Here's the text of today's conversation:

August 20, 2016

“So, this could be a hard day, or it could be another of the ongoing saga of the Moo who is endless. I choose the latter.

“You know, I would never have chosen this path, but now I do not see any other. And we all remain bonded forever, along with a curious gang and entities to be named later in a trade with the universe.

“Once I was pissed, but no more. You know, there are kids whose parents move them from Detroit to Reno, and some never get over the move and believe it or not, they consider Detroit paradise. And then there are those who compartmentalize the two cities, and remain split. And then there are those who say ‘I liked this about Detroit, but I like this about Reno.’ I liked being alive, but now I also like this side of the equation. Beats Detroit or Reno.                                            

“I don’t miss the physical that much, but I do miss Mommy’s hugs and her food... but not her sauces. I miss Papa’s car seats because they always slowly formed to me. I don’t miss getting up. Or sand in my sandals or bee stings. I don’t miss Aunt Bea, either.

“One of the challenges is to be present. To be in one’s existence, not in one’s memory nor in one’s antici... pation. Wait for it. You can have dreams, but don’t let them rob you of presence... ‘and never let anyone rob you of presents.’ Good one, CT. Is that all.

“I have been Bramblating. Whispering. He is an old spirit. Long in the spiritual tooth. [connected to us or Lee] Later down the road, and yes. He will be a ponderer. I don’t see Little League in his future. Debate Club. [less physically stressful!] Except for that chemistry experiment. ‘Bram, it’s awfully quiet down there.’ Ooom. That’s better.

“So, to learn to be who and what you are, follow both your bliss and your spirit.”

Here's the text of today's Live From the Afterlife episode:

“This will be a combined philosophical and practical session. Let’s start.

“When I talked about expressions of spirit and experience of spirit as being of an entity but not physical, I need to add that expression of spirit and experience of spirit may or may not be the same. Peeps often experience spirit as if physical even if the expression is not physical. The experienced is subject to the realities of the perceiver. You live in physicality and that’s how you experience except for the usually rare times when you experience something as nonphysical and then that’s what is called spirituality.

“Now, on this side we usually experience expressions as spirit but rarely we get to experience spirit in physical glimpses. And we don’t have a word for that because we are spirit and don’t use words! But it happens. A sudden awareness of a physical metaphor. Ponder that.

“[does that happen when you’re connecting with us?] Sometimes, but not always. Just as rare on this side as spirituality is on yours. There but rare. ‘But what if I want mine well done?’ CT. But I must say well done, CT!"

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Here's the text of today's Live from the Afterlife podcast:

“Let’s talk about connections. There are experiential connections, which are the stuff of the physical world (like that scene from Hot Shots) where you connect in terms of time and place and family. And then there’s idea connections, in which you find resonance about concepts (you read a book and think ‘spot on!’), and those curious concepts that can’t be negated out of hand, so they fester until you see their connectedness. And then there is spiritual, or essential, connection. You just sense a connection with an entity. Notice I didn’t say just ‘another person.’ It is a sense that one and something else have a shared spiritual identity--already or not yet. It is easy to trace the patterns of what has been already appreciated and understood, but it is harder to discern what isn’t yet appreciated or understood.

“So, folks often think and talk about connections to people of the past, but what about entities yet to be experienced. This is the exciting work, because spiritual connections transcend all others. Get my drift. It is like knowing most of a word, but antici... pating the rest.

“So, don’t get all hung up on the usual connections to the point you miss the essential ones. Might have a great opportunity for complexity but miss out trying to figure out if grandmothers in Topeka knew each other. Always look for the largest, grandest connections. But most people settle for the smallest. ‘You like vanilla ice cream, too!’ Big nothing.

“But to sit silently with another entity and feel connected, ahhhhh.” (8/13/2016)

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Here's the text of today's podcast if you want to follow along:

“Ok, let’s talk combining into more complex entities. Does that mean your spiritual entity connects with other entities? How physical! Think about it in more sharing terms. All that you are spiritually is open and available to the other elements of the greater complexity, not individually but collectively. It’s not like a frat mixer, it’s like an anthology. And the identity of the new entity is only real within itself. So the elements can sense and know the totality of the other elements but only within the reality of the greater complexity. If any entity were to step outside… and I don’t mean that literally… they would cease to have connection to all that.

“I give you a flawed analogy—flawed not in being wrong, but in being incomplete. A group of people decide to dine. Each person decides on their own. They arrive at this little ristorante on a side street in Firenze. Si si. And they find themselves at a big shared table with a common meal and magic happens. Communications cross languages, lives mingle. There develops a common and familiar story. The new unit has its own identity. But if anyone were to step outside or even go to the WC, the new entity would no longer be and while they might remember being there they would no longer be part of that new whole. The new combination exists as meaningful only within itself and as others observe it, but not as qualities that can be separated.

“The model I have used is of molecules but that is both too simple and wrong. Too physical. It is the knowing connection of being, not the being itself! Unpack that. 

“So, that’s a Point to Ponder y’all. Do you want grits with that? Grits. One of the foods that requires something else to be palatable. [True. Butter, cheese, salt… ] Pepper. ‘Chocolate.’ CT! When did you come back? ‘I never left. I can’t leave. None of us can. We are here forever.’ No, not forever, just until we learn and remember enough to be filled with knowing that will enhance others toward greater experiences of knowing. Was that a pith double header? Or just extra innings. It’s going back, back, back and she hit it out of here. Ouch.

“Too many people live in the bleachers and not on the field. It’s easier but way less rewarding. Triple crown. I’m done.”

Here is the text for this conversation:

“So, we were talking about the inherent incompleteness of every unfulfilled entity and how that is not brokenness and certainly not sin, but opportunity. Without any degree of being unfulfilled there would be no spiritual progress. SP is based on a premise of greater always greater spiritual complexity reaching toward unity with All That Is. Less than All That Is is not failure and not sin.

 “Say you have never been to New York. [R: I’ve never been to New York] Dad! And you get a chance to go. When you hadn’t gone yet you were not bad or evil, just not yet complete in all the experiences possible.

 “Remember you don’t have to have every experience, just the ones that will help you learn and remember in ways that disclose your spiritual truth.

“If there were no New York to go to or you didn’t feel the need to go even though a piece of your spirit might be revealed there, then you’d be stuck. Being incomplete is not failure but possibility. [wait, if there was no NY you couldn’t experience it, so you’d be stuck forever?] Yes. But the universe is infinite so there is a New York and a Schenectady but one is easier to spell. [that’s the main difference] It is. As well as a few minor other differences. Pith for the pithless.

[this whole area is intriguing. What about what you said way back when that in order to connect in a healthy way to others to form a new entity at another level of complexity then each spirit has to be fulfilled] Yes. [so, fulfilled by connecting?] No. So that each entity must have some fulfilling to do or else they wouldn’t be at this level. But if there were no openings for fulfillment then nothing could happen. So many religions focus on trying to achieve a higher spiritual level but that doesn’t deal with the spiritual tasks here at hand. O goodie, another analogy.

 “You sit in college and dream about being in grad school and you even sneak into a grad lecture or two and try to think like the grad students. But as an undergrad you need to fulfill the undergrad courses. Maybe you could eke out a C in a grad course but if you don’t know how to ace the intro course you’ll never move on to grad school. That’s enough."

Here's the text for this conversation:

 “So, the question is always about already but not yet. Your entity contains all it needs to find meaningful connection into greater complexity.

 “There is nothing lacking and there is also something lacking. Huh? Ok, a story. A poor family lived way up in the mountains. They tried to make enough to live off the simple things they made, while all the time their house sat on a vein of gold. They had it all and they had nada. So, too, with your intrinsic entity. You have it all but may not realize it.

 “Each life go-around is about discovering and remembering all those spiritual assets which are you and could be yours. The ever-expanding complexity is not built on what is possible but on what is realized. We all can be loving beings, but nothing changes unless we are loving beings. A can of chocolate syrup does not a milkshake make unless it is opened and added.

 “So, whenever you think you are insufficient, that just means you are not aware. And the assets… and I mean spiritual assets… of any other entity cannot substitute for your awareness. That’s why saints aren’t of much help, but simple teachers can be. Not because they share their wisdom but because they help students see their own. I think that is a-plenty."

Here is the text of this Point to Ponder:

"Again, picture the infinite-dimensional matrix: All the dimensions with different points connecting in an infinite number of ways. So anything which was, is, or will be is connected to anything else. Now, picture a journey from one point to another through an infinite set of junctions. That journey path is a probable parallel reality to any other journey between those points, and is a probable adjunct reality to any other journey involving either of those points. And there are an infinite number of probable realities which also do not involve those points primarily and secondarily. So there are parallel universes which are not about you, but which are as valid as yours. And all of them together make up the whole. Such a mess!

“But just as there is no single way to get from A to B, so, too, for any 2 points. And every path of connection is equally valid, but we may only recognize the most direct or most probable.

“From where you are to Utica, there are many routes--some even by way of Calcutta, but you are unlikely to use that one. Or are you? You drive to Albany, fly to New York, and on to Calcutta, then fly back to DC, take a train upstate to deliver a lecture at Utica College about your trip. So you went from there to Utica by way of Calcutta. Our paths are often like that!

“Understand the connections more than the complexity, and marvel how the more complex reality offers more potential connections.

“The shortest route between 2 places may not be the most meaningful. And in spirituality, efficiency is not a virtue."

Here's the text of the conversation:

“Window spirits are spirits through whom we can sense what other realities are. They are like translators. What they do is so minimize their own need to dominate the scene, that they can facilitate a glimpse beyond their physical beings.

“They seem spiritually transparent. They usually use little, if any, jargon or technical language, and speak in the common vernacular. They claim no special powers nor status. And it is often as if, in a situation, they had stepped aside but you see both them and something more. And the poorly initiated will think it is they, but it is not about the other person but about their ability to be without claiming the spotlight.

“Most people are like magicians who, by their center stage actions, misdirect your attention. Window spirits are just the opposite. By their lack of center stage activity, they allow you to direct your own attention. The great spiritual teachers all did this. That’s why there are so many, and so varied, descriptions of them.

“And now, down the path a little more. You will remember, I hope, that part of the living and remembering of lives is about moving beyond holding onto the past, and being self-generative of one’s own energy.

“So, when one is no longer relying on past and others for energy, one becomes, in a way, transparent. Physical black holes which cannot be seen through are suckers extraordinaire. So, too, with black hole spirits; can’t see through them to nothing but the suckiness. And they take you in, and all your energy... And even the future.

“So, a spirit that is not sucking energy and is not focused on the past can be seen through, like a lens. And through that lens of empowerment we see new possibilities, which are the glimpses of greater complexity, so they appear like windows. They have little to block out our view with their own issues, and they are forward facing and so the lens of their being gives us the glimpse.

“In fact, window spirits aren’t born that way. They learn and remember into it. Otherwise, they’d be gone.

“We see greater and grander possibilities through them, but not of them. Some are great because of what they show of themselves, and others are greater because of what they show of us."

Here's the text of today's communication:

"It's not an ending if you can see a future. And that is not about time, but perspective. Can you see a wider reality? Then it is not an ending. And some of those wider places may be in a past remembered, because without time, who cares.

"Grief, which mimics depression, does so because the person can see no wider vision. We know it is not depression because, over time (I know it doesn't exist, but hang with me), over a sequence of learning and remembering, the person in grief is able to see wider and wider until they can see around or beyond their loss. The trick is to keep them looking when the desire and energy is not there. We companion them, not to give them answers, but to encourage their looking--if only a part of a degree wider. A glimpse of a possibility is as good as a cure. Never underestimate the immense power of a glimmer of hope.

"Don't give them the sun, or even promise it, when all that is asked for or needed is a small ray of light. Too many want flashes, when sparks will do." 

Here is the text of this conversation:

“As I was saying, yesterday’s heresy becomes today’s orthodoxy. So, yesterday’s chaos becomes today’s normal.

 “We are adaptive creatures and spirits or else we couldn’t exist in an organic existence. Where there is any form of becoming, there is the potential to be totally befuddled. ‘Hey, I don’t get it.’ But you could. Stop looking and feeling and understanding with what you now know and ask a simple question: What would it take to make sense of this? ‘Yea, that’s simple.’

 “Applying overlays from the past cannot interpret the future. Always be open to what doesn’t fit the formula of understanding and ask what would it take to include that?"