Moving on...


Dear friends,

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love, the Grigs,

aka Grigori Rho Gharveyn, Greg Gourdian, etc, et al...



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Our Future History, How the Earth Made Peace



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namaste




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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Funny Notions

I have a secret closet
with some goodies stashed inside...

You may open my fine closet
and take anything you find...

You really should play dress up
and try on everything...

When you're finally finished dressing
You'll look totally divine...

Now peek into my closet
and see what makes you shine...

- -- --- = O X O = --- -- -

love, compassion, empathy, sincerity, devotion, cheerfulness, trust, humor, caring, passion, smiles, creativity, joy, love, nurture, honesty, tenderness, feeling, sharing, laughter, acceptance, confidence, merriness, sensitivity, wonder, love, etc.. and more love!

Remember, Dress for Success!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Meryan Meets Alice

Meryan slept fitfully her first night in the lounge and rose early the next morning. She gathered up her things and found a hole in the side of her duffle bag where someone must have begun to cut their way in with a knife. Perhaps her restless sleep had scared them off or one of the members of the gang running the protection racket here had stopped the thief. It would be difficult to mend the bag as it was fully packed, the clothes inside protecting her small wireless deck. The deck was a gift from the resistance, her pay for the last job she had performed. It had been a good trade; she would not have wanted to carry her larger heavier PC on this journey and had been able to barter the bulkier laptop to her former boss for some spare clothes, goodwill and a little cash. Her old boss’ goodwill would be the most valuable; he had been well connected and had given her the names of three people in Peoria whom she might be able to count on in a pinch.

While Meryan waited in line for her turn to use the lav she thought about what might have happened to her old friends in Peoria. Other than her sister and her goodwill contacts, Meryan did not think she had any friends remaining in Peoria. She hoped not.

Meryan had been far more involved with the resistance movement when she was younger. It was a kind of thrilling adventure then. Her first lover had been a full member of the ALF like her dad, and she had naturally been drawn into their circles of friends and had only avoided taking their membership pledge because she had been too young then.

Ten years ago the Bizgov had sent a group of Army engineers and conscripted laborers to Peoria to begin raising the domes. The domes were made of cheap prefabricated plasglas panels with steel rims that had interlocking teeth along the edges. The panels snapped together and pins or eyebolts were inserted at the interstices to secure the panels from slipping away from one another. The top of the dome was constructed on the ground around the base of a tall crane.

Cables through the eyebolts lifted the top of the dome so that the next pieces could be snapped into place. When the dome reached the size of the clearing in which the crane stood it was hoisted to the top of the crane and a series of cables suspended the workers below the skirts and lifted new panels up to them in a steady flow. The dome was then constructed from the top down to cover a large section of the city. Buildings along the perimeter where the dome would meet the ground were cleared away to lay a foundation and any buildings which were too tall to fit below the dome were either razed or cut down to a suitable size to fit.

In this manner the domes were quickly constructed. Concrete arches were built wherever two or three domes intersected following the interstitial arcs to allow the intersecting domes to rest firmly against one another.

Due to the swift pace of the job the work was very dangerous; laborers were maimed or killed on a daily basis. Anyone suspected of either membership in the resistance or any affiliation with the resistance was conscripted to replace the casualties among the original labor force. Meryan had lost most of her older friends to the pressers who came to drag them off to the labor pools.

Meryan’s older sister Pama had broken their mother’s heart then by going underground. Pama was old enough to be conscripted and had she stayed home the pressers would have come to snatch her. During her years in the underground Pama had carefully built a new identity for herself so that when the domes were done she would have an apparently legitimate identity and could remain safe from the pressers. Pama had paid for her new identity and her life in the underground with the only coin a young woman with few skills and no one to protect her had to offer, her body. Meryan had never wanted to know anymore details than that.

Meryan and her mom had managed their lives precariously from that point on, her dad was missing and presumed to be either dead or conscripted. It wasn’t safe to ask questions of anyone connected with the Bizgov who might be able to discover what had happened to her dad. None of her dad’s close friends in the ALF could be found and it was presumed his entire unit had either been wiped out or conscripted.

When Meryan’s mother finally admitted to herself that she was dying of heart failure she had sent Meryan to live with her brother in Westwood. Meryan reluctantly abandoned her mother and went to join her uncle’s enclave.

