A Writer's Chaos

My New Blog

2010-01-03T06:19:00.000-08:00

Hello All:

I am no longer writing posts to this blog.

To read my latest blogs, please visit my new location:
http://vitaebergmansbooks.com

Thank you for visiting A Writer's Chaos.

Cheers for now,
Vitae

Miguel Translation Coming!!

2009-08-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

This is exciting news for me.

A new friend, a young professor of English at a University in Jalisco, a native Mexican lady, is translating my latest novel, Miguel the Barber.

How cool is that!

You can read a review recently posted at amazon Review by Kevin Ehrlich

You can read a free preview: Miguel the Barber - 1st 50 pages

My 1st Review of Miguel the Barber

2009-08-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

This review appeared the other day at amazon.com written by Keving Ehrlich:

Miguel the Barber, Vitae Bergman's sixth book and fourth novel, is not only a riveting murder mystery but also a moving spiritual journey.

Who is Miguel the barber and why is he living in hiding in an old Mexican fishing village with his granddaughter, Manuela? The novel's hero, a retired professor named Escudero, affectionately referred to as EhEh, is asked to dig up Miguel's past after the barber suffers a nervous collapse. What he finds is both horrifying and enlightening.

Vitae Bergman, by weaving a story through the points of view of several colorful characters that span three generations, creates unique visions of Los Angeles and Mexico City as well as the more mysterious and obscure areas of Mexico near San Carlos. The fishing village where Miguel resides, for instance, comes to life within the busy barber shop itself where fishermen must have their haircuts to entice their wives. The outside is filled with the sound of children playing soccer with a barely inflated ball.

The journey EhEh takes, at first with reluctance, to Mexico City and Los Angeles becomes one that is filled with surprises, both harrowing and wonderful. Vitae Bergman writes with an intimacy that keeps us in the mind of his hero, and through his experiences, we follow his spiritual awakening. Vitae's deep love of humanity comes through in his prose, and like all of Vitae's books, the characters' spiritual awakenings become our own, as little by little we are exposed to a new way of experiencing life; one that celebrates the trust we put in each other to both protect and discover those things which are most dear; love and the experience of truly feeling alive.
-Kevin Ehrlich

I'm very excited about this, to say the least!

You can read a free preview of the 1st 50 pages.
Just go to
Miguel the Barber - Preview

Free Previews of My Books

2009-07-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

One of my friends gave me a wonderful suggestion, and I’ve taken him up on it.

He wrote, “Why not give away a free copy of the 1st 50 pages of my novels. Interested readers can then get a substantial preview of the book. Then, if they want to read the rest, they can order a printed copy at a discounted price.”

So, this is what I have done. Four of my titles, the fiction books, are now available in preview PDF files.

Just go to http://burkeshire-reports.com/vitaebergman/ebook.html

Pick out the book of your choice…or…get all four…!

Cheers for now,
Vitae

Miguel the Barber

2009-07-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

Miguel Guzman is no ordinary barber. He comes from a long line of eminent barbers going back to Elizabethan times, barbers who cut the hair of kings and heads of state. His grandfather cut the hair of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. His father was the barber to Pancho Villa.

So why is Miguel hiding with his granddaughter in an obscure fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, as far away as possible from Mexico City where he was once the proud owner of a swanky beauty salon within walking distance to the presidential palace?

Miguel’s granddaughter, to uncover the truth about her grandfather who has become gravely ill and has fallen into a coma, enlists Señor Escudero, retired sociologist and family friend, to investigate the barber’s past. She is convinced Escudero will find the key that will bring Miguel back to consciousness. In the meantime, her neighbor and mentor, the curandera Consuelo, holds the grandfather’s fate in her hands.

The search for the truth encompasses political intrigue, drug wars, and family entanglements, bringing into question issues surrounding love, loyalty, revenge and consolation. In the process, Escudero learns as much about himself as he does of Miguel

I had much enjoyment writing this piece and have high hopes for its reception among the readers of this world. It’s meant to be a literary entertainment containing nuggets worth contemplating.

You can read a synopsis of the story by going to my book site
http://cli.gs/miguel

I feel I’ve published just in time for the great tradition of summer reading. Let Miguel be your choice for this summer’s enjoyment!

And please tell your reading buddies. They can go either to my site or to amazon where my books also are available. Just enter my name in the search box.

The Moment You Are Born

2007-12-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

The moment you are born, your destiny has been set. But don’t panic! This doesn’t mean your life is pre-programmed, and there is no wriggle room. You are still in control. Free will is always the first law of the universe.

Yet, paradoxically, my first statement is true. A life plan has been set in motion. It is no accident as to precisely when you are born. On another level of existence, the time and date has been established.

Who put your life program into action? You. Yes, you did – and a few others, entities you could call your guides, allies, mentors, spirit friends. The “You” I am pointing to is not the person you know as yourself living in a body on this planet earth. This “you” is you as the Soul Being whom you are eternally.

From that level of existence, you made a plan for this particular life-sojourn. The day you are born and the name you receive from your parents [and that naming is also an event that has its origins in the spirit level of existence] represent keys to knowing the “Plan” for this life you have been given.

This “Plan” is your Destiny.

Whether you live up to the plan is another question. Life is always a gamble. Even the spirit being who you are, the You-as-Soul who has made the plan – that Being has no assurance whether the Destiny it has devised will be fulfilled.

So, you, as the personality, the egoic-being who is the executor for Soul, may have your own plans for this life, plans that do not necessarily coincide with the Soul Plan.

Such can quite frequently be the case. Lives lived out of sync with Soul Purpose, however, tend to be lives of struggle and discontent. No matter if the life appears as a successful life in the eyes of the world. No matter if you have attained to a position of prominence. Such accomplishments may be your ideal, may be seen as the perfect life according to the social ideals of your time and place.

But not what you-as-Soul really want and need to experience in this life-sojourn. This is a different matter, and one that needs to be examined. You must launch yourself into an inner journey, delve deeply within self, and come to know what those inner urgings wish for you. Intuitively, you have access to this inner knowing. Intuitively , you can sense what your life is intended for and what direction you must take to satisfy the inner needs of your real self.

All too often, in today’s world, we are the pawns of society’s needs, not our own. We must become authentically ourselves…and not a servo-mechanism for society. We must follow our Destiny if we truly desire supreme happiness, true contentment.

One way to get in touch with this inner-known life plan Soul has designed, is to employ one or more of the so-called esoteric tools, which, down through the ages, have been used and proven to be reliable.

One such tool is numerology. There are several systems available. The Pythagorean system, which I have expanded upon, delves precisely into this question of Soul Purpose.

This brief article cannot do justice to the subject matter. It’s meant primarily to whet your appetite for more information. Obviously. To learn more, please visit my web page, http://joyfulnumerology.com

How to Make Opportunities Happen…

2007-06-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

In my work as a spiritual coach, I am often asked by clients, "How
can I manifest my desires?"

You might wonder if this is a proper question to ask a spiritual
coach. Such a question raises the issue, what is the spiritual life
all about in the first place? Does chasing after egoic desires
constitute the spiritual life?

Here is my response: If you are living from the level of your
personality, which is to say, your egoic self, then those desires you
most likely feel compelled to manifest are probably not going to come
into your life very easily, or very soon. When we live from our ego
selves, our path becomes a struggle-the kind of struggle most of us
are very well acquainted with.

The ego feels itself separate from and opposed to the world it lives
in. The ego self believes it must seek friends and alliances in order
to get what it thinks it wants. Those who live out of ego
consciousness, seek health, wealth, and happiness through hard work.
Making the right connections, getting the right education, searching
out useful possibilities-we all know the routine.

And if through hard work we do manage to achieve the kind of
successful life we all seem to hanker for these days, we probably
believe we are well-functioning human beings. But are we actually
functioning that well?

When clients ask me how they can achieve abundance in their life, I
take it they are mainly referring to getting a money pile. It is as
if they assume having a big enough pile will take care of most, if
not all, of their perceived problems. And, of course, with or without
the big money pile, our problems persist. For generally, our problems
come from being possessed by a faulty personality; and secondly, the
effort itself to keep the flow of money coming creates even more
problems-physical, mental and emotional disorders (I leave the
details to you). To put it bluntly, the state of health, wealth and
happiness we seek seems to forever evade us.

And so, at some point in your life, the question ultimately arises,
"Might there not be a better way to go about this busy-ness? Does my
life always have to be an arduous struggle for survival?"

And of course, being the spiritual coach that I am, my answer is a
resounding, "Yes, there is a better way. It is the spiritual way; and
this way will provide you with all your needs-and even many of your
wants."

Why is this so? Well, to begin with, living from spiritual
consciousness, you automatically sense yourself belonging to the
whole. You know yourself as a full-fledged member of the universe,
which includes all and everything. You are not a stranger in a
strange land struggling for survival. What you need comes to you
practically effortlessly.

I realize that for many, the above statement is not easily believed.
Well, friend, I'm not asking you to believe. The spiritual life is
not based on belief. The spiritual life is based on practice. You
must commit yourself to practicing its principles. And the first step
is to remove yourself from the isolation-stop being entrapped within
your egoic mind.

Shift yourself to your heart consciousness. Focus your awareness on
heart feelings. Your heart does not pump blood alone. Your heart as
well circulates neuropeptides, which stimulate the feelings. When you
focus on your heart, you automatically experience powerful feelings
of well-being. Receptors in every cell of your body receive these
peptides. Every cell begins to vibrate with an emotional component
that can be verbalized as joyfulness. The cells of your immune system
grow stronger. All of your vital organs increase their functionality-
and your brain is one of those vital organs. Hence your mind, your
thinking aspect, becomes healthier. And thus, you are moving away
from egoic separateness. You sense yourself as belonging to the whole
of life, to all of humanity, to the cosmos, connected and integrated
with the Divine, encompassed by the All.

Contrary to the mind, which can vacillate between negative/depressed
states and bursts of high/manic states the action of which brutalizes
the cells' receptors with toxic substances, the heart sends out a
steady flow of those endorphin-like peptides that make you feel good,
alive, and eager for life. And in this balanced state, you are much
better prepared for receiving what your life requires.

Well now you must be wondering, "What does all this have to do with
making opportunities happen?" Doesn't this idea, "making
opportunities happen," sound like linear, cause and effect
conceptualizing? Indeed it does. I wrote the title this way simply to
get your attention. The actuality is, we can't make anything happen.

But we can arrange ourselves as receptors of opportunities. When we
live from our heart-self, we position ourselves as receptors. Our
heart desires are not the same as our egoic desires.

Our egoic desires are born from a sense of lack, of insecurity, of
limitation. Not thinking we are good enough, we strive for
perfection, for acknowledgement, for some kind of achievement reward.
Hence we tend to manipulate circumstances - make things happen, using
the faulty technique of cause and effect. Our egoic oriented society
develops concepts that attempt to regulate how to make things happen.
But such actions, we truly sense, are never fully capable of
achieving desired results. "The best laid plans often go astray," as
the old saying goes.

Plans developed out of our egoic minds are full of details, organized
to offset every contingency we can imagine.

Heart-desires contain no such detailed planning. The heart-self
connected to the whole, needs only to recognize its desires in a
generalized manner. Whatever the heart desires can only be fulfilled
if only such is in harmony with the whole. So there is never a need
to manipulate. Whenever a desire - or a need - arises, the being whom
you are requires only to commit to the intention of that desire.

No sooner do you commit to your intention (born from your desire)
than something almost like a miracle begins to happen. Opportunities
come into your awareness.

Opportunities appear in the field of your perception. Prior to your
commitment, the field was flat. Nothing in your world of perception
appeared useful to you. But suddenly, upon "knowing" your desire and
setting your intention, your field of perception takes shape.
Opportunities reveal themselves.

The word, opportunity, has for its components three elements that
point to its subtle meaning: "op" relates to vision; "port" relates
to carry; and tune relates to harmonics, or being in tune. Thus, the
whole word can be translated into a thought, something like "being in
tune with what you see."

So the real question is, how does one move from egoic consciousness
to heart consciousness? Most of us have spent almost our entire life
living from the egoic mind. Perhaps only when we were infants and
very young toddlers, did we live mainly from heart consciousness.
This may be the reason for Jesus having said, be like the children.

But how to do this? How can we become the child that we were? One way
that I am familiar with is a practice that can be done by anyone
willing to try. The practice is called "mindfulness" or "being
present to the moment." Living in the "now" is another expression
that points to this form of worship. I say "worship" because when we
are in this state of being, living from heart consciousness, we sense
we are in touch with the sacred aspect of life.

The egoic mind lives in the past and the future-two states that are
not truly real. They are only real to our egoic minds. In other
words, the past and the future are imaginary, fictitious. Only the
present moment is of reality.

And being in the present moment, we are in the reality of the Divine
Life. The more we live in the present moment, the more we experience
the magic of life. We become more aware of the vibratory essence. All
of life-nature-reveals itself. We see our fellows, and ourselves as
well, glowing with this vibration of life. We see the trees and the
other creatures of this world as if in a shimmering landscape.

We live from our hearts, and our heart desires come into being as if
effortlessly. We see opportunities that are like portals through
which we enter into the realization of our desires. Our actions move
in a straight-line motion toward our goals. No distractions appear to
us.

