached the well. The little princes in red climbed up onto the edge of the well. To the prince, it was quite obvious what she intended to do. For the last time, the little princes looked all around her, as if saying goodbye to this world, and then suddenly and unexpectedly, she looked straight into the prince’s eyes. Their eyes locked, direct contact was established between the two beings, they smiled, and they both knew who they were. After a moment, she turned her attention back to the well, and then jumped. But the door had closed and the little princes landed on a wooden surface – a wide piece of wood that was now covering the mouth of the well. The mood changed. Inexplicable fear consumed the princes as she encountered the barrier, and when the prince saw it on her face, he felt it too. Had it not been for his father’s hand, the king’s hand, which instantly, suddenly and apparently out of nowhere held his hand, he would have been consumed by the fear too. Turning his face to the right, the prince could not "see" his father, but he could feel the protecting grip of his hand and the soothing warmth of his presence, almost like a shadow.  Turning his attention back to the little princes, the prince observed how the little princes was desperately trying to break the barrier, franticly jumping up and down on top of the wooden board. "What’s happening?" wondered the prince’s father, the king. "My sister is trying to get to the other side, but some one has blocked the doorway," thought the prince. "Why is she trying to leave?" pondered the king, who was the prince’s father. "Well, I suppose it is because she’s not of this world," realized the prince. "She travels across time and space, across dimensions, from world to world, through many bodies and through many life times, always remaining a visitor," he imagined. "Oh, I see," philosophized the prince’s father, who happened to be the king as well. The terror in the little princes’ face had turned into rage. Anger and hatred seemed to have possessed her, and the prince could almost hear her screaming and cursing, storms in her eyes making rivers of tears flow down her cheeks, all the while furiously jumping up and down on top of the wooden board. Terrible thunder rippled through the void as the wooden board cracked. It broke in half and the little princes was vacuumed into the well, swallowed by the darkness within. Fear rushed at the prince once again as he experienced an involuntary impulse to step back, to turn around and run away. But his father, who from now on should be referred to as the king, simply thought, "There is a clear, luminous light at the end of that tunnel waiting to merge with her." And then the prince heard his own words as he said, "My sister fell into that well." Then back into the world of suns and moons; of skies and clouds; of wind, trees and leaves; of people, animals and insects; of oceans, rivers and lakes; and of mountains, volcanoes, stone, rock, sand and dirt, the little prince went. Once fully recovered, he turned his attention towards the tree that was near the well, and committed himself, for the next two or three hours, to eating green mangos in front of the well, next to the tree, under the shade. As the years went by, the little girl in red became like an ancient dream, almost completely forgotten. It was thanks to my brother that I remembered. About eighteen years after the incident, he told me about a time when I used to tell people that I had seen my little sister jump into the well. The little girl who jumped into the well was in fact my father’s little sister – who lived when my father was thirteen years old – almost twenty years before I was born.

April 8, 1998

Yo, the Motha Comin’ Back About a half a millennia ago (not a long time for the age of the earth) this world was not capable of destroying itself as a consequence of its own efforts. But now, its sons and daughters can get into a fight and hurt the mother with their big guns. Just the other day I read in the newspaper that the Russians had come up with a new artificially made virus that the US didn’t have a cure for (Chemical Warfare). It doesn’t matter who fights against who; it’s just that s--- like this is happening. Not too long ago, there was a big fight between the US and the Iraqis, where the US showed the rest of the world its new muscles, in the form of war technologies. It feels like something radical needs to happen, like a kind of birth, or a re-awakening of conscience, or a kinda shape-shift, or something, to avoid total destruction. Fortunately, little by little this change seems to be occurring as the heartless scientific beliefs are beginning to change into a kind of spiritual significance in the middle of these giant circuit metropolises. An example of this effect is the Rave sub-culture, where young groups of people dance to the sounds of techno-rave music as a means of invoking something higher. The spiritual side of this great machine seems to be coming back to bring back the spirit of what it means to be alive, here in this planet, at this time of its history. But for now, it’s still at its outset, and being kept alive in little skirmishes here and there. It’s like in the Star Wars movie where the rebels are very few, while the Empire has power over the whole galaxy. The fact that this planet has grown to a point where it has to change radically if it wants to keep going is a sign of evolution. The more and more we get closer to the moment when this transformation occurs, the more this great machine will have negative manifestations and negative reactions, until it finally dies, giving birth to a transformed, totally different being. Our current generations are lucky to be here, in this time, alive to witness this magical event. For now, I’m gonna go back to resume my duties at my computer station, while I listen to Praxis! Cu later, and may the Force be with you, always....

April 7, 1998

That one moment It was only a moment by the clock, and yet it seemed to hold in it vast amounts of time and matter, as the highway climbed up the hill ahead of me into the rising sun. The rising sun was a white hot burst, flowing into yellow and then bleeding bright blue into the receding purple of pre-dawn. I had not seen, really seen, a sunrise of such intensity for a long time. Perhaps never before. The world stopped. The dark blue vale and misty grayish green of the old governors ranch that lay between the highway and the Rio de San Juan became a fixture in eternity. The highway led up to forever. My destiny sat there in the east at the top of the hill, invisible to my eyes in the blinding white light, yet seen as it hit the middle of my brow; seen from the core of my abdomen; seen as it washed over my head and down my spine. I floated up into the washing, waving light and looked down at the frail body sitting in the old station wagon at the turn to the motel on the highway. A myriad of weak light from the road sign, pale yellow and brown crust of a harvest moon, was soon to be turned out as the dawn reached into day. Past prayers and vague hopes reached through me and shot out into a fearful future and a humbling promise of what was to come. Threads of events flowed around me and filaments of light spread and receded, winding and weaving together in a vision of an arduous journey and precipitous rise. Sounds vibrated melodious and rhythmic in an exhortation to go forward, to be without trappings, and to build faithfully. My being melted away and flowed into the vastness of light and shadow, movement and silence. For that moment, I was no more, yet I was all. I saw the haunting past and the harrowing future, and understood the course a life must take to have what is asked for. The choice was made, no alternative offered henceforth. As I returned to the confines of the body, slowly and statically I turned into the motel. The rest of the day was detached, my movements unreal and mechanical. I worked and ate and moved in silence. Fear and doubt grasped at my body at each turn, and my mind kept repeating "Take care of what you ask for, and have no pride in your receiving it". Soon I would take that highway out of town, away from the place of childhood and into a world of mystery and misery. Yet that which I received at that one moment has never left me, and strikes at those moments of listlessness that pervade this life.

April 6, 1998

Musings from a Wounded Sailor The song of sunlight whistles through the trees A simple tune that enters and leaves Ears slowly awaken to the heavenly sound A purity that breaks all my resistance down A silence opening up to a clear blue sky As rhythmic rain drops fill my empty eyes Electrical messages spiral through my brain constantly repeating this four-note refrain Again I enter this circular frame quietly mumbling "I am here again..."

April 5, 1998

Resistance (excerpt from the "Apocrypha of Native American Wisdom") The apostle Simon went to the desert to seek a teaching. Upon arriving at a school, someone took him to see the Master of the school, Jesus, who was at that moment talking with Master Socrates. He was surprised first at learning that they were together. He found them sitting under a tree. Jesus was sitting still, quiet, big and imposing. Socrates was thin, small, and he was hanging down a rope from his ankles, in the position of the hanged man. The guide translated what they were saying, for their language was incomprehensible to Simon: "There is a big sun up in the sky. When you die, and if your load is light, you can try flying up to the sun. The rays of the sun, however, are merciless and powerful. They will burn you away in a burst of the most brilliant white light you’ve ever seen. If you face the sun, then you should merge with it. Otherwise, you will resist so much that you will begin to sink back into the darkness of the world, burnt like the crow. Trapped between the inability to merge, and the terror of sinking into darkness, you can try to fly like the eagle. "The eagle turns his back to the sun. The sun then casts his cleansing rays upon the eagle. The eagle keeps on flying, encompassing the earth with his wings while melting away in the dullest white light he has ever seen." Jesus asked the guide who the seeker was. He said he was Simon. Jesus told the guide to take the guest away. Simon stood up to leave. Socrates then came down from the tree, smiling mischievously, and said: "Let him stay here." The guide said that Simon didn’t know what to do, whom to obey. Socrates said: "He should obey both." Then, he took Simon on the side and talked to him some more.

April 4, 1998

The Cold Laws What happens when you read? For example, what happened just now when you read that first line of this little article? The answer is not easy, but here's a start: your eyes picked up on certain shapes created by the screen of your computer, your brain translated the shape into a particular code that was programmed into you a long time ago, the code was further translated or interpreted into "meaning", which usually means images or other words in your mind, although sometimes it can mean feelings and sensations elsewhere. Feel it. A small string of bits, of "yes and no", of little points of light, just penetrated you and touched even more deeply than you usually are aware of, they touched you in regions that have been forgotten by your daily routine. Depending on your deep programming, your particular taboos, conditionings, preferences, morals, etc. you will experience the strings of bits differently, some you might reject altogether ("Aw! C'mon! That's just no true!") whole others will send you into automatic agreement ("Yeah! That's right! Go on brother!") , some might make you go into an uproar ("How can they say that! What kind of people are these!") while others might leave you indifferent ("Yeah... whatever..."). Think of a sentence as a virus, a packet of condensed energy-information wrapped in an intangible layer of little black shapes. You have all kinds of virus protection software floating around in your system, it cuts off all kinds of attacks, it moves your lips in defense, it may even raise your fists, it definitely makes your heart beat faster, your adrenaline rush through your veins, your eyeballs grow wider. Your parents, your early schooling, your little childhood friends, they all gave you these protections, these deep structures that are ultimately viruses themselves. They dived into your core and made a home there, specializing in rejecting all new comers. (This is why the supposed "freedom of speech" that exists in this country is just a superficial  gesture, a quick move of the hands to protect the deep censors which now infect the whole population.) What you have to remember is that you didn't pick these deep viral structures which now inhabit your innermost realms, you were never given a choice before you lost it, before you were condemned to taking in certain patterns and rejecting others, before you were told who is "them" and who is "us". And now that you walk around infected, is there any escape? Is there any way out of the self referential system of protection with which you've been burdened? There is, but only by taking the computer to the shop... and opening up the entrails of your system to an unknown hacker, a mysterious enigma that will claim to know the way out, to know the secrets of disarming the defenses, of short circuiting the worn pathways of your old neural fortress.  And the process won't be easy, clear or short. Is it worth it? Worth the risk, the pain, the confusion? Ask yourself: what would my surroundings be like if I disarmed the old software? What would I see? What would I hear?  What would I find? You may never know...

April 3, 1998

Trapped The void, Hollow, deep cold, humid, Sounds come and go, They get lost in the echo of the void, Shaking, Cold sweats, loneliness, fear... Look at me, here again, exactly where you left me. Look at my hands, full of blood; see the knife marking my destruction. Look how it cuts vein after vein. Look at my chest, it is open. The heart is spilling its liquid and nothing can be done now...it is too late. Look at me run, looking to ease the pain, back and forth. From the bedroom to the studio, from the studio to the patio. I'm outside. It is cold. The wind furiously shakes the trees, hurting my wounds as it passes by. Look at me here desperately asking for help. Up in the sky, dark clouds begin to anger. I see their faces. They're monsters preparing the storm. I see a body...I think it is mine. It slides like a corpse between other clouds until it crumbles. "Help me, please...help me". I want to give you a face...a name. I look within my memory; I find it...but it isn't real any more. You have no name. "Help me...you put me here, inside this, and look at how I destroy it. I destroy it for being itself destructive. Help me..." The tree is restless. "Mother...where am I? Help me Mother, don't leave me." A dark storm, a small brightness opens up. There is peace and the clouds rest easy there. "How far it is!" My knees get smeared in mud as they jump to the floor...why, why? A black cat jumps the wall. "Mother! Don't leave me...protect me in you womb, give me your warmth." In the bedroom. I pass by the mirror; I don't want to look at myself. "Coward!" I go up the stairs. "What is this house? How did I get here?" I go into the bathroom. I confront my mask. I know myself and at the same time I don't. I try to make myself feel better: "I'm only dreaming." Watch me convince myself this time like many others that I'm crazy, that I'm a destructive monster, disguised as a woman. "Woman...who, me? Maybe because of long hair and grown breasts, but my face has no sex, nor age." The blood keeps on running. Pain, fear, loneliness, coldness, lots of coldness. "Why here and not another? Why do I have to be just me? Is it that this has no end? Who wrote this story? Whom did it serve, for whom did it work, what side am I on? Is this part of a game? "LET ME OUT...IT HAS BEEN ENOUGH ALREADY!"

April 2, 1998

Awakening I awaken seconds before the shrill buzzing of the alarm clock begins, feeling slightly disoriented. Yet I know I have awakened this way many times before. I look around hoping to a get a sense of what I am to do next. On the left side of the bed I had been sleeping on there is a varnished natural wood table. On it stands a vase with dry flowers, two white candles, a picture stand, incense holder, a bell and a red bound American Book of the Dead. On the right side of the bed on a white textured stucco wall there are two soul portraits. I look at the portraits. I become aware of the complete and utter silence of the space. Darkness begins to fold around me. I open my eyes and attempt to get up I find I don’t have the strength. I look down to find that my once white gown is soaked in blood. I don’t feel pain or fear, just a cold sensation that seeps into my core. I begin to shake violently. My teeth chattering uncontrollably. Out of the darkness I see a warm inviting light. As my eyes begin to focus I see the shadowed faces of my companions. We are all sitting in circle. I feel the warmth of a candle that is in the middle of our circle. We all close our eyes. As we do so a voice that seems not to come from any one of us, but from all of us at once says the words, "I am now dead." I awaken seconds before the shrill buzzing of the alarm clock begins.

April 1, 1998

A moment in this life I feel trapped, nothing comes to my head, a calling from outside touches a spot in my being, by reflex, my solid rock cracks, and can see the chains of laziness that won’t let me take flight. My head begins to think and realizes it is confused "what? what is happening? I thought that was not the case..." Resistance and a feeling of freedom create tension, to a point of imbalance, Music fools my bag of bones into hypnosis. The waves of the space engulf my senses and the gates of reality are dissolved as the sounds lift my insides to a dance, shapes shift, forms change, where am I? It is an uneasy feeling, and yet seductive, without knowing the beginning nor the end, just that I’m here, in a sea of colors, sharp edges, landscapes and presence. It has an origin, and a final moment, what is in between is immense and yet tiny, moving like a butterfly in slow motion, a self generating orchestrated combination of sounds and events. It feels like the final question, the only question... eluding me as a free subatomic particle, but always here, traveling across the universe, and fueling inspiration to this animal body.

March 31, 1998

Between Two Worlds It must be about four-thirty in the morning; the sun has not come out yet, and the streets seem desolate, peaceful and quite. Little Cambodian and his mom are still sleeping – he sleeps on a bed right next to mine, she sleeps with me. The room is dark, quite, and pleasantly cool. It is that part of a day when the world itself is fresh and new. My body, mind and spirit are rested. I’m laying on a comfortable bed, underneath warm covers, and it feels so good to have her next to me – her soft skin, the warmth of her body, her arm unconsciously yet lovingly placed over my chest, and the soothing whisper of her breath singing in my ear. I could lay here forever. In this seemingly eternal space, I begin to notice that I can’t remember what I had done the day before. In fact, to my rapidly increasing amazement, I begin to notice that I can’t recall there being any other day besides this one. In this moment, I have only a vague memory of having a daily job, a daily routine, complete with meals, TV time, showers, car drives, family members, etc., but I seem to be unable to get a good grasp on what exactly my daily routine is. Then I wander, do I really have a daily routine, complete with family members, immerged in endless, ordinary and totally useless activities, or did I just dream about it? A rush of excitement and happiness consumes me as I quickly come to the conclusion that my enslavement to an organic existence has been but a nightmare after all, and that I have always only existed in this room, at this time, in this very moment – in this eternal heaven. What a relief, to realize that it has all been but a nightmare (and what a nightmare!), that I have always only existed in this magnificent paradise – an eternity with a woman to love and a child to play with. This room itself is all that I am – this chamber, nothing more. I smile as I tell myself that nothing exists outside this room of mine. On the other side of that door there is no streets, no cars, no buildings, no grass, no trees, no birds, no people, no moon, no sun, no stars, no sky. If there ever were any of those things, they were all part of the dream – pictures created by my own mind to add some sort of credibility to the nightmare. I close my eyes to rest in peace. I take a deep breath as I prepare to go into the Void once again… An extremely loud, screeching sound coming from outside suddenly fills my room (tires of a fast moving car scraping against the road as it quickly and abruptly comes to a stop)! Two doors open up just before they are slammed shut again (I am forced to open my eyes). Rushing footsteps going up the stairs and towards my room (now what?). The door to my chamber is violently kicked open as I rush out from under my covers and onto my feet. Two silhouetted figures momentarily pause and stand at the doorway to my chamber before coming inside. I have seen them before…it is my father and brother. "Oh, hell!" I think to myself, "What kind of eternal heaven is this, anyway?" Little Cambodian and mom seem to mysteriously not be there at all, for they don’t make a sound or the slightest movement – they just sleep away, as if nothing is happening. Me, I’m alarmed, for I can now see the scared faces on my brother and father as they stand in front of me. They seem to be trying to tell me something important – something urgent – but I can hardly hear anything coming out of their mouths (just like distant murmurs). All I see is the urgency in their faces and the terror in their hearts. And then it happened! My brother is paranoid (something that never happens), my lover and her child haven’t moved a hair (even after all this racket) and my father is wearing his bathrobe (he would never leave his house in it). Something went ‘click’ inside of me ("I’m dreaming!"). I’m now smiling as I try to make my way outside the room. My brother and father both try to stop me, still terrified and murmuring their warnings (I can now hear them saying, "No, don’t go out there. Please, don’t"). With a bit of effort, I am able to exit the chamber (my heaven), dragging my brother and father along with me. I try to explain to them that I’m only having a dream and that all I want to do is prove it to them. But they just won’t stop their whining – carrying on like soap opera actors with their urgent warnings (what is it that they’re trying to warn me about? I don’t know; I can’t clearly hear what they say). In my dreams, I can fly or, at the very least, float… I stand up on top of the railing out on the balcony of the apartment building (I stay on the second floor). I’m balancing my self on the thin railing of the balcony, looking down at my feet and, inevitably, at the hard, concrete floor of the parking lot beneath me. I’m going to jump now. I know this is a dream. I’m sure of it. I jump… I face the apartment building; I see the opened door to my ‘chamber’ (the darkness within) and my brother and father standing in front of it, on the balcony, shaking their heads in disapproval of my actions. I see the parking lot beneath me, the cars that park there, and the road on the side of the building. I’m levitating, just floating in the air, smiling. The first rays of the sun are coming out from the far horizon behind the apartment building. They seem to be rushing at me in slow motion. Rolling thunders roar, shattering the blankets of silence and stillness at five in the morning, and there is this rippling sensation to this whole experience, as if it were a film being played by a bad projector, creating gaps of blackness (or just emptiness) between one picture and the next. Or as if the rays of light were tearing apart the very fabric of the phenomenal universe as they roared, bouncing their way in from the Void itself. The light, however, is only illuminating the sky above me. The apartment is left in the dark, as well as the street, the cars, and my brother and father. I now seem to be facing two worlds. Pure, shining, white light above, and phenomena in darkness below. The light eventually takes over everything as I float between two worlds, and I find myself laying on a thin mattress, staring (eyes wide open) at the white ceiling of my cell, having just awakened from one of the weirdest dreams I have ever had.

March 30, 1998

The Long Road Backwards Lets take a trip backwards in time. Its free and it won't last too long. Down the road of history we travel, the echoes of generations in time with the rhythm of our footsteps. The reflection lies up ahead and within that lies the merciless eye of time. The road is like a helix, which we can see clearer the farther in we go. This path of DNA was written by an unknown hand holding a blunt instrument, carving secret messages into our very cells. Messages only a few travelers on this road have returned to tell. At this point the questions begin to mount, Where have we come from? What strange stories have preceded our incarnations on this little green planet? Who am I and where did I get this funny looking monkey suit? In an effort to reveal a small link in my own personal chain I traveled back to the land of my grandparents, Croatia. For as many generations as anyone cares to remember, my ancestors have lived in this area. I figured it was time to go back. With me on this trip was my father. I have many relatives in America but in the last forty years none of them had been back to Croatia. Many things happened on this trip, but one event seems to ring truer for me than all the others. I was holding a picture of my Dad in front of me. It was taken when he was here 42 years ago. He is standing in front of the local church with his brother, both are in their altar boy outfits. In the middle of them is the local priest. As I let this photo seep into my awareness I began to feel how the echoes of the past can vibrate into the present with astonishing clarity. In my Dad’s twelve year old eyes I could see myself, but also his father, and his father’s father, and back down the line until there is only the sound of a baby crying in the next room. A silent tear began to form in my heart, not one of weeping but of joy. For the first time I could see farther into the past than ever before. The whiplash from this vision sent me spinning headlong into this time we call the 2Oth century. Around me there is fire and the past is but a burning ember in my hands. The photograph is melting from the heat and the ashes of memory are floating upwards towards some distant planet, the place of forgotten memories.

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