She knew in her heart when she had said her goodbyes to the last of her friends that she was the lucky one and that few if any of them would remain either free or alive much longer. They had few options. They could join a unit of the ALF working the countryside to disrupt Bizgov projects and raid for survival or they could try to go underground as Pama had done. But it was difficult to make contact with the underground and virtually a death sentence to join an ALF unit or cell. Either way you lost your freedom and were constantly at risk of being killed or conscripted by the pressers.

Meryan’s turn to use a lav arrived and she slipped down the hall to a reeking stall. She placed a hook over the edge of one wall near the back and hung her belongings there. She placed a second hook below the edge of the stall wall and then cinched her duffel down. No one could now reach over and steal it while she was indisposed.

She finished with the toilet and then stripped down to wash and change her clothes. The tiny sink over the toilet did not provide more than a thin trickle of water but with a washcloth and towel she was soon feeling refreshed and more relaxed as she changed into clean clothes.

The fresh taste of toothpaste in her mouth helped to reduce the reek of the lav stalls. Next time she would start brushing her teeth while waiting in line as she had seen some of the other people in line doing. Stowing her damp towel and washcloth in their outer mesh pockets Meryan recovered her belongings and set out to look for breakfast.

There were a number of different eateries to choose from and while all would have the same bland ingredients to work with, their specialty cooking styles promised to make her meal a reasonably tasty one. She selected an Indian eatery and chose a bowl of congee, a sweet spicy porridge made with rice and eggs. She was surprised to see small bits of genuine cinnamon sticks crumbled on top of her congee. The eatery was fortunate to be able to use fresh spices.

Meryan decided that she would have to try some of their other fare. She thought about her aunt and uncle as she ate her congee. Her uncle Jim was her mother’s older brother. He had married his high school sweetheart Suchhaya before being drafted into the Bizgov Corporate Army of America. Meryan had called Suchhaya Aunt Sushi for as long as she could remember. Uncle Jim and Aunt Sushi had no children and Meryan had always thought this had often made her Aunt Sushi seem sad. Sushi’s face would always light up with joy when Meryan and Pama came to visit. Aunt Sushi was a reformed Hindu and cooked everything in the traditional Indian styles. By choosing congee for breakfast Meryan had made herself feel a little bit at home in her strange surroundings. The warm congee settled comfortably in her stomach the flavors of honey and spices lingering on her palate reminded her of the years she had spent living with her aunt and uncle.

Meryan missed her aunt terribly; Sushi had become her surrogate mother and always treated her with great respect and love. But Sushi had been murdered last year by an angry bigot who mistook her for a Muslim. Meryan could never understand how someone who hated with so much passion could know so little about the people he hated that he did not even know the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. The murderer’s connections within Bizgov allowed him to escape justice and her Uncle Jim had then taken the matter into his own hands by arranging an opportunity for the bigot’s car to break down on a lonely stretch of highway where Uncle Jim was quickly able to find and murder him.

Bizgov looked the other way. Uncle Jim was a war hero who was well respected among the local Bizgov soldiers who understood the need for justice and approved of their fellow soldier’s dutiful vengeance.

Now the soldiers were gone from Westwood. Bizgov had withdrawn them in response to unpaid taxes. Westwood lay nearly defenseless against the marauders, with only the ALF remaining to protect them. Protection money paid to the ALF was cheaper than taxes, but the town would soon be unable to pay even that pittance for protection and then there would be no one to hold off the marauders.

The last of her congee licked away, Meryan considered her next move, she had nearly two hours to report to work and considered finding a public storage locker for her duffel bag and her other articles. The block captain had shown her the stairs to a basement where the public lockers could be found and Meryan headed off to investigate.

As Meryan descended toward the ground floor she paid attention to those she met, particularly what they were carrying. Many people were laden with what might be all of their worldly goods and she surmised that the fees for storage would be steep or that too may people were too poor to be able to afford storage even at reasonable prices. Meryan wondered which would turn out to be the true case as she found the steps and descended into the basement.

The light at the landing was out and the light from the hall behind her was inadequate to see clearly. Meryan hugged the outer wall as she cautiously made the turn around the landing. She heard whispers and a slap and turned back.