From our egoic consciousness, distractions appear as possible
opportunities, which we then chase after. And this is how we become
scattered, disoriented, frustrated and pinned to the wheel of karma.

The Art of Making the Right Choices

2007-06-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

The gift of life necessarily comes with a curse. For with this
precious gift an inescapable question arises: what does one do with
this life we are given? A century ago, such a question was almost
unthinkable, at least for most individuals. There were few choices
over which to decide. And most individuals had literally no choice in
the matter. If they were men, they did what their fathers did. And if
they were women, they either got married or taught in schools or
worked in hospitals. Only in some cases were men and women able to
carve out careers.

Today, the situation is entirely different. Today, we must create our
lives from the bottom up, and in every way imaginable. We have to
decide how we are to make a living, where we are going to live, how
we intend to organize ourselves around a lifestyle, meaning with what
gender we will identify, with what form of education we will connect
ourselves, with what type of friends we will engage ourselves…even
what kinds of foods we will take into our bodies; and then, we even
must decide the source for this food whether from locally,
organically grown suppliers or from mainstream supermarkets.

The list of decisions we must make is endless. No wonder that more
and more people have become anxiety ridden. Confusion has given rise
to a perplexity no other time in history can match. And as a
consequence, more people are asking some basic questions. People are
beginning to ask what is their real purpose; for instinctively they
know that once the real purpose is found, decisions can then be made
in accordance with that purpose.

"If only I knew what my real purpose for this life I am living truly
is, then I will know how to live it."

This is not simply a personality issue. No longer is it a feasible
option to make choices based on requirements rooted in egoic self-
examination. Nor can the old aptitude testing devises suffice in
showing us the way. The world is changing too rapidly for such
outmoded means. We have become permanently bombarded with an ever-
expanding list of choices, so-called opportunities-each and every one
of them promising us the ultimate happiness we all presumably seek.

Our world is exploding. And so we are becoming more insistent. We no
longer ask, "What do I want?" We don't know what to want anymore.
There is so much to want. Chasing after our wants has gotten us
fragmented, scattered, out of touch with whom we thought we were.

We have come instead to acknowledge the importance of first knowing,
"What is my purpose?" Knowing our purpose orients us in the right
direction for realizing a satisfying life. And to know our purpose,
we must go deeper within our self. We must delve past our ego self to
the core of our being. To put it precisely, this is a soul question
we need to ask. We must ask, "What is it that Soul has brought me
into this life to accomplish?"

In other words, the real question can only be, "What is my Soul
purpose?" What am I here to accomplish for the benefit of Soul? It
must be understood that each of us is a soul being alive in a human
body. We have come to the earth plane for two reasons: 1, to help
heal the planet (restore its natural balance), and 2, to heal our
self (restore our soul psyche to its natural balance).

As souls, we have come into the earth plane innumerable times, first
as innocent beings not fully aware of the distortions life in this
dimension exerts upon the purity of our being. Thus, from lifetime to
lifetime, our souls have become scarred. We have created karmic
scars. Our soul psyches have gotten out of balance. And so, in this
current age, our souls now desire healing; and this healing can only
occur in the dimension in which the imbalance took place, namely, on
the earth plane. We are here to help restore balance to our soul
psyche. When the egoic self-which is our personality-aligns with the
soul and offers itself in service to soul purpose, then it can be
said, we are on the path leading to inner joy.

As humans, we have been given life to serve soul. And as there are no
two humans alike, so also are no two souls alike. Thus, there are as
many individualized purposes as there are souls on earth. Each one of
us must look within to decipher the hidden message that leads us to
our purpose. There are many technologies for making this journey
within, most of which belong to the realm of the esoteric sciences.
For more than 30 years, the art and science of numerology has been
for me the most useful, the most penetrating tool for this kind of
self-discovery. Several years ago, I wrote a book titled "Numerology
for Soul Awakening," which addresses the task of uncovering your
individualized soul purpose. You can read all about it at http://joyfulnumerology.com

Oscar Sherer State Park

2007-01-30T09:03:00.000-08:00

Arrived at Oscar Scherer State Park two hours too soon. Three o’clock is check-in time. So we drove down Highway 41 a few miles and then over to Nokomis Beach. This is charming strip of sandy beach along the gulf. It is a barrier island, a narrow strip of land between the gulf and the ICW with the mainland on the other side of the ICW. The island has only one road and dead ends after a quarter of a mile in either direction with the beach in the middle section. On either side of the public beach area, running north and south, are to be found private homes and small motels or rental accommodations. There are parking lots on both sides of the road, the beach side for autos only, and on the ICW side for RV’s, campers and the like. The camping site is studded with shade tress, very civilized. One can park here all day until midnight. There is a small children’s playground on this side of the road. We parked beside a cabbage palm tree where we could have a good view of the ICW and the scenery on the other side of the waterway. Margot made a quick sketch of the seafood restaurant using her newest medium, colored markers with opaque poster paint on top. Whenever a boat wished to go through the bridge, the bridge master set the signal to warn car traffic of the impending bridge opening. This signal was a heads up for me to the boat passing through. Only large power yachts passed through that day. I was hoping to see a sailboat, since that’s my thing. Having sold my own sailboat last April, I’m now a mere looker. I may be looking for a boat soon.

ICW at Nokomis Beach

Oscar Scherer Stat Park is not huge, only about 1600 acres. South Creek runs through the park. Some of it you can canoe on, that part that leads out of the park and on to the gulf, past developed area.

Rail Trail

A railroad trail also runs through the park. This trail was once a railroad track, now a biking and walking trail that extends from Sarasota to Venice, about 35 miles in length. A few bridges over swamps have yet to be built to complete the project, expected sometime later this year. People living in Venice can then commute to busy Sarasota by bike, and stay healthy. We rode on this trail over to the crossroads where Publix Food Store is located, about three miles from our campsite. On the trail, we came across this gopher turtle, sunbathing on the edge. These turtles live in the park, make boroughs deep in the ground sometimes as long as twelve feet. This is their home, but also, they accommodate other creatures as well. Rodents, snakes, raccoons and such like creatures find these cool boroughs quite comfortable places to hang out in. Sort of like a commune. The gopher turtle is maybe the guru, keeps everyone in line.
Gopher Turtle

Oscar Scherer is the home of the scrub jay. Get up early in the morning and walk the three-mile trail through scrub oaks to catch glimpses of this colorful jay that lives only in this park of all the east coast. They are otherwise found in the southwest portion of the country where there are more scrub oaks. They make their homes in these low-lying trees, which sometimes seem more like bushes. We found one scrub oak that was rather evenly symmetrical and round like a beach umbrella and stood about fourteen feet high. We were just in time to spot a scrub jay flitting into the branches. The tree made a sweet shady home for what seemed to be a single dwelling for a jay family. We peeked through the branches and spotted high up out of harm’s way a nest for laying eggs and raising a brood. Down towards the bottom of the tree, the scrub jay, whose home this was, could be seen standing on a cross branch having a meal. He [or she] had an acorn in his beak and was bashing it against a gnarly elbow of the same branch upon which he stood. We heard the crack…crack…crack of his travail, and quietly watched while he finally cracked open the nut and commenced eating. He was totally absorbed in his work and paid not the slightest attention to us, probably was unaware of our presence. We tried to see if there were any eggs or tiny chirpers in the nest. From our angle of view on the ground, it appeared to be empty.

Scrub Jay

Two lakes are in the park. To see the larger one requires a two or three mile hike depending on which way you go. This body of water has the unimaginative name of Large Lake, whereas the smaller one, very near to the creek and the nature center, is called Osprey Lake, although, after several visits, not a single osprey was to be seen. Osprey Lake offers a sweetly graceful beach on which to sunbath as well as cool water to wade or swim in. Signs caution swimmers, however, to be on the lookout for alligators who seem to like the lake and think of it as their own. We asked one of the ranger-volunteers at the nature center regarding this danger. He was kind of surprised and asked if we had seen an alligator. Evidently, this was not their time to be around.

Osprey Lake

One trail follows along the creek and is designed to accommodate handicapped and wheel chaired people. It is pleasant half-mile walk that offers information about the flora and fauna by way of speaking boxes along the way. Press a button, and a park ranger’s voice, quite friendly and hospitable, speaks to you as if you were the one person in the whole world he was waiting for to tell you about the wonders of this preservation of old Florida’s wilderness. And to be sure, you can almost believe you are in the middle of no where, as the saying goes, even though, if you listen closely, you can hear the hum of cars speeding down US 41 off in the distance.

Margot with Sout Creek in background

We stayed in Oscar Scherer State Park seven whole days. Over the weekend, a group of people [about 20] camped in the space next to ours. They were three teams of husbands and wives and swarms of kids ranging from infant to middle teens, boys and girls who were not all children of the three couples. I gathered this was a church group by the way they all recited a grace with their morning breakfast. They housed themselves in three large tents. Cooked over the open fire pit the usual stuff. They all stayed up late sitting around the campfire telling jokes and such. After the kids turned in, the elders conducted lively, loud and laughter-filled conversations deep into the night. We didn’t bother trying to fall asleep.

Margot climbing into our Allegro RV

The RV on our other side was occupied by a couple of grandparents from Nova Scotia. Paul and his wife Peg. They were staying for several months, working as volunteers. Their home, Paul told me, was on the bay in Halifax. He was born in this house, which had been built in the early 18th century by his ancestors. He owned a sailboat, which he kept on the dock in front of his home…a Van Stadt, Dutch designed built in Canada, a 21 foot sloop, and very seaworthy. Naturally, we talked about boats and sailing. His people had been fishermen, and he like fishing quite a bit. However, his life work had been that of air traffic controller at the Halifax Airport. He and his wife had brought seven souls into the world. Four live in Alberta, Canada working in the oil industry. He told me, many young people go out there to earn big incomes, saving up to buy property back home. He also told me that when he and his wife discovered what it was they were doing that caused them to have so many kids, they stopped doing it. A joke, I’m sure, he told many times.

In the old days, the land that is now Oscar Scherer State Park belonged to a man whose wife was the daughter of Oscar Scherer. The land, typical hardwood hammock land consisting of scrub oak and slash pines, as well as palmettos, cabbage palm and other kinds of tropical flora – in other words, the usual Florida jungle…this land provided income for the owner who ran it as a turpentine business, hence the name, slash pine. Workers, mostly black people, or in other words, former slaves, using primitive tools, would slash large V’s into the bark of the pine to extract the nectar, which was then boiled in vats and otherwise treated in the process of making turpentine. The owner made a widow if his wife, and she then, before she conked out, bequeathed 1600 acres of her land to the State of Florida for the purpose of preserving something of the old Florida in the face of growing development. She stipulated that the park be named after her father who had owned some kind of a leather factory somewhere in the north. At the nature center, on one of the exterior walls, you can see photos from the old days showing workers slashing pines, working the still that made the turpentine, leading horse drawn wagons through the underbrush on narrow paths, and otherwise looking rather serious [read not jolly] about their work. These workers were dressed similarly in shirts and pants, but in no way appeared to be wearing uniforms with tiny logos over their pockets. McDonalds and other such like franchises had not yet come on the scene.

Slash Pine Canopy

We left Oscar Scherer and his memory around 1 pm on Tuesday, January 16th and made our way to Ft. Myers to visit our friends, Carla and Adai, she from Argentina, he from Cuba. They own a small, Beer, Wine and Tobacco store in a strip mall a block away from the main drag. Their place of business had gotten broken into just a few nights before we arrived. So we came in time to cheer them up.

Early Stages of Florida Travels, 2007

2007-01-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

All packed and on our way Jan 2nd in our 22 foot RV that has no name [personalized, that is] - I guess we're just not that sort - left home by 2:30 pm and arrived at South Myrtle Beach, SC by 11:30 pm, where we visited Margot's cousins for a couple of days. Three sisters, 59 to 66 in age, ladies I haven't seen in more than 20 years. Was a treat doing the catch-up thing. The sisters live within a stones throw of each other. And they carry on like sisters do, the way I imagine they carried on as children. So much fun and laughter, chiding and loving at the same time, and aging backaches. It was fun. Ate too much.

The sisters live within walking distance to the beach. Margot and I took a walk, found one lone man sitting in his beach chair, perhaps waiting for the season to begin. Later, as we returned, we found a aged jogger had stopped to chat with the lone man. The blossoming of beach life.

We walked a good bit, passing very few people - and fewer doggies. As you can see by the photo of Margot standing before the vast Atlantic Ocean - no bathing suit beneath the outer attire.

This is the public path offering access to the beach. Looks like a typical beach access, pleasant, civilized, uncluttered.

We left South Myrtle Beach around noon. This is a lazy journey we are on. What's the rush? We have two months and two weeks to wander around Florida. However, we committed to three stops at Florida State Parks. Our first stop is Oscar Sherer State Park located in Sarasota County on the west coast of the peninsular. We are to arrive on the 9th.

In between, we visit our friends, Bob and Ellen who live in the city of Sarasota. They have a vast library of books dealing with consciousness and spirituality, and as well a large collection of DVDs and videos pertaining to the same topic. So, we get filled-in with the latest stuff. This time, something quite impressive to me is the research of Freddie Silva on Crop Circles. These circles convey spiritual information and healing energy. If you wish to discover more about this fascinating topic go to http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/crop_circles_home.html

Next posting will be from Oscar Sherer State Park. Stay tuned.

The Human Body and the Automobile

2006-12-29T16:01:00.000-08:00

These two images appeared on separate pages as an advertisement for an auto manufacturer. I saw the ad in a Home and Garden magazine. The first page shows the people arranged in the shape of the auto. There is a shadow outline, like a reflective pool, beneath the figures, indicating what it is you are looking at. I cut that portion of the image out to make room for the next scene. Turn the page and you see the actual automobile.

At first, looking at the people, I thought they actually were making a living statue of themselves. My wife, who is an artist and has a keen eye, corrected me. These people had not created a statue figure with their bodies. "The lady at the bottom would be sagging," my wife told me. No, these people were all lying on the floor. The photo was taken from above. Only way it could be done. The dancers, or perhaps better stated, the acrobats, had made something more like a painting out of their bodies. "Ingenious,' I said, sucking in my breath.

My first impression was that. The whole idea was an act of creative ingenuity. But then I got to thinking about this kind of creativity. The whole idea of using people to imitate the shape of an automobile shows me how deeply interconnected the automobile and the human body have become. The auto has been around for over 100 years now. At first, the earliest shapes were similar to horse drawn wagons. People sat in them, actually on them. But gradually the style of the auto became enclosed and more streamline, incorporating aerodynamic principles.

And now, the style of the common auto suggests something truly alive, the front ends look like the mouths of imaginary creatures. What used to be fenders now look more like the haunches of this very same creature. Little by little, the auto has come to look like an outer skin, or a garment worn by the owner/driver of the vehicle, that offers some kind of psychological/personality representation of the 'wearer' who is barely seen behind the wheel. The car is the owner, so to speak.

And now, it seems, a final concept is being explored through this advertisement that has appeared in a Home and Garden magazine. I can't imagine what other magazines this same ad has appeared in as well. Now, it is the human body itself that is creating the vehicle. The true symbiotic relationship has come to reveal itself to us. And it has done so as an art form.

Now over the years, I have grown used to seeing cars depicted on TV ads in a much different manner. They are presented to us poor slobs as the ultimate in agressive manliness. These manly cars are shown tearing up the highway, racing across mountainous roads, making the curves at incredible speeds. They are shown climbing over rocky terrain, reaching the summit of peaks not even sherkas are capable of ascending. Or if the target audience happens to be the female of the species, the very same cars show themselves as docile family servants. They allow themselves to be filled with gaggles of screaming kids climbing in, jamming themselves inside with all their sporting paraphernalia. The women are represented merely as moms for the most part, while the men are as yet still allowed the blessed image of that fighting spirit breed from which this great and tough American city/landscape was built.

But now, everything has changed. The human body, through the generousity of performing art, has become one with the auto body. No longer does the auto reveal our hidden dreams. No longer can humanity be seen as having been technologically benefited by the creation of the automobile. If anything, it is the other way around. Humanity is the benefactor. Our bodies have become dedicated servomechanisms to the automobile. With our flesh and blood we give it its plastic/metal shape.

What to make of this, I wonder?

Down Memory Lane - Part 1

2006-12-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

I'm on a Greyhound bus going from Los Angeles to New York City. The year is 1947. I'm 15 years old. This is my first giant solo step into the wide world. I'm going to spend the summer with my extended family, my cousins primarily.

If you weren't around in those years, you would have laughed at how puny and tiny those Greyhound buses looked. Narrow seats, narrow aisle, narrow windows, no restroom in the back, driver sees through a two-panel windshield, his hands and feet dealing with all kinds of levers and peddles. It was quite a bumpy ride. After four days and nights on this bus, my body felt much older.

The bus was full, but before we even pulled out of the LA terminal, six of us - teenagers ranging from 15 [me] to maybe about 20, all strangers - quickly discovered that we were going the whole distance to NYC together. So we immediately became a team. One was a sailor going home on leave. Two were a couple, who spent their time in the back seat smooching 3,000 miles. There was one black guy who claimed he was 16 but appeared to be more like in his 20's. The 6th guy is a blur in my memory banks.

Our first major stop was Las Vegas, early in the morning. The terminal was more a tiny hole in the wall with a door leading into a old fashioned greasy spoon. And this unsavory eatery sported another room decked out with a row of slot machines. and behind this room was a smallish gambling hall with roulette and poker tables.

Our sailor friend skipped eating and made a beeline for the gambling room. His pockets were bulging with cash. After six months at sea, he was ready for some excitement. I remember seeing him swagger into the gambling room the way sailors learn to walk, tipping his cap back on his head as if he were preparing to conquer the world.

The rest of our gang ate our breakfast complaining about our bones. Within ten minutes - can you believe it? - our sailor buddy was back...and broke, cleaned out, pockets empty. He had a funny look on his face, as if to say: "Well, that's life...ain't it always."

So, for the rest of our journey across the wide continent of USA, five of his friends chipped in from their meager pocketbooks the necessary for him to eat. No one complained about this. We all just naturally stepped up to the plate. It was a matter of sticking together. Six young ones facing the world in solidarity.

I don't actually remember all the talk that went between us. We chatted non-stop all the way. All our ideas about life, our plans for adventure when we got to NYC, our bragging beliefs in ourselves, and yes, our sex fantasies. But the couple in the back had no sex fantasies. They were making acting out every night under a blanket.

One other memory sticks out in my mind. We had gotten to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Another breakfast stop. It was 5 in the morning. We hadn't eaten since the evening before. I remember how cold and desolate the scene was, one tiny restaurant stading alone on a wide and windy plain. We stumbled out of the bus, bones creaking, and straggled up to the front door of the restaurant. And here, we were stopped cold. A sign was fastened to the door, crudely written.

It said "No Negroes Allowed."

We stared at the sign, dumbfounded. And without speaking a word, as if one body, we turned around and went back to our bus seats.

Suddenly, we had all become Negroes. For me, the civil rights movement began that summer in 1947.

Next time, I'll tell you about that wild summer in NYC.

Down Memory Lane - Part 2

2006-12-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

New York - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Coney Island - these were the three areas where my summer of 1947 played itself out.

You may not have been around on this merry old planet in those days, so I'll give you a quick tour of the times - as it was for us teenagers.

World War II had just ended two years before. Most everyone behaved like a starved consumer, just now getting started on a long range, buying binge. Money was almost like water flowing in the streets.

Youngsters like myself had been exposed to all the war propaganda - mostly from sitting in movie houses. The war films were calculated to stir up one's patriotic blood. Kids like me went around dressed in some variation of a uniform. I wore surplus navy dungarees [what are now called blue jeans]. These were bell-bottoms. I also wore a surplus navy long sleeved blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I even wore a white navy cap. No one ever believed I was a sailor gone AWOL - I looked too young to give that impression. It was simply a matter of stating a preference had I been old enough to join the war effort.

Just a few years later, the Korean War presented itself, and it just so happened I ended up in the Army. But that is another story.

That summer, I stayed with my cousin in Brooklyn. It would be more polite to say I stayed with my aunt and uncle. But they hardly figured in my life. They had a business in Manhattan with their noses to the grindstone. My cousin, two years older than me, worked in his parent's business.

I needed to find a job. Not knowing which way to turn, I asked another of my uncles for advise. He owned a clothing manufacturing business in Manhattan. Being the oldest son, he inherited this business from his dad, my grandfather. It was a typical post-war small-time sweat factory employing mostly middle-aged black ladies who worked the dozen or so old fashioned Singer sewing machines. My uncle's sister was the clothing designer. The business had contracts with Sears and J.C. Penney. In other words, they made cheap schmatas for the working class.

My uncle was a kindly family man who loved his daughters dearly. He was short of stature with a balding head of hair that always needed trimming around the sides. He talked fast, like a racetrack gambler. He always wore a worried look on his face, having come out of the depression. He never seemed to catch on to the fact that these post war years were the beginning of boom times.

My uncle told me he had a job for me. In those days [I don't know how this works now] the clothing industry was like the book industry. Remainders were sent back to the factory. And my uncle had a lot of remainders. He showed me his storage space that was full of remainders dating back several decades. What he had on his hands were out-of-style dresses, shirts, blouses, slacks, summer wear, winter wear - you name it. Boxes of merchandise stacked to the ceiling.

"This is your job for the summer," he told me.

I gave him a questioning look. So he went on to explain his strategy. He would rent a cheap storefront on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. This avenue went for miles, a commercial street full of small shops selling everything imaginable under the sun. I would run the store.

"We'll get some plumbing pipes and you can construct racks with them to hang the schmatas on. I've got boxes full of hangers. In the morning you roll out the racks onto the sidewalk. We'll make a few shelves inside for more display. I'll get you a cheap cash register to stash the money in. I'll drive you in every morning, and pick you up at six in the afternoon. Each day, I'll collect the money you take in, and once a week I'll pay you a salary and a commission on sales."

"How much do I sell the schmatas for?"

"Sell them for whatever you like. This is all what I call fire sale merchandise. Hanging around here in this space all these years, these boxes of schmatas are a fire hazard anyway. Get rid of them all. That's your job for the summer."

Next thing I knew, my uncle borrowed one of my other uncle's trucks, and I loaded it up with boxes of schmatas. It took me several days to move the merchandise from the Manhattan warehouse to the store on Flatbush. My uncle drove the truck to the store, left me there to unload. I have no idea where he went on foot, nor what he did while he was gone. I guessed he took the subway, or a taxi back to the sweatshop in Manhattan. Later, I found out he never went back to the shop. There were places on Flatbush Avenue where businessmen hung out. To this day, I haven't a clue about what went on in these hangouts, but I can guess.

Well, it took me two weeks to get the store ready for opening day. I supplied myself with white cardboard to make signs with using garish crayon colors. I had a lot of fun playing around with the pricing. It wasn't long before I discovered that the ladies and men who came to the store weren't very concerned over price. They had money falling out of their pockets, and they assumed they were getting bargains.

I would load up one rack with a sign that read "Everything on this Rack $5.00." And the next rack standing beside it read "$3.00." I had five prices: $5.00, $4.00, $3.00, $2.00, $1.00, and 50cents. I'd stand by the cash register and watch the buyers rummage through the racks, picking out something, holding it up to the light, looking for moth holes maybe, showing the item to a friend. These people worked like beavers to find what they wanted. The cash register rang all day. I was having a ball. I really didn't know what I was doing, whether I was selling too high or too low. It didn't matter. My uncle was pleased as punch to get rid of the schmatas.

Halfway through the summer, his storeroom of old styles was half empty.

"Lower your prices," he said to me. "Slash everything to half-price!"

I felt emboldened. Next day, I put out a sign as big as I could make it with the marketing equipment I had on hand: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS - EVERY ITEM IN STORE HALF PRICE!!!

Mayhem broke loose. In two weeks, we were out of merchandise. My job was over. I dismantled the racks, and my uncle sold the pipes to a plumber friend. He had all kinds of connections. Maybe knew this guy from the place where he hung out on Flatbush.

Well, this was how I spent my days that summer of 1947. Next time, I'll tell you how I spent my nights and Sundays with my cousins and friends over in Coney Island. I was quite a hero among the crowd there, distributing schmatas to me friends - old groovy outfits. This was before the 60's when old-fashioned clothing was the thing.

Cheers for now,
Vitae

Down Memory Lane - Part 3

2006-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Looking back, I can truly say, the summer of 1947 was a defining point in my young life. At 15, I had learned the thrill of entrepreneurial freedom selling my uncles warehouse of schmatas. Either that experience, or simply something in my gene pool formed my overall outlook on life. To this day, my entrepreneurial juices run strong. Seems I'm always into promoting something. Let's face it. I'm a promoter. I was a chef and a restaraunteur for 50 years, pushing food in everyone's face. "Taste this!" I always used to say. But also, health - mental and physical. Look at my All Game site to see what I mean. I push higher consciousness, awareness, alternative healing, anti-aging supplements.

Back to 1947. After my day at work in Flatbush ringing up sales, my uncle drove me back to Brooklyn to my cousin's house. Everyone in the family - the aunts and uncles and the grandparents - lived in Brooklyn. This was on my father's side. On my mother's side, the families lived in Coney Island. Why we had to live in Los Angeles was one of my major questions. My father, an architect instead of a businessman, pursued his artistic passion, which ultimately took him into the filmmaking world. He became an art director and made some significant movies in his time. His sisters were artistically inclined in various ways. My aunt, my cousin's mom, for instance wrote reams of poetry in secret, her output coming to light only after her death. My other aunt was a designer for the schamatas. But all the brothers were businessmen of one kind or another. And their sons became businessmen.

At my cousin's in Brooklyn, the two of us would grab a quick meal, or we would eat out. His parents seldom got home as early was we did, they were so glued to their business in Manhattan. A black lady took care of the two younger boys. She was the pillar for the family.

But on Sundays, the whole family ate dinner in the dining room. My uncle sat at the head of the table, nothing unusual about this arrangement. It's been the custom down throught the ages. But at the other end of the table there was no aunt to balance out the picture. Instead, we always had a strange guest at that place. Strange to me anyway. Opposite my uncle there stood at the table a piece of furniture, what looked like a cabinet about four feet tall. It looked like a giant size radio with knobs and such. But instead of the usual square space of cloth covered speaker there was a glass screen about 8 inches wide and 6 inches high. This devise was the first TV I had ever seen, except what I had see at the New York World's Fare of 1939 - which I had forgotten about.

The picture on this screen was so tiny I had to squint to make out what was happening. I remember one Sunday at the table eating the midday meal and watching two stick figures dance in a ring. It was the world champion boxing match of the season. My uncle's eyes were glued to the screen inside that mahogany box across the table from him seven feet away.

If we ate out, which, actually, was most of the time; we generally ate in Coney Island where we were part of a gang [you might say] of guys and gals. We had the neatest hangout you could imagine. We were a gang of about a dozen kids, all older than me, ranging in age to about 18 years old. My cousin on my mother's side, who lived in Coney Island, was one of the members as well. We had pooled our resources to rent a two-car garage. We outfitted it with rugs and couches, tables and lamps, a cheap, old-fashioned refrigerator - and a phonograph machine.

This was a primitive hangout compared to what kids make for themselves these days. No high-tech fancy lighting systems, no high-tech sound systems, no microwave. But it was cozy, and it was ours. And if we weren't out on the beach swimming in the ocean or lying on blankets sunbathing, we were in our garage dancing, singing, smooching, making out you might say, although I don't recall how far anyone went. We laughed a lot and told stories about our day. Everyone had a job of some kind. Everyone had a funny, crazy, wild incident to report. We all must have felt like we had the world in the palm of our hand. We all must have felt invincible. I remember once wondering to myself if life could get any better.

One day, two of our group lost their jobs. This was a blow to our financial situation. They could no longer pay dues. Well, we had a quick meeting over this issue, and decided we could handle ponying up a few more dollars each. And we then did the most magnanimous thing one could imagine. We each threw in enough extra cash to give the two guys sufficient money for carfare and lunch so they could go to the city and find new jobs. We figured this sacrifice would not be necessary for long. But such was not the case. A week went by, and they hadn't yet landed anything.

In the second week, one of the gals found out through a friend that the two rascals were spending the food money in a different way. They were going to the Roxie every day. Well, you can imagine what hit the fan!

In those days, the major downtown movie theaters put on extravaganzas. For $1.00 you spent almost the entire afternoon - the matinee - seeing two full feature films, the news, and in between the two movies was presented live on stage a full blown musical performance, a famous band, dancers, the whole nine yards of what could be considered close to being a Broadway show.

These two clowns were spending their time looking at movies and the show instead of looking for jobs. It was Louis Prima they went to see. He was the hottest singer; his was the hottest band of the summer of '47. I know, because we all went to the Roxie to see Louis Prima at least once that summer. And our two clowns evidently got hooked. Our garage was the scene of an uproar when we heard this piece of news.

Louis Prima sang one song that sticks in my mind to this day:
"Many long years ago, lived a man named Robin Hood;
He used to rob from the rich at every chance he could.
With his trusty bow and arrow, he could part your hair..."

Those are all the words I can remember. I do remember thinking about that song on the train going back home to Los Angeles. In modern times, I was thinking, the rich seldom, if ever, get robbed. Even that young, I saw pretty clearly that it was other way around. It was the rich who robbed from the poor. The rich did it then, they had been doing it for centuries - since civilization began. They do it now.

By the end of the summer, I was totally broke. I woke up one morning realizing it was time to go home, and I didn't have a dime in my pocket. What to do? Well, it was my dear softhearted uncle who saved the day. He must have sensed I would end up broke. He probably remembered his own youth. He came over to the house, and told me that his brother, my father, had called to find out how I was...I hadn't called or written all summer long. Isn't that typical of a fifteen year old on the loose?

This was just a subterfuge. What he really wanted to know was if I had had a good time that summer. Of course I said I had. Oh, uncle, if I could only tell you now how much that summer meant to me...if I could only tell you now, in my late years, how grateful I am to you for having been my patron, my guide into the wide world of real life...meaning his trust in me, his ability to not run my life (after all, he was supposed to have been my official guardian). My uncle lived until he was 90. And when I finally did have a chance to thank him when I was 45 and hadn't seen him since that summer, he couldn't remember what the big deal was. Yes, he remembered I had been to New York that summer, and he did remember something - not much - about the schmata business, but his real gift to me had gone unnoticed. Why? Because, deep down, he was a modest man, a creature who loved without seeking love back.

So then he asked me how I planned to travel back home. Not the bus, he hoped. Better take the train. Then, with a twinkle in his eye - I think he had fathomed I would be broke by the end of the summer -he laid a $100 bill in my hand. This, he said, was my bonus for having made all the old schmatas in his warehouse disappear.

He took me to Grand Central Station. I got my ticket, and said goodbye with a handshake, no hugs in those days. My three days on the train - this run had a fancy name, which I have totally forgotten - were the crowning touch to my wonderful summer. A 23-year old redheaded beauty took me under her wing. My summer at the beach had tanned me. My body had filled out. I had become a man. She bought me alcoholic drinks, vodka somethings. We smooched. It was just like being in a movie of my own. We parted at the Los Angeles station never to see each other again. With my last dime, I called my sister to come get me.

The Latest Internet Solution?

2006-12-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

You've most likely have already heard about AGLOCO. Someone I never knew, and still don't, sent me an email inviting me to join this new system. And I joined! Seldom do I join untried, so-called moneymaking opportunities. This AGLOCO system is so new, it's cast as being in the "Pre-Launch" stage, and it's most important ingredient is not yet in place.

Is this a true opportunity? Or a scam? On the surface, it appears to be a quite legitimate proposition. The concept behind it is something like a revolution. With AGLOCO, ordinary cyberspace citizens like you and me can get a slice of the business world's advertising dollar - much like Google gets it's income.

Here's one of the blurbs about the system:

"An explanation of how this no cost to you program works.
Free is too expensive... Own the Internet!
This is AGLOCO’s proposition, just three words: Own the Internet.

Whenever you are online, either surfing, blogging, clicking on an ad, making a purchase, all the money generated by your activities is pocketed by a small number of players. At AGLOCO they say not anymore!

AGLOCO is a global community, whose owners are its Members (you and potentially the millions of internet users out there). Their goal is to capture a significant portion of the value generated by our online activities and return it to Members in cash. Best of all, it is totally free, Members will NEVER have to pay anything, nor will they have to disclose ANY personal information!

How does this work? Once you sign up on their website, when available you will be able to download the Viewbar software, a free toolbar-sized application (half the size of a traditional Windows tool bar) that quietly sits on your desktop without ever hampering your online habits. That's all you need to do! Just continue using the Internet as you used to? No need to change your habits!

Do you have several individuals using one computer? You can have different AGLOCO viewbars to fit the profile of each user.

Don't want to see or use the Viewbar at any given time? Just minimize it and the Viewbar stops working!

There are different ways AGLOCO can make money for its Members:

Cash: You get cash by surfing the Internet while the Viewbar is running. AGLOCO’s profits are distributed back to its Members. And you can also receive real-time discounts should you choose to purchase from AGLOCO’s partners. They will never include gambling or a---t entertainment sites as partners.

Shares: In addition to cash, AGLOCO will give out shares in the company to its Members. Eventually, AGLOCO plans to go public and will be traded on the London Stock Exchange AIM. You can start earning stock options by keeping Viewbar active while you surf. In addition, you will gain extra shares by referring active users to AGLOCO (they lose nothing). Click here to see the calculator.

The more people join AGLOCO, the more value the community can generate for itself. The company believes those that build the community deserve more: your own profits become larger the more people you refer. You can accumulate hours not only from your Internet activity but also from those who you refer, and their referrals too? Up to 5 levels underneath you! For example, if you refer 10 people and all of them refer 5 people each, you could make over 7000 shares a month*!

Remember, this is all FREE, you dont lose anything, all you have to do is sign up, download the Viewbar and that’s it. Build your network and refer friends, family and colleagues to AGLOCO and earn even more!

The guys behind this idea include several Stanford MBAs and a few individuals who started AllAdvantage back in 1998, which gave over $100 million to its users before falling victim to the burst of the internet bubble. Today, the context is much more favorable: The sophistication of on-line commerce, the rapid emergence of communities, the wealth of advertising revenue sources, etc. Isn't it time you got your share of the Internet?

Dont wait any longer. This is a win-win opportunity, and you'll make it even more profitable for yourself when you start referring friends and relatives before others get to them!"

WELL, I MUST SAY, this line seemed irresistible. And so I went for it. I decided, what's there to lose? If the whole scheme is just a line of b___s___, just another slick attempt to get my name and email address in order to sell the information to some other outfit, so what? My name and email address is already all over the Internet.

Seriously, I doubt if this is a scam. The AGLOCO website is much too elaborate and reeks of integrity. Anyone wanting to get my information by filling out a form, needs only to make a simple splash page offering me a free something or other, a newsletter or a report. The AGLOCO people put up a very costly site. Why do that just to get my particulars?

Maybe I'm Mr. Gullible? Maybe so...

But I'm cheering for AGLOCO just because the people behind it seem to be modern day Robin Hoods. I like the idea of having something for the people. The Internet is perhaps the last frontier where everyone can have a decent chance at getting a piece of the pie of abundance.

So, this is my story and I'm sticking to it.

If you care to look into this "chance of a lifetime," just go to my site:
http://burkeshire-reports.com/agloco

Story of my Long Absence

2006-11-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I forget I have A Writer's Chaos to report my chaos. I get so busy with life.

A quick run down on the past few months:

Late August through mid-September, I was in Fresno, California where I once lived. My former wife of 36 years ago and my two sons from that marriage live there. I should say lived there, for my ex died while I was visiting. She had been ill a long time. My older son was living in her house taking care of her for the past three years. There was no surprise in her passing. Nevertheless, both my sons were shaken up by the event. I'm glad I was out there to help them move through the initial mourning stages. I got to see her for the first time in many, many years. It was the morning of the day she died. She was unconscious, breathing rapidly and shallowly. I had the feeling she was making her preparation for leaving. My hope was that she was no longer angry with me. Even though she had decided on the divorce, she never forgave me for having been out of her life. A strange and complex lady.

Then again, I was in Fresno for two more weeks bridging October and November. This time to help them with estate issues. Getting to know two grown men was definitely a learning experience for me. My initial impulse had been to treat with them as if they were still youngster. A big mistake on my part. So, you see, my inner chaos occurring from these events is still churning away inside. In time, my world will settle down again, and will then get back to working on my next novel, which has taken the back seat for the longest time.

Another issue: I've been working on my health. I'm not ill. Not even diminished in enregy. On the contrary, I've stepped up my healing practices by adding a new supplement to my intake. Was taking food based multi vitamins, a bio-enzyme, CoQ10, sublingual B12, and a super antioxidant - and feeling great! Now, I've added ACAI Plus, which is a super nutritional drink - and feeling greater yet! Saw my chiropractor yesterday. He told me I had become more supple in the joints. My energy levels have increased. I sleep better than ever. My appetite has decreased. My weight is normal. This is awesome stuff. And probably the reason why I am writing this blog today.

Now a new idea is blossoming in my mind. A campaign to urge others to do something for improving the state of their body/minds. My point is that each of us owes it to our society to get fully healed, so that we can collectively make the proper decisions and changes necessary for the healing of or planetary home. You can read about my diatribe at my usual site:
http://burkeshire-reports.com

Well, this is enough for today. Stay tuned. More interesting material is forth coming.

Cheers for now,
Vitae

Four Months Later

2006-08-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Reader:

You must have thought I went to the moon, or just simply blacked out.

Well, neither - smile. But I was away from my desk for five weeks, from May 1st - June 6th. Was in Detroit, Vancouver, and Columbus OH. My mission: lead All Games and Intensives. If you don't know what All Games are about, go to
The All Game.org

These workshops are invigorating and always have an affect for me that stimulates all kinds of acivity.

One such invloved making a new Website that would bring income to give to SOS Children's Villages. This is a world-wide organization that provides a home and schooling for orphaned children around the globe. I've been supporting SOS Childre's Villages for a number of years. But rather quietly. On my own. Not telling anyone about my giving to charity habits.

But after my travels, I realized I could be doing more. So, I dreamed up this scheme. The Website I developed - it's growing each day - is a content site that employs Google's Adsense Program. Whenever a visitor to the site clicks on one of the Google Ads, the site receives a commission from Google. These funds are then given to SOS Childre's Villages.

So, what I am now doing is spreading the word. Everywhere I go, on the ground and on the Internet, I ask people to visit this site, read the articles that interest them, and click on the ads that draw their attention. The visitor gains information, and interesting news pertaining to her/his interest [there's a news feed item on every page] - and - when they click on one or two of the Google Ads, the visitor has the satisfaction of knowing that a worth cause has been supported.

I encourage you to go now to Burkeshire-Reports.com and help make a difference...

Cézanne Comes to Washington, D.C.

2006-04-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

Inside this building, the world of Provence, France, circa 1880-1906 comes alive from the work of this immortal artist, considered the father of modern art.

Seeing Cézanne in the National Gallery is quite an experience. He lived in a time when our modern social upheaval was in its infancy. Workers agitated for better conditions and a more socially responsible society. Many artists aligned themselves with the workers. They regarded themselves as workers, separating themselves from the establishment artists of the Academy.

Cézanne was one of these new types. Aside from a few years studying in Paris, he lived in his native land, Provence most of his life. He painted mostly out in the open in the midst of nature. It was hard work. By time he was 67, he was worn out from his labors.

I stood for long periods of time before the many great paintings that came from his hand, his mind, his eye, his soul. I stood and marveled at the enormity of this artist’s output. He produced great works incessantly, even to his last days, painting in the rain. The exposure was too much. A few days later, he passed on.

I couldn’t help contrasting his time from ours. My wife is a great artist. You can see her work at http://margotbergman.com to understand what I mean.

When she paints a scene from nature, she works from a photograph. She sits in her studio and paints, takes a break, has a cup of tea, and then paints some more. She’ll go work in the garden for an hour or so, and then back to her painting. A lunch break. Then more work with the brush. And so goes her day.

But Cézanne did not have the modern comforts, nor the photographic technology that could produce vivid images in color to work from.

He had to stand for hours in the harsh sunlight, sweating in his old fashioned, heavy 19th century clothing, plagued by bugs, mosquito bites, and God knows what else.

Yes, he was a worker. And here are two examples of what he produced.

Going to see Cezanne

2006-04-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

His work is on display at the National Museum in Wshington, D.C. and I am going there for the day. A two hour drive to see the works of a master artist. My wife, who is also a master artist and whose work will some day also be in the famous museum, accompanies me.

I'll give a report when I get back.

A Sign of the Times

2006-04-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

We live on a country road three miles from a village. There is only one way in and out. Whenever I need to go somewhere, I pass the same handful of houses and farms each time.

One of the houses sits right on the edge of the road. It’s an old tenant farmhouse built probably around the turn of the old century - in other words, around 1900. Built when the old road was closer to the river. We live on the Shenandoah River.

Sometime last summer something new appeared outside this house. A sign was constructed on the front lawn, set in such a way that one passing by on the road could not help seeing the message.

This sign was constructed of two four-by-four wood posts set in the ground. The posts stand about ten feet high, about twelve feet apart. Two cross beams hold them together. The cross beams are about two feet apart, three-quarters the way up the vertical posts. Maybe you can visualize how the whole thing looks.

Inside the two horizontal beams was placed a sign made of some heavy white material upon which was written in plain handwritten black and white: “Proud Parents of a Soldier in Iraq.”

Next to the sign stood a flagpole perhaps twice the height of the wood signpost, an oversized American flag proudly waving in the breeze.

Every time I drove by this sign, I would feel a certain kind of ire. Three, four times a week I was reminded of the horror, the upheaval, the terror and the destruction of human life going on day in and day out, seven days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year – now four long years of bloodshed and heartache for so many.

The turmoil half-way around the world had entered my personal world. It was nothing like the black and white print of newspapers [which I avoided.] nor like the full-color gore of the TV stories [which likewise I avoided].

Every time I drove by, I wondered about this family’s pride. Wondered about their mindset. I understand the meaning of patriotism and all that. Nevertheless, I just don’t understand how it comes about, this new brand of it, which I am prone to label “righteous violence.”

I mean these are ordinary, honest, hard working, decent folks. Their place is immaculate. They have a small parcel of land, perhaps an acre or less. Three brown horses munch away in a tiny pasture. Two teenagers, and guy and a gal, regularly mow the lawn. A clean small pick-up sits in the driveway. The house is brightly painted every other year.

How, I wondered…how do they find themselves proud of a son’s horrifying ordeal?

But I kept urging myself to resist making judgments. I kept telling myself I had made a commitment to be non-judgmental. Do not condemn, my motto.

Every year we go south to spend January and February fleeing the coldest months. We take ourselves in our old twenty-one foot RV, and ramble on down to Florida. What with the cost of heating fuel these days, shutting down the house for two months saves us enough cash to pay for a good part of our stay in the warmer south. We visit friends and hang out in small, inexpensive campgrounds. Such is the lifestyle of a retired bloke.

So, the last day of February we are coming home. It’s still a bit chilly, but tolerable. 2006 has been not bad.

Once you cross the bridge, the road curves to run parallel with the river. Not far from this point stands the old farmhouse. As we approached, I remembered the sign, and steeled myself for the moment.

The signpost was still there, of course. But the sign was gone. Instead of the proud-parents message, there was nothing. An empty space.

Only two red fabric bouquets. They were pinned to the upright poles right where the cross beams connected. They reminded me of the poppy flowers people use to wear on their lapels commemorating the dead heroes of World War One.

And the flagpole was bare. No flag waving. The ropes to raise a flag were draped to a nearby tree. As if the wind had tossed them into the branches where they had gotten stuck. The curve of the white ropes, coming down from the top of the flagpole and then rising into the tree branch, traced a heart wrenching, eloquent silent message.

Their son was dead. Gone. They had lost their precious child.

My heart went to my throat. I know the feeling well. I too have lost a son. Sixteen years ago. He was nineteen, a motorcycle courier, absolutely fearless, a bit too careless, crushed by a Canada Dry beverage truck. He too, caught under the heels of the machine – the industrial/military machine.

I drove past their house feeling so saddened. I wanted to stop and offer condolences. We are not close neighbors. Our house is two miles further down the road. We have never met, nor spoken to each other.

Now, every time I pass, my urge to stop and commiserate gets stuck in my throat. I am afraid to approach the family. I picture myself walking up the porch steps to the front door, knocking or ringing the bell, waiting for whoever is inside to come and open the door. I picture the mournful face of the mother, and tremble at the thought of looking into her eyes. I am afraid of what I will see.

I’m afraid to discover that we really don’t live in the same world. Afraid we won’t understand the nature of our individual grief. Losing a son, we both know how that feels. But do we both attach the same meaning to the event? Do we both see the same way, see who is the real culprit behind this tragic moment?

I’m afraid...really and more simply put…just afraid.

So, I drive by, saddened for them, and, more often than not, with tears in my eyes.
I tell myself, I must stop…maybe tomorrow I’ll stop and knock on their door.

Maybe tomorrow…

Another Past Life Recall Experience

2006-04-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

Egypt

I’m in ancient Egypt. But actually, I’m lying on a couch in Waynesboro, Virginia, at the home of a regressionist.

The year is 1977.

I don’t recall his name. I’ve come to find out more about my past lives. His technique is rather unusual. He sits on the floor beside me, offering me only the simple suggestion to “go back in time.”

Gently, he rubs my thumb with his finger over and over again. He rubs, and I wait for something to happen. Minutes go by. I’ve paid $40 for this thumb rubbing, is all I can think of. Nothing is happening.

I feel myself getting exasperated. I’m about to get up and put an end to this futile exercise, when suddenly a scene appears before my inner eye.

I see myself standing outside a dome shaped building made of crude brick, or what seems to be brick. The structure is about twenty feet high and shaped something like a beehive. There are no windows, only a single door. I am standing there as if I am guarding the entrance to the beehive. A thought tells me this building is a granary.

I am in ancient Egypt. I see myself in a costume similar to images I’ve seen in museums. I am wearing the clothing of an official. I sense myself as an agent of the Pharaoh, in charge of the food supply.

Outside the building a large crowd has gathered. They are imploring me to let them into the granary. They are starving. We are in a time of famine. Drought has been the situation now for several years. Life is hard and bitter.

My job is to make sure the stored food is well protected and dispensed only to those who are registered with the governing authority. These are the people who over the years paid their taxes with valuables such as precious metals, or in kind, meaning a portion of their harvests in grain deposits.

Only those are allowed to take food from the storehouse. These others who are imploring me for grain, have no right to it. They failed to comply with the requirements, and now they are suffering. Indeed, they are dying.

And I must stand there and refuse them food. It is my job, my responsibility. Should I not do my duty, I fear the consequences, not even knowing what exactly would happen to me.

I am ashamed of myself for having to refuse these people. Day after day, they come imploring me. I think of running away. But what would become of my family. What would happen to them? I feel myself to be in an impossible situation. How did this happen to me? I had enjoyed a prestigious position. I had learned the techniques of preserving the grain, of preventing vermin from entering the buildings and destroying our insurance against famine times. I was a model figure in our circle, supporting my family and serving the population and the Pharaoh with dignity and loyalty.

Loyalty, I considered the hallmark of my life. And now, I felt I was betraying the people. Some of the people. I was beginning to hate them, to despise them for not having done the right thing when they could have. But in my heart I knew that they had always been poor and had not been fully able to part with the little they had to give to the storehouse what was the Pharaoh’s due.

Lying on the couch in Waynesboro, I squirmed in anguish over my plight. I saw myself shrinking. My soul was shrinking. My life became ever more darker. A guilty conscience permeated my entire existence.

And with that last thought, the session came to an abrupt close. I groaned and opened my eyes. The man whose house I was in, got up from the floor. He neither asked me how I felt, nor what had transpired during that half hour or perhaps longer time in which I visited a past existence. He waited for me to get to my feet, then ushered me out the front door, inviting me to return whenever I wished.

I thanked him and left, never to come back.

Margot had come with me. I’m sure I was aware of her presence. Yet, possibly because of the mental anguish I had undergone, for some reason, I didn’t see her. Only after I was in the car, did I realize she had left the house with me and was now sitting beside me as I silently steered home, an hour’s drive up the Shenandoah Valley, immersed in a mood I can only describe as something like bereavement. I was in mourning over my past life.

A Past Life Recall

2006-03-31T05:52:00.000-08:00

The First Opening of the Flood Gates

This astonishing first experience came not as a dream, I was wide awake; not as an intimation – nothing like a déjà vu episode, nor a vague hunch emanating from something observed in a fleeting moment. It was as real as anything could possibly be. All my senses were engaged. It was a total physical experience. I had my first past life memory on a warm and quiet spring evening, along about twilight time. This was in 1972.

I and my wife, Margot, and our infant son were living in a small ground floor apartment in Berkeley, California. Sorrel, our son, was asleep in his crib in the other room. Margot and I were resting in our bed, a tiny alcove in the living room, half enclosed by a colorful batik cloth she had sewn together. A slight breeze wafted through the front window, stirring our makeshift bedroom curtain.

We were casually talking about the day, making our plans for the weekend. Suddenly, I felt an excruciating pain on the bottom of my left foot. It felt as if I had been running barefoot on ground strewn with stones, and had landed with my left foot on a hard, pointed rock.
I literally screamed, ouch! And looked down to see what had actually caused so much pain. And when I looked, I was in another place, not in my bed in my house on Shattuck Avenue. I was in a wild place running along a narrow ledge above a deep ravine. I was in another time and another place. And I was as vividly there as one could be in any place in the real world. All my senses were plugged into that time and place.

Margot, startled by my outburst, quite naturally screamed, “What’s wrong?”

I turned to tell her, and when I did, I was back in our bedroom-living room. I told her that I had been running, and that I had landed on a jagged rock.

She looked at me with wide opened eyes.

“What rock?”

“There,” I said, and looked back. My foot still hurt very much. My brain, however, registered not only the pain, but also a strange feeling of exhilaration. For when I looked down again, I was back in that other time and place, and I was excited by a sense of adventure, a wild experience was opening before me.

Alternately, looking down at my foot and looking over to her, I found myself in these two worlds. The one, my usual world; and the other, this exotic landscape I had never seen before.
The cliff I had been running along was on a mountainside covered with giant outcroppings. Below the cliff, tall trees reached up from the ground, perhaps about twenty feet above the cliff’s edge. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by wilderness.

Margot kept prodding me to tell her what was happening. She too seemed to be caught up with this strange adventure, willing to go along with what I was telling her, not questioning me so as to be convinced, merely asking for details so she could be in on the story from beginning to end.
I had been chasing a wild creature, I told her, a creature somewhat resembling a cow or a steer. And I had cornered the animal at the end of the cliff. The cliff stopped abruptly at the foot of a sheer rock-faced wall. The creature had nowhere to go to escape me.

Then…I looked over to Margot to see how she was absorbing all this strange information, and was back in our house. She ran her fingers back and forth through her black, curly hair with frantic motions, as if what I was saying had to be massaged into her brain. She had an excited look in her eyes.

Then, I repeated, I used my mind power and psyched the animal into diving off the cliff and to his death. It seemed to be for me my usual way of hunting. Margot wanted to know where this place was and what time in history was this happening.

I couldn’t say. I had never given any thought to past lives and reincarnation. It didn’t occur to me until she asked that question that I was having a past life memory.

It seemed to me that I was in the body of a pre-European man, alive somewhere on that continent in an early age of human history. I was wearing a fur skin wrapped around my waist. And that was all the clothing I had on.

What’s happening now? She asked.

I’m running back to the cave to get help. The others are excited to hear about the dead animal. We need to cut the creature open, gut him and remove his entrails.

I tell Margot she is there among the people, stirring something like a brew of roots in a crude clay pot sitting on flat stones over an open fire. She has long, black, greasy hair, a fur skin around her waist.

I tell her that all the others in the cave are women. I am the only man in the group. We are about fourteen in number. I didn’t count the people, just guessed.

There is only one other man, and he is useless. He is young, slightly older than a boy. But he is helpless. He has a huge dent in his skull running from his forehead to the crown of his head. His head had been smashed by a rock. His faculties are gone. He cannot talk; only make odd noises. He can barely do anything. He is of no use. But we take care of him anyway. He is one of us.
Margot wants to know what happened to the boy.

I tell her we first must fetch the cow and skin the animal and start to smoke the meat. Tonight, we will feast. All eyes are gleaming. It’s been a long time since we have eaten much meat.
The intensity with which I was caught up with this living experience spilled out into the quiet night. I paused in my account to look around the room, re-orient myself to my actual life. But which existence was more real? Both were equally real to me. I could see, smell, hear, and touch everything in that cave. The smell was very strong. Human bodies, caked with sweaty grime. Oily, stringy hair. Smoke from the fire. Black soot on the cave wall by the entrance where a fire was kept alive, smoking. A fire to keep animals from entering the cave at night.

Looking back and forth from one reality to the other, I was beginning to feel woozy. I was losing a sense of being in a place in a solid way, as if I were more a spirit being, floating as it were in a vacant atmosphere outside of time and space. I felt as if I were a traveler, entering the physical world through an invisible portal of some kind, stepping into a physical reality, experiencing it, but not actually belonging to it.

I had drifted off into this sort of reverie, when Margot pulled me back. She insisted I tell her what had happened to the boy, to the other men.

I continued my story. Now, the memory of what had happened flooded into my mind. Rapidly, I told her the circumstances.

We had been on a hunting trip, all the men out together looking for food. My psychic antennae were totally alert. I sensed the coming of a great avalanche. I yelled to the others not to go that way. That way lay danger. I shouted to them to follow me in the opposite direction.
But they ignored me. They always ignored me. None of them ever listened to my psychic insights. I was a prophet to the group, whom no one ever heeded.

This, obviously, was a sore point for me. And still was in this, my current life. From early childhood, I had always been beset with premonitions, intimations of things – particularly of things not quite right. But no one paid any attention to me. I was just a kid. What did I know? This was the prevailing attitude of my family, my friends. Somehow, whatever I had to say was looked upon as sheer nonsense.

I grew up steadily becoming introverted. I learned to keep my own counsel. I became something of a cynic, ignoring the people around me with increasing indifference, hating the institutions that controlled me, despising their irrational rules and dehumanizing injunctions.
And sure enough, the avalanche came. It roared. It thundered down the mountainside. Huge boulders, rocks, sand, trees, everything tumbled down burying all the others. I raced forward just in time to snatch the one who was now the crippled young man dwelling in our cave. I pulled him back from the avalanche just in time, but not far enough away to avoid his getting smashed by the edge of a boulder.

And now I was the only man, the only one to hunt and bring in the meat. None of the women would go with me. For some reason, they seemed to blame me for the loss of the other men. I felt alone, abandoned, tolerated only because I was essential to our group’s survival.
With this last thought coming through to me, the scene, so vivid and real, vanished. Margot and I were alone again in our bed. Twilight had shifted to darkness. The streetlights outside our window glowed bringing into our space the only means to see by.

We looked at each other, dumbfounded. What to make of all this?

We talked for several hours, but reached no real conclusion. It was Margot who labeled this experience as a past life memory. This was actually a new concept to me. I had heard about such things in passing, as it were, listening to other people’s conversations. Reincarnation had never entered into my thinking.

And now this spontaneous event had made my ears alert. Everywhere I went, it seemed, people were suddenly talking about reincarnation. After all, I was living in Berkeley, one of the birthing places, you might say, of the New Age.

Past Life Recall

2006-03-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

My university education trained me to regard any belief, hypothesis, or assumption with a healthy dose of skepticism. Thus, I tend not to believe in anything. I only know what I experience. And I find, quite often, I that have experienced more than most people are willing to believe.

I have memories of many past lives; yet I do not insist that the idea of reincarnation be held as a belief system. Nor do I feel the need to hold back and disbelieve. I neither believe nor disbelieve in reincarnation – or anything else. For me, there is no need to make a judgment.

I'm in the midst of writing a book about those past life experiences that came to me in the 70's. These 'psychic' openings paved the way for the spiritual awakening I was undergoing at the time. I realize that many people, if not most, question the validity of past life notions. My perspective is such that I don't require proof or validation of these subjective occurrences. Since I am a writer, mainly of novels, I regard the past life revelation more as a metaphor deriving from a particular level of consciousness, and as such, these episodes of awareness are like the fairy tales of other ages, speaking to the individual of his/her own inner psyche. The information thus received offers the person insights to her/his behavior patterns.

My next entry will be an account of one of my most vivied past life recalls.

Stay tuned...

Your Yearly Numerology Organizer for 2006

2005-12-11T01:01:00.000-08:00

Every year offers you a new vibration for your work or play.
According to the numerology system of rhythms, we humans
journey through cycles that are nine years in duration.
Each year you enter a new vibration pattern for the cycle you
are in. Knowing your major energy expression for a particular
year, you are more likely to govern your life more effectively.
You only need your Birthday Numbers you can play this game.

THIS IS HOW IT WORKS
Combine the numbers of your month and day.

An example: Oct 25 – translates into 10 + 25, which adds up
to 35. Reduce this to a single digit and you get 8.

Now add up the number of the present year, 2006.
2006 adds up to 8.

So, 8 + 8 = 16 = 7. If Oct 25 were your actual birthday, your
number for 2006 would be 7. This would be your seventh year
in the nine-year cycle.

WHAT IS 2006 LIKE FOR YOU?

If this is a #1 year for you, you are beginning a whole new
cycle. Before launching into your new cycle, be sure no loose
ends are carried over from the previous nine-year cycle.

It may take all of January to rehearse what the previous nine
years have been for you. What major life lessons were you
grappling with and did you resolve those issues?

Next get a sense of what is before you to address in terms of
personal growth. What will you want to accomplish for yourself
in the next nine-year cycle? This is your year to focus on you.

These are big questions. Might mean a full year, this 1st year
of the nine years, devoted to this kind of self-examination.

Important to recognize the key features of your particular
nine-year cycle, which are based on the nine stages of life.
A person in her 20’s will be at a different stage of development
compared to one in her 30’s or 40’s…and so on.

If this is a #2 year for you, in terms of your major theme
for this nine-year cycle, you will do well to cultivate your
cooperative style. Arriving at a more balanced place with
yourself, and becoming more harmonious with your fellows
could be your major accomplishment for this year.

If this is a #3 year for you, then this is your year for making
big strides with your interactions with self and with others.
This means: become more creative, more flexible, more daring.
Don’t hang on to the tried and true mannerisms and ways that
have become ruts in your repertoire.

If this is a #4 year for you, then this year is best spent in stabilizing
and integrating the newly grasped accomplishments of the previous
three years. Get yourself ready for the big action coming up in the next
year. This can be viewed as your quiet period. Your friends might
wonder if you’ve buried yourself in a cave because you were so
expressive the year before. But in actuality you are establishing more
firmly the foundation from which you will be operating during the
remaining years of the cycle.

If this is a #5 year for you, then it’s the best year to be fully active
in your work or play. Your energy is high. This is a pivotal point as well.
You stand at the midpoint and can see where you have come from and
where you are going in terms of this cycle of personal growth. You can
clearly see how much you have improved your way of being. You are
ready to plunge into the world with your new sense of the inner
power that has made you more sturdy.

If this is a #6 year for you, now you are fully able to reach out and be
of service to others, more effectively than during the previous years of
this cycle. Your heart has matured to a more meaningful depth
of feeling. And you are able to bring your inner power to the fore and
apply it in all that you do, in your professional calling and in your personal relationships. And in the way you regard yourself as well.

If this is a #7 year for you, you find that your energy for learning new
things is quite high. You can afford to be more inquisitive than ever. You
feel as if you’ve returned to your school years, all there is to learn and
discover excites you. Wisdom will seem to be more accessible to you.

If this is a #8 year for you, then your leadership qualities want to have
expression. You are approaching the end of this cycle. You may be in your
30’s and have come to a better understanding of your power to lead.
Your urge to take charge of things will be ineluctable. You just know
what needs doing and how to get things moving. Obstacles are easily
and creatively dealt with. You can do what needs to be done with
sensitivity and with a caring heart.

AND FINALLY

If this is a #9 year for you, then you’ve reached a new level of wisdom. Your thoughts and actions reveal a beneficent heart. There’s a mellowness in your
Style and others take notice. They want to benefit from your insights and support.

You find yourself able to be more caring than ever. It’s been a good nine years.

.

Holiday Season Gift

2005-12-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

Struggling artist that I am, I offer all my friends this complimentary copy of my latest novel, "Take Sylvia's Case." Click the link, and the book is yours for yourreading pleasure. It may take five minutesto download, so please have patience.

http://www.burkeshirepress.com/sylvia.pdf May your Holiday Season be bright. And may 2006 be a joyous and prosperousyear for you and your family. Blessings,Vitae

One of Those Good Days for a Writer

2005-11-29T14:26:00.000-08:00

Next to finishing a piece of work - or even getting a couple of thousand words down in a single sitting - the next best thing - maybe even better - is a review - a good review...or perhaps even better: having an interview published.

Today I received in my emai box a copy of SPANN's latest edition and lo! there was my interview!

SPANN = Self-Published Artists' Network Newsletter.

So, all right. Only other authors will read the interview.

So, I blatantly announce everywhere I can: My interview.

Even here:-))

Read it at: http://www.burkeshirepress.com/spann-vitae.pdf

A Winter's Tale

2005-11-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

This happened a while back. Maybe 10 years ago. I had taken a temporary job to augment me social security checks. A necessary step because I was still mesmerized by my rather hefty salary that stopped when I took myself out of harness. All of a sudden, my income dropped like a fizzled balloon. Only my spending habit was still floating high. As you might expect, I had the credit card blues.

No big deal, I told myself. Just go get a job, any job and work that balance down. So I did and found myself holding down a cashier job in a gas station, slash convenience store. This one was adjacent to the university, so we got a lot of business from the college crowd.

The owners of this thriving place were a man and wife team who demonstrated some amusing eccentricities. She was an elementary school teacher. He had been a high school teacher, who apparently failed to make the grade. And was now a not too dynamic businessman. In other words, he was a frustrated teacher type. To put it bluntly, a guy who believed his opinions were of the highest quality.

To show you what I mean, here’s a couple of examples. This store was a crowded place, really too small for all the merchandise the owners stocked. Consequently, the coffee setup was not easily seen. Many a time, a stranger would come in, dash around a bit, pause, and then throw me a puzzled glance, which said: “Where the hell’s the coffee?”

The coffee machine was hidden by the cashier counter. It actually faced away from the entrance, as if it were ashamed of itself. You really had to hunt for it if you didn’t know where it was. For the cashier, it was in a splendid place. You only had to take two steps from the cash register in order to get more coffee brewing. All the coffee trappings were likewise stashed in a less than obvious place. The cream and sugar and the hot chocolate dispenser – and all those nasty little flavored things people seem to need in their coffee - these items were on the back bar of the cashier’s station. Which meant that anyone getting a cup of coffee could easily carry on a conversation with the cashier. And vice-versa. And the owner – I can’t exactly remember his name, but I believe it was Ted – well Ted, whenever he was loitering by the cashier stand (and he was there more often than necessary) Ted always ‘instructed’ the new customer in the ways of mixing and matching the various coffee flavoring options. Many a time I noticed the customer making one of those obvious facial expressions that said: “Get off my back, buster. I drink my coffee the way I want it.” But Ted was oblivious to people’s sensitivity. He insisted that his customers take advantage of his suggestions.

This is only one example. Another: Many times a lost traveler (we were just off the Interstate) came in for directions. I was well acquainted with the town and the neighborhood and was quite happy to give the information requested. If Ted happened to be around, he never failed to jump in and make a point of giving ‘better’ directions. The unhappy traveler usually looked confused, because his mind was already attempting to process the information I had begun with, when out of the blue came Ted with this other set of data and pushed it into his brain - and all of sudden nothing computed.

Well that was Ted. And his wife was not much different. They both had a somewhat and not too subtly hidden superior attitude, which seemed to regard the rest of the world as somehow mentally deficient.

This entire preamble to set the stage.

This is what happened: One day, round two o’clock in the afternoon, an hour before my going home, a UPS driver came in with a package. It was addressed to someone who had no connection with the establishment. Nevertheless, although the name had nothing to do with us, the street address did. The package was definitely sent to us. Naturally, I questioned the UPS guy. What was this all about?

He explained that this package had instructions. It came from an electronic firm in Southern California. I live in Virginia. The convenience store, slash gas station was 3000 miles from Southern California. The label on the package established the contents as being a set of speakers for a sound system. The deliveryman explained that the package was for a college student who didn’t get home from classes until late in the afternoon and he was not willing to have his expensive speakers sitting at the front door to his apartment. So he had decided to have the set mailed to us (his building was behind the store) for safekeeping. He would be in later to claim the package with proper identification.

Well. I took all this in, wondering how the UPS man had been informed of all the intricacies of this arrangement, but I didn’t ask him, being a rather unassuming type, and rather gullible to boot. So I took the package and laid it on the back counter, intending to pass on the information to my relief. At three, I was ready to head home. But the man due to work the next shift hadn’t come in yet.

No problem, said Ted. He’d watch the store until Bill arrived. Bill was frequently late. Well Bill never arrived it seemed until about an hour later. So Ted – and then Ted and his wife (have forgotten her name entirely, can’t even make a stab at it) who always came in after school to check on Ted, together minded the store until Bill arrived.

I went home, had an agreeable supper, read the second half of a good book and turned in early completely at peace.

But at the store, all kinds of strange things were happening. I learned about it all the next morning when I arrived for work at 7 A.M.

As soon as I walked in the door, Mildred, the manager (yes, the owners paid for a manger – keeping track of the stock, ordering the merchandize, tallying the inventories, balancing the books, was either too much for them or beneath them, I could never decide which) zoomed out of the back office and rushed up to me full of excitement.

“Call me,” she said, “the minute Al comes in.”

Al and his crony came in every morning. They were sheriffs – or rather from the sheriff’s department. Their job was to drive all over this part of the county keeping the peace and otherwise harassing owners of broken-down, rusty vehicles.

In case you are unaware, it is the custom for agents of the police to frequent convenient stores, ostensibly to hang around for a half hour in order to deter crime. Actually, this devious maneuver is nothing more than a cover. It boils down to them simply having access to free coffee and donuts. These two sheriff’s men, Al tall and skinny about 55 and his partner George short and too fat to chase down a criminal -, in they came every morning for their coffee and donut and a look at the newspaper. Crime stoppers.

“Don’t forget to call me the minute Al comes in,” she repeated and then jumped back into her office nook.

“What’s up?” I asked following her into the crowded back room. She had cartons of cigarettes all over the tiny room, doing her daily inventory. Cigarettes were treated like gold.

“Well,” she said, pushing me out of the office, “I’ll tell you up front, can’t leave the cash register unattended you know.”

And with that, she told me the whole story, while we both sipped coffee. What had happened the evening before after I had gone home.

It seemed that Ted and the missus, between handling the usual late afternoon transactions, spent most of their time puzzling over the mysterious package. To them, it was obviously a suspicious package. From California, they mumbled to each other (according to Mildred). Who knows what goes on in California? They convinced themselves that the so-called package of speakers had to be full of stash. Why else have it delivered here?

So they called the cops. The city police came promptly and they had brought with them a canine cop. The dog bounced all over the place as soon as they arrived. The package was placed on the floor for the dog to sniff.

“Well,” Mildred said, her eyes wide open. She was a short dumpy looking middle-aged gal. “The dog went wild!”

She said she had come out of the office and was witness to the whole thing.

A plan was devised to catch the dope smoking college student who no doubt was making a fortune selling marijuana to his comrades and comradesses.

The cops would confiscate the package, taking it to headquarters. When the culprit arrived to claim his package, he would be told that the boss had locked it up in the safe for security. He would be told to come back in an hour when the boss would return and he could then get his package. Meanwhile, the cops were to be kept abreast of things, and they would be there to arrest the slob.

This was a battle plan from the 1st World War.

“So,” I asked Mildred. “How did it turn out? What’s the sheriff’s office have to do with this? This is a city affair. Ain’t it?”

“The kid came into to get his package. We told him the made-up story. We called the police to let them know how everything was going to plan. They’d have an hour to get here and be ready to grab the kid.”

“So?”

“So, they said we should tell the kid to come to police headquarters and get his package.”

“What?”

“Yes. It turned out the package was clean. Only speakers”

“This is a wild story you’re telling me, Mildred. So why the sheriff?”

“Al came in for a cup of coffee before going off duty. I told him what happened and asked if could find out more about it. The sheriff’s office is right next door to the police station, you know.”

Mildred went back to counting cigarette cases in her office while I stood guard of the cash register, taking in money from the few drivers who didn’t use their credit cards at the pump. College students came in and out for their coffee and junk food fixes.

Finally, Al and his crony arrived. Mildred shot out of the back office like a firecracker. She must have had her eyes peeled to the peek-a-boo cameras. She scrambled up to Al, and out of her mouth shot him her burning question.

“Well?”

“Well nothing,” replied Al. “It’s all true. There was nothing in the package but two speakers.”

“And that’s it?” I asked.

Al gave me a sour look.

“What about the dog?” I asked. “How come he went wild?”

“The dog? Oh, him. Well, they’ve sent him back for more training.”

I drive into town every once in a while. I live 20 miles away. And every once in a while I find myself passing by the gas station where I worked for six months paying down my credit card. And every time I pass the place, I remember that incident. And when I do, I can’t help wondering if that canine cop ever got back his job.

The word count to this tale comes to 1932 words…the year I was born. Is that a coincidence or what?

November 2 when the veil is at its thinnist

2005-11-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

Today is my sister's birthday. she's 78. And it is the day my son died in 1990. He'd be 34 were he still alive. I commune with him every day, so today is nothing different, except that I generally recall that day so vividly. And usually re-experience the emotions that swept me into a crazed state that lasted over a year.

Well, had to share this with you. This time of the year, All Saints Days, which lasts for three days from Oct 31 to Nov 2 is the time when the veil between this world and the spirit world is at its thinnest, making it much easier for a person to move between the two sates of being. I'm supposing he chose this time to make his transition.

Eventually, I wrote a book about this part of my life and his. "Open the River" is a strange mixture of my grieving and learning to sail - and of his life's meaning and his death's meaning for me. It tells how his mother and I got together and how we connected with our spiritual teacher, Mello, and of her part in Sorrel's story.

I wrote the book three years after his death, but didn't publish it until 2004. A dear friend read the book and insisted that I bring it out. I agreed to do so, but only if she wrote and introduction to the book. She did. Shannon also wrote a book of her own, which I helped her to publish. It's the story of her spiritual journey from Baptist beginnings to becoming a Christian Mystic. She died abruptly at age 29 just a few months ago. I had always thought she would have been a wonderful mate for Sorrel has he continued life in the physical. So now I think of them as dear friends together in the spirit world.

Life takes such strange turns.

Joyful Numerology

2005-11-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

Sorry to have been away so long. Was in Georgia a few weeks leading All Games, and then in Detroit.

But mainly what has kept me busy has been the construction of a new Website, one that comes out of a conception, which integrates, or mixes, business [internet marketing] technique with spiritual purpose. I've started a study program, which I hope to see grow.

It began with a book I wrote a couple of years ago, "Numerology for Soul Awakening".

A fair number of these 47 page handbooks sold through my site at Lulu.com. Then, in August, I had the idea of offering the book free, putting the word out in various message boards, forums, and free advertising venues. Well, in two months 186 people signed up for the book.

I followed up with nine newsletters expanding on the original text adding fine points to each of the book's sections. I realized, then, that I was making a new book.

At that point, inspiration prompted me to ask a programmer friend to make software for me that calculates the name and numbers and creates a chart ready for interpretation.

Then, I created a template to use with the chart, which contains important explanations of each of the features of the chart, leaving room for insertion of interpretive remarks by the numerologist.

In the end, I saw, I had a whole package that could be turned into a full blown teaching course to people wishing to master this very insightful tool for understanding a person's real and unique purpose for personal growth and happiness.

So, I gave my system a name: Joyful Numerology, and then built a Website from which to market it.

This entire prelude is just to ask you to take a peek at the site. Maybe you will have some ideas of how I might improve up on it. Maybe you could offer me suggestions regarding the marketing aspect.

Maybe you will want to sign up for the book and course!! Who knows?

I am now writing a numerology column for one magazine in India - this is a non-internet magazine. And am scheduled to write a lengthy article for an online magazine. This will garner me some recognition in the field. So, I think I'm heading in the right direction.

Maybe, in your kind moments, you would examine my site and offer me a suggestion or two?
http://joyfulnumerology.com

Thanks for taking the time to examine my proposal.

With warm regards,
Vitae

Okay, so I've been away a long time!

2005-10-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

Nineteen days to be exact.

Was on the road ten of those days. Down to Newnan, Georgia teaching/leading All Game workshops. Want to know more about All Games? Here's a link to visit:
The All Game

Then two days on either end to recuperate. It was a six hundred mile drive one way! That leaves only five days of real absence. You be the judge. Have I been delinquent? Really?

Newnan - the old part of town - is a lovely place. The center of the town is an old fashioned court house square with a statue of a Confederate soldier gracing the front entrance. Just about all the buildings facing the court house date back to that era. The architecture can only be described as handsome both in shape, proportion and ornamentation. Mostly painted brick with embellishments. Two main streets run parallel to each other for about five blocks. Shops, banks, law offices, restaurants of various kinds - even a place called Cuisine of Peru, a coffee bar, a bookstore, a Carnegie library, a fitness and wellness center, a hiking store, an old movie house converted to a roaring nightclub, an ice cream parlor, beauty parlors and antique shops - lots of them. These are all old fashioned, individually owned businesses. They are not quite the upscale boutiques and snazzy places one finds in big cities. These businesses have the look and feel of another era, even those that are the derniere crie. The business owners seem to have partially drifted back in time a bit.

The town has a motto, which hints of history. A sign mounted atop the Carnegie building reads: "City of Homes." The signage apparatus looks like something out of the 1940's. I asked around about this motto. Here's the story.

When Sherman was burning as much of the South as he could put matches to, his path took him to Newnan. He was on his way to the big city of Savannah and got side tracked. Approaching Newnan, he ran into a bunch of Confederate soldiers - quite a few actually - who were also on their way to somewhere, traveling by railroad. Sherman chased after the train. And consequently, Newnan was spared. There are dozens and dozens of anti-bellum homes in Newnan, all very well kept up, their owners taking enormous pride in their role as history caretakers.

There is the smell of antiquity oozing out of the old streets. The sidewalks are easily over a hundred years old, the trees more ancient.

Sherman went on to Savannah promising to come back and finish off Newnan. But he never did. The city fathers of Savannah bribed him with a fancy home of his own. Smart, eh? Give Sherman a piece of the real estate. Pride of ownership makes a difference. It is said that he burned only a few blocks of the city. A token raising. And it is also said, the General from the North ultimately settled in his fine Savannah home when the conflict came to an end. Any history buffs out there know this for sure?

Scattered among all this old beauty are to be seen the uglies of early to mid 20th century industry. A huge plant just two blocks off the square. It probably dates back to the 1920's. The factory produces water tanks - the kind used by municipalities. They are made in sections and transported out of town by railroad, welded or riveted together at the site. The factory bulding is made mostly of small glass panes, some smashed [primitive air conditioning] and steel structure. Actually, the sprawling complex looks rather quaint.

Old gas stations, some fast food chicken places that predate the KFC's of the world.

I'll have more to say tomorrow.Time to hit the sack. See? I'm using the old expressions!

Ciao.

Does God Really Exist?

2005-09-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Someone asked, “Does God really exist?”

This is my reply:

This is a mentally devised question. The mind tends to pose questions it has no business asking. Mind is a function designed to analyze and find solutions to external situations; not to ask philosophical questions. Mind is the executor for Heart’s desires. The Heart knows intuitively what is needed. Heart takes us to the seat of the Soul. Soul wishes the life to be complete, to experience and express joy – joy for all, to embrace the pleasure and fulfillment of connecting with Source.

When Mind asks, “Does God really exist?” it is playing games with itself. Mind already knows the answer will never be forthcoming. But the Heart never questions God’s existence; it already knows the answer.

As to knowing the nature of God’s reality, this requires long and deep introspection and contemplation. Meditation is a tool for training the Mind to become sufficiently quiet in order for News from an other level of consciousness to come forth. This other level is frequently referred to as “Higher Consciousness,” or “Inner Self,” which is deemed to be connected to “Universal Mind,” or “Absolute Intelligence.”

All of these designations point to that which cannot truly be discerned through words, particularly intellectual words, since they are an invention of Mind. So the whole issue comes full circle.

Nevertheless, God – whatever that may be – can be felt. Sit quietly and feel. Wait. By and by, you will feel something powerful moving through your being. Let this feeling take you on an inner journey. Allow yourself to follow where this experience takes you. You will be surprised to discover Truth that is very personal.

Back From the Field

2005-09-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

All of August has seen me immersed in the outside world. I’ve been doing my job. Two weeks were spent in Detroit where I conducted All Game workshops as part of a training program for two new All Game Guides. Am also training another soon-to-be guide here in Virginia. And arranging a ‘core’ group of guides who will facilitate the spread of this self-discovery tool. Soon a new Website will be online.

This kind of work I’ve been engaged in for the past 24 years. Sometimes, the work takes me totally way from writing projects, including keeping up a blog presence.
And as well, I long to get back to my novel project, Manuel the Barber. The poor guy has been waiting and getting impatient about it to boot. He wants his story told. Soon, I tell him. Soon.

I want to get back to the quiet life I love so well. Blessed with a place to live that is set in nature, adequately distant from city life, I’m home once again; ready to sway in unison with my tree friends. They surround our house and speak to me about conditions. News of the real world delivered by sundry breezes. Many shades of green absorbing light from the sun, full of a mellow kind of exuberance this early autumn day, flitter the wind-message.

“Come out and join us,” I hear. The call fills my bones with pleasure and desire. After this blog is posted, I will gift myself with a walk in the pasture. I’ll stumble over the uneven ground (it is like getting a foot massage), talking to my tree friends as I go.

“So, are all you leaves ready for the changes coming?”

I think of Rilke’s autumn poem. “Lord, it is time. The summer was so grand. Let these last rays of warmth drive into the grapes that sweetness you know so well.”

It goes something like that.

I’m eager for such conversation.

This is much different than people talk, which speaks mostly to my head, luring me into frantic dialogues. No thanks, people talkers. I’ve had it for a while. Give me the sounds of peace, contentment – content, life content, real life – not that made up stuff we designate as the sign of civilization.

“Blessed be the dappled things…”

The Day the Rhinoceros Jumped Out of My House

2005-07-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

It was only a dream. I woke up not in a cold sweat, just simply bemused.

The dream went like this: I'm inside a large building made up of a series of very intricate labyrinths. A large rhino is moving ahead of me. Apparently, it's my job to watch over the beast and not lose track of it.

I notice others moving through labyrinths also following animals, some large, some small. Just letting my eye wander for a split second - and my rhino has disappeared.

I dash all over the place, finally come to the street level of the building where I find a warehouse door and an office. Two men are sitting in the office. I ask them if they've seen a rhinoceros running around. One of them asks me if it was a large rhino or a small one. Large, I tell him.

"Oh, we let him out the door."

"Why did you do that?" I shout. I'm really upset! I pull the chain that rolls up the huge door. Frantic, I run down a ramp and into the streets in search of my rhino.

This is where the dream ends.

A few days after this dream I had an opportunity to attend a dream workshop. A group of twelve participants. The leader asks for volunteers with dreams the group will work on, only three dreams tonight. Quickly, I raise my hand to be one of the volunteers.

This was a very astute group. It was quickly decided that the rhino represented my raw animal-self, whom ordinarily I was able to keep track of and control. However, from time to time it seemed, the rhino was capable of running away with me. The two men, aspects of myself, in charge of keeping the door shut, had fallen down on the job.

I am known to the group as a mild-mannered individual, consderate of others - that sort of characterization. But upon occasion, I could be a rude and wild as that rhino. At times, they stated, I let my rhino out.

Wow! My reaction was, wow. It was a revelation for me. Yet, I was still unaware of these rhino episodes. When did they happen? Why did I go unconscious when they did happen?

My wife, Margot, is a member of this dream group. We went home discussing the problem of my unconscious state when the rhinno would break loose. She knew, but I was still baffled.

Then the very next evening, we had three friends as guests for dinner. The evening was delightful, full of witty conversation that went in all directions.

Toward the end of the evening, I had the impulse to state the obvious, namely, that we were having such a good time talking.

"We've mentioned just about every topic under the sun, except politics and religion."

At that point, the conversation veered to - you guessed it - politics and religion. My wife groaned. She doesn't enjoy it when we men get into these themes, bad mouthing the opposing views as we ramble on.

And when I turned to the only other woman in our intimate circle and asked her about her political views (we had only recently become acquainted) she demured. And I insisted.

"We all must take a stand on these issues. It's important that we stand up and be counted."

Everyone looked at me. Blank faces.

Suddenly, Margot stabbed me with her finger. "Now you've done it!"

"Done what?"

"You've let your rhinoceros out! Get it?"

I felt my face go red. But then I had to smile at myself. Yes, I got it! Finally got it!

50 People Have Signed Up! Do I Hear 100?

2005-07-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

In just eight days, fifty people have taken me up on my free offer. Presumably they are all now reading my book, "Numerology For Soul Awakening," hopefully understanding the concepts I've written.

I will be sending all subscribers a monthly newsletter beginning in August. Each month will be devoted to discussing the finer points of interpreting charts, covering the nine main sections of the book one month at a time.

Also, I'll be showing how to make use of this tool in studying compatibility between couples.

There will be space for questions and answers. Already, two subscribers have written me with questions.

Numerology work will be a major focus for me in the coming year. A few hours spent on this work, here and there during the week, will be a welcomed break from moving my fiction forward.

Naturally, I'm excited. I feel energized. This is a good way for an old guy to stay productive.

If you wish to join in, the form to fill out is in the column to the right.

A Food For Thought Story

2005-07-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

The other day I was having lunch with a friend and I couldn’t help notice that she finished her meal leaving almost a third of her food on the plate untouched.

I mean her fork never so much as grazed over this portion of her dish. It was as if the food didn’t exist for her. Now I realize I’m easily 40 years her senior—and our eating styles come out of a whole different set of imperatives.

I grew up during the depths of the Great Depression. We were taught to ‘clean our plates.’ In the beginning, doing so was difficult for me. I dawdled over my food, was labeled a persnickety eater. I pushed the veggies around, picking my way through the debris I had created. My mom was beside herself, not just annoyed.

“Think of the poor Chinese kids,” she’d tell me. And I tried to understand what she meant. But I was only four. I didn’t know anything about Chinese kids. None lived on my block. We lived on East 2nd Street in Brooklyn.

Then one Saturday my mother decided I was old enough to go the matinee movies. My sister, four and a half years older than me, was to take me. It was a treat I hadn’t earned. Only years later did I realize the reward was my mother’s—a chance to have some time for herself.

I can still remember the excitement I felt as I toddled alongside my big sister. All the older kids talk all week long about the previous Saturday’s double feature. And now I was going to experience this very mysterious ritual. Over the next couple of years, I attended many Saturday matinees. But this first occasion is indelibly imprinted in my memory.

A Tom Mix cowboy picture was the first film. My eyes were glued to the black and white images flickering across the huge screen, everything bigger than life.
Cowboys on their horses galloping across open land studded with sagebrush, performing heroic deeds, brandishing six-shooters, Indians and Bad Men dropping to the dusty ground, gyrating with dramatic abandon. Everything happened with a lot of to-do.

The second feature was a Stooge Brothers’ slapstick comedy. Most of that went passed me. Not because I was too stupid to get the jokes. But because I was preoccupied with terror from what I had just seen marching across the silver screen.

I’m referring to the news clips that were shown between the two feature films. Outside of radio, newspapers and magazines, this is how people got the latest happenings. Pathé News introduced the news with a fanfare of music calculated to put one in a state of alarm.

And what I saw that first time I have never forgotten. The year was 1936. The Japanese Imperial Army was invading China. Now I was seeing real Chinese kids. I saw mobs of children, women and old men running for their lives before an onslaught of canon fire. Bombs burst all around them as they fled, terrified, their eyes rolling. I saw many of them fall to the ground, wounded and dying, the city in flames.

My God, I sucked in my breath. So this is what happens when you don’t clean your plate. It was a stern lesson I was getting.

That evening at supper my mother was surprised to say the least. Sobered from my matinee encounter, I silently and hastily ate my food. Every bit of it. No prompting was necessary. Not then, nor ever since.

Of course, by the time I was ten I realized that the connection I had made was a false conclusion. But by then my eating pattern was firmly established. I never talked about the false revelation that had come to me. And no one had to badger me into cleaning my plate.

Summer Time

2005-07-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

It's a hot, sultry evening here in the Shenandoah Valley. Eight o'clock and the light is beginning to fade. It used to be the time when us men trudged in from the fields sweat pouring out every orifice, too tired to talk, eager for a swig of ale and a plate of vittles. We could hear the women folk chatting, their voices rising and falling like angel birds.

I live on what once was a 250 acre family farm, cut down to 5 acres. The Wine family lived in this house more than 100 years. Evenings such as this, I can almost hear their voices, their shouts and joshings. All the brothers looking as shiny as peas in a pod. This is how I imagine them.

The house is quiet tonight. Only myself and Margot, my wife. She's upatairs in bed reading, the fan wafting a small breeze over her unclothed body. Even in our time, the house once rang with voices. Grandma Margaret, our son Sorrel, our former house partners Barbara & Charlie and their daughter Jessie; and later there was Solly, Tracy, Cee Cee, Renai, Mitch. They're all gone now, some to the Great Beyond, the others scattered around the globe. Just us here now. Us two with only our memories. Margot stays busy with the garden and her art. She is a world class artist. And I keep playing the laptop keyboard with three, sometimes four fingers, stringing words together into some kind of pattern that tells a stroy.

The night is closing us in. Outside, our bird friends are settling in for the night, making their last calls to each other. Amazing how suddenly they become active after the heat of the day, active for only a few minutes before the dark. And the baby steers in my neighbor's field bellowing, moaning you might say. I think they are young enough to be calling for their moms. They were moved into that field a few days ago, haven't gotten used to the reality of no mom.

The cheery birds on the one hand and the sad calves on the other, slowly hunkering down for the night. And me - somewhere in between those two states. My mood is ripe for turning to work on my novel. The people, conjured out of my imagination - my friends, if you will, are awaiting me.

Ta...

A Fellow Writer Passed Away Today

2005-07-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

My dear friend, Shannon Roquemore, died this morning some time before noon. She was only 29 years old. She and five other friends just returned from Peru, visiting Machu Picchu and other places for about ten days. Full of high spirits from the mystical journey, she phoned me while driving home from the airport full of plans for her next book, which she said would be focused on pedagogical themes. Her first book had just been published. "Images From A Creation Myth" tells the story of her journey to God from childhood through maturity. Her book is intended to inspire Christian school teachers to bring into their work, their personal life experience and the search for their mystical connection. She was a teacher at Veritas Christian Academy in North Carolina.

Here are her own words about her book:

"In this memoir of a teacher's education and spiritual awakening, Classical educator Shannon Roquemore takes the reader on a journey from her childhood conversion to Christianity through her graduate work in the "Great Books" and beyond, bringing to light the essence of what education is meant to be: an illumination of God and his dance with humanity, and an invitation to the soul to awaken. Ultimately, Roquemore's story becomes her primary teaching tool as she examines her own courtship with God and applies it to the individuals in her classroom. For all those who have resisted divorcing their formal education from their identity as a soul, Images From a Creation Myth restores the soul to its rightful place as the beneficiary of education."

She wrote extraordinary beautiful poetry. She was dauntless in her engagement with life.

She died abruptly, was diagnosed with leukemia; but there were bleeding complications that caused her quick death after being hospitalized only two days. No one will ever know the real cause, I'm afraid.

We met four years ago under unusual circumstances. Shannon wrote about our meeting in her introduction to my book Open the River. A beautiful being, she was tall and slim, with long reddish hair that flowed down past her shoulders. A narrow, lengthy face, her complexion reminding one of Elizabethan days. She had a soft, sweet voice that approved of everything. "This is good," she always said. When she spoke, her body tended to undulate in a way that caused her to seem like a long stemmed flower swaying in the breeze. She loved everyone, and especially her retriever, Sundown. She loved and understood beauty in all its forms and all its subtle appearances. I will never forget her.

A Challenging Review

2005-07-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

A reader of my memoir, "Open the River," that deals with grief and mourning over the loss of my son, has written a painfully negative review, posted on my Lulu site. Painful because of his own terrible grief. His only daughter, aged 7, was killed in an automobile accident less than a year ago.

My book fell short of his expectations. Worse, it made him angry. Angry, because I wrote at too great a length, to his lights, about my experiences learning how to be a sailor. After a horrible year of intense pain and sorrow, I took up sailing perhaps as a way of escape [this is my reader's contention] - although, for me, being on the water accompanied by my son's spirit, brought me great solace.

I wrote an email to him expressing my deep sympathy. I know what he is going through. Also, I spoke of my appreciation for his candid review. At first his words took me by surprise. So many readers have written me of their positive experiences. But after reading his review a second time, the pain and anger, the sorrow he expressed took me back to my first year of mourning, and I found myself re-visiting the old wound.

The state of healing I had accomplished from writing this memoir, like a scab, was stripped away. Raw feeling came through once more. It may seem odd to you, especially if you have not had to survive the loss of a child, that this reaccurance of raw pain could be received as a blessing. Maybe I am masochistic by nature? I really don't believe so.

Over the years - he died 14 years ago - sorrow can grow to be a bit too sweet. Sweet-sorrow, like an overgrown rose bush, can blanket the more vital feelings.

So, I'm grateful to my critic, my friend - we have begun an exchange of emails.

Today Was A Good Day

2005-07-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

The writer in me is happy today.
Put down about 1,000 words added to Miguel the Barber.
Did this in the afternoon. Celebrated with a 4-mile bike ride. For an old geezer like me, that's a marathon.
The morning was spent house cleaning. Margot and I washed surfaces, put away things lying about - a general straitening up - why? Having guests next three days, friends from Florida.
We see them about twice a year. Bob and Ellen, both into metaphysics, Jungian psychology, spiritual growth. They always bring interesting CDs, DVDs, books, pamphlets. We sit around and talk over what they have shown us, get carried away by their enthusiams. Bob is only 78, so he can have as many enthusiams as he wishes.
Then we picked strawberries. Margot's patch is a wonder. Everyday, the cute red berries look away, try to hide among their leaves - but we find them.

Two visiters to my web site, or here, took my up my offer - the free pdf of Numerology for Soul Awakening. Another reason to be happy.
But I ought not to need reasons to be happy. So, I'll just say I'm pleased.

Sharing myself like this to an unknown audience, I've never felt comfortable doing. This is a new departure. Maybe I'll become more open. I tend to hide my emotions. I believe writers tend toward hiding themselves. We make our characters do all the emotional work. They are the brave ones.

10:10 P.M. - time for bed. Night all.

Entering the Stream

2005-07-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

All the thoughts in my head are this very moment pushing and shoving for attention.

"Pick me!" "No, me!" "I'm your best bet!"

And so on.

I sip my coffee while I let them fight it out.

When I pay heed to my own mind, this is what happens. My reason for writing fiction. When I'm with my characters, working from their angle and mental chaos, my own mind is at peace.

I guess this is what a certain form of meditation is all about. Writing gives my mind a focus. My chaos stays in the background. It's there all right. Waiting to barge in at any moment. My fingers race over the keyboard eluding the wild ride they intend for me. If I stop who knows what?

This is it for today.

Stay tuned.