Meryan's intuition told her that a gang of at least three people were laying in wait for anyone who might come along with anything worth stealing. Meryan and her friends had waylaid Bizgov workers and supporters in a similar way in dark alleys using a bait and beat operation. She and her friends had taken turns coming on to Bizgov loyalists to tease them into dark alleys with promises of sexual favors in trade for money. Anyone who witlessly followed one of their gang into a trap had triply deserved their beatings for being stupid perverted loyalists.

Below Meryan the waiting gang heard her footsteps turn back and quickly rushed to attack her but Meryan charged up the stairs ahead of them and won her way to the relative safety among the throng of people in the corridor above. Perhaps all her ruminations had been wrong and people carried their belongings with them because there was no safe alternative. As Meryan turned to find an exit to the street she noticed a group of people sitting along the wall near the stairs. She instinctively knew they were waiting to gather enough people together to brave the stairs to the storage lockers as a group. Meryan joined them and after a few minutes a tough appeared and accepted a small fee to accompany the group down the stairs.

As they made their way past the four people lurking below the landing one of these addressed the tough calling him George. George appeared to be well known and despised by the gang for they spit at him and feinted attacks towards him, but were careful to keep their distance. George appeared to be a tough customer indeed.

In the dingy basement Meryan followed those in her group who seemed most familiar with the place to where a small kiosk stood locked away behind a steel security mesh. The party queued up and exchanged credits for keys to access their belongings. Some had only come to pay another week or two of storage fees, and apparently had not left anything in their locker that they might need today.

Meryan sorted out her belongings, choosing her backpack to keep two sets of fresh clothes, her toiletries, a towel and her light blanket. When she received her cardkey to a locker she was admonished to return the cardkey when she was done and was gruffly informed that the cardkey would do her no good if she kept it was programmed as a one time only access card to make it useless to thieves.

Right! Meryan had thought; the thieves were behind the grill charging for every access anyone made to their stored belongings on top of the steep weekly fees. But paying for storage was just one more way to live more safely. The fewer things you carried on your person the less attractive a target you made for potential muggers and thieves.

Meryan allowed her articles to pass through a scanning conveyor belt to allow the operator to search for weapons or bombs. Meryan had no weapons and her new her deck would not be harmed. The scanner made a permanent record of her belongings which would safeguard them from being stolen by any employees of the locker company. A copy of her scan was downloaded to her PDA.

Meryan selected a locker from among several which were empty and waived her access card by the lock sensor next to the wire mesh door. She had chosen the smallest locker that would fit her duffel and two hand bags and crammed them in tightly before pressing the door home. When she felt the distinctive click of the lock engage she released the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Her day would now be far easier with less to carry or to worry about.

Meryan headed to the party of people who were waiting for George to escort them back upstairs. A young woman in the group, softly spoken introduced herself as Alice.

Alice and Meryan talked awhile trading stories of their memories of Peoria before the domes and the events in their lives since then. Meryan remembered Alice from the lounge where she had spent the previous night. Alice too had been alone and had been frequently molested by strangers who sensed her timidity and tried to take advantage. In spite of her fears Alice had driven them off and wanted to learn from Meryan how she maintained the calm disdaining attitude with which Meryan seemed to ward off any trouble.

As George escorted them back to the ground floor Meryan and Alice agreed to meet for dinner and team up for mutual protection. Meryan was delighted to have made her new friend’s acquaintance and looked forward to a more pleasant evening than last night had been.

It was now twenty minutes to eight and Meryan had to hustle to be on time for her orientation interview with her new boss, E. Edwards. In spite of many changes to the city since Meryan had last seen it she had no trouble finding her way to work. The building was only five blocks away from her dorm; her dorm had been assigned to her with this convenience in mind.

She arrived in time to fill her water bottle from the office dispenser before going in for her interview. She was feeling very good about herself as she walked through the door.

Her new boss was a woman. Meryan had assumed E. Edwards would be a man and was slightly taken aback but recovered quickly enough to give her new boss a warm greeting. Her new boss’s name was Evalina and it was quickly clear that Evie, as everyone was to call her informally, would be a reasonably easy person to work for. Meryan’s new duties would require data mining and analysis. A breeze! Meryan thought, she was a natural at such simple chores.

Evie’s department was affiliated with security and Meryan would be looking for anomalous network activity that may represent potential security breeches which may require investigation. Meryan began to suspect that her old boss had pulled a few strings for her here because the job fit her to a tee and put her in exactly the position she needed to be in if she chose to continue to help the resistance. Wheels within wheels Meryan thought as her new boss introduced her around and showed her the facilities.

Toward the end of the tour they wandered through the break room to a rear area where there were showers! Evie noticed the delight that lit up Meryan’s face and gave her twenty minutes to take advantage of the refresher. A schedule was posted on the wall in half hour slots and Meryan signed up for a vacant early morning slot. She could avoid much of the unpleasantness of the dorm’s lavs thanks to this helpful benefit. She wondered how she would feel about herself now that she was joining a Bizgov management team and working with the very people that had once been her father’s avowed enemies.

She brushed the thought aside, knowing it would return to haunt her. She had made her choices for her survival; she could deal with her loyalties later.

That evening she met up with Alice and invited her to the Indian eatery where she had eaten breakfast. Alice had never tried Indian food and was clearly somewhat prejudiced but was game to try it at her new friend’s insistence. They walked past the serving line where a buffet offered many tasty dishes to select from and Meryan chose Alice’s dishes for her as they passed down the line carrying their trays. The servers notice the experience and delight with which Meryan made their selections and offered advice on house specialties or warned her off from dishes they considered to be inferior that night, serving the two young women generously and joyfully. Meryan selected chapattis and rotis from the breads at the end of the line to complete their meals and the girls were given small servings of cardamom sweets.

They paid with chits from their coupon books and then sat together in a narrow booth meant for only two people. Alice and Meryan shared their food and Alice seemed delighted with the wide variety of new flavors which had been heaped upon their plates. The girls lingered a long time over their meal enjoying the shelter of the eatery with its sweet spicy atmosphere and carried on swapping stories where they had left off earlier that morning.

Alice was also an orphan. She had lost her mother to lung disease four years ago and her father had died the year before of complications related to pancreatic cancer. She had no relatives to stay with and was taken in by an elderly neighbor who needed someone to help care for her in her declining health. Alice had accepted this role easily it reminded her of the years she had cared for her mother before her mom had finally passed away, and she had felt somehow closer to her mom by caring for her elderly neighbor. Her neighbor had secured her a good job in a university library and her career as a librarian was a happy one. Her neighbor had finally passed last week and Alice was forced to leave the tiny apartment they had shared. Her neighbor had been living on a reverse mortgage and the property had defaulted to the credit union upon her death. The remaining equity had been left to Alice but it was not enough to allow her to repurchase the apartment or even to be able to afford a rental on her own for very long. Alice had decided to apply to the public dormitories to allow herself to save money until she could find a more suitable arrangement.

This gave Meryan an idea. Meryan explained her own situation and what was going on with her sister. If her sister could be trusted to quit her business dealing drugs the three of them might be able to find a small apartment together. It would be safer than the dorms.

Alice agreed and they decided they would look up Pama this weekend and feel her out about inviting her to share an apartment with them.

Meryan and Alice returned to the lounge with plenty of time to find a good place on the floor behind a group of computer kiosks. They settled in and made themselves comfortable and continued to talk into the night until Alice drifted off to sleep. Meryan said a silent prayer of thanks for the gift of finding this new friend and then smiled as Alice snuggled up to her in her sleep. She held Alice closer to her and fell into sleep gently full of contentment.

In the morning they woke together in each other’s arms and the peace and joy they found in one another’s eyes was enough to assure them that everything was going to be ok. Meryan wondered whether she and Alice would be lovers and decided it didn’t matter, either way she would be happy.

Meryan and Alice spent their morning together looking up apartment rentals online and trying to work out a budget. Meryan also looked up her sister’s dorm address and discovered it may be too far away for them to be able to share an apartment with her; it would depend on how Pama felt about commuting as well as whether she could be convinced to quite dealing drugs.

Meryan decided to call Pama this evening and just see where things went from there. Meryan and Alice could consider looking for an alternative candidate for their plans if Pama was not interested.

Meryan walked partway to work with Alice and they parted company with plans to meet for dinner. Meryan then ran the remaining 3 blocks to work and up the stairs to the third floor where her offices were located. She was plenty early to use the shower and no one else was waiting so she went ahead and refreshed herself before work.

Yesterday Meryan had gotten her gear setup in her cubicle and received her authorization IDs, passwords and codes. She had hr fingerprint scanner learn all ten of her fingerprints and had set to work to writing new codes to execute depending on which finger she used. It was a simple security measure but most people never thought about it. If she was forced by anyone to access her PC she could protect her data and codes or even destroy them at a single touch. Whoever was strong arming her to provide access might never know how they were tricked.

Today she would setup false work files to substitute for any real work she was doing to camouflage the real data she may someday need to protect from prying eyes. In her line of work you could never take enough precautions. She would keep the dummy files fresh, working on them daily and they would appear to be directly related to her job and would be able to pass a reasonably close scrutiny but not a full audit. She would have to find other means to fool department auditors should the need arise.

Meryan began by collecting data on Bizgov army units stationed in Peoria. Perfectly fine perfectly legit, her boss would need to know about hackers trying to access this data and she would have to write code to sniff out their activities or fabricate them if the need arose. No problem there, and with a little luck she could put together a complete picture of whatever illegal activities were taking place with the units and among their commanders.

You never knew who might be vulnerable to blackmail or might be available to assist in a shady operation. By gathering the data to incriminate some seriously bent soldiers she was building a potential spy network that may also serve as a safety net to bail her out of a jam.

Meryan whistled while she worked, she loved her new job!

When her first legitimate assignment popped up in Meryan’s work queue she was surprised to discover that she had already put together nearly all the data she would need to complete the request. Either her boss was thinking along the same lines as she was, or there was someone who perceived the illicit activities of the soldiers as a security threat. She would have to watch her step until she uncovered the motive for her new assignment.

She glanced down at the delivery date and smiled. The saps had no idea just how good she was, she had a week to make her report. She would take the full week and she would do it right, but it would take less than a day to put together a seamless report that hid her best potential assets while delivering some of the lower grade assets to whomever was looking for them. She would spend the remaining time looking for new assets and feeling out the motive behind this request. Identifying the source would be the first step and she could go to Evie directly and ask her, justifying the need to know to better profile her search filter parameters.

Evie produced her own work log and downloaded the file on Meryan’s work request to her secure workstation. Evie advised Meryan to read quickly and take no notes; the file had a snoop to detect Meryan’s keyboard input; and it would self destruct taking the file and any suspected notes with it. The file would automatically wipe itself clean in two hours permanently destroying all traces of the data it had held.

Smart! Meryan thought as she returned to her cube to read the file. Meryan considered taking notes on her PDA but her PDA was not secure and she suspected she was being kaizaned. She had not seen any work monitors or security cameras but she knew they must be there. She could not search for them directly without raising suspicion but she would slowly infiltrate the security routines on her workstation and prepare to deflect any snoopers should she need to do anything they might raise a flag on.

Kaizaning had been imported from Japan and used methods of monitoring employees work practices to ensure they applied all their time diligently to their tasks rather than using work hours for personal business of any sort. The practice was now used by all the global scale corporations and applied to any non work related activities such as napping or calling family. Some management systems flaunted the practice and rubbed it in their employees faces on a daily basis, but Meryan knew Evie instinctively disdained the practice and would use only the most subtle methods to ensure her staff would not notice it enough to resent it.

As Meryan read and reread the file detailing the scope of work her boss had received she noticed it came from an Army colonel. Interesting! Meryan discovered the scope was really designed to be a CYA action disguised as an attempt to winkle out potential subversives. The poor colonel had too many irons in the fire, all of them hot enough to burn him to the ground if he were caught. He was grade ‘A’ resource material.

Meryan whistled louder as she composed a favorable report that would help the colonel turn a couple of nasty punks who were hellbenders maliciously abusing their authority to rob or rape whomever they pleased. Sweet!

Meryan left work a half hour late to help establish a reputation as a dedicated employee and was practically singing as she took the stairs to the ground floor and exited her office building.

For dinner Alice and Meryan tried a Thai eatery and were satisfied with their meal but thought it did not compare very favorably to their Indian eatery in either quality or service. Tomorrow they agreed to try a Mexican eatery.

Meryan tried to call her sister but Pama’s voice mail message answered. Meryan left a brief greeting and promised to call Pama back again tomorrow night.

As they settled in for the night Alice began telling Meryan about her current boyfriend whom she was going to dump. Meryan was sad to hear Alice’s story, it seemed Alice’s fellow whom she believed she deeply loved was beginning to turn abusive and had revealed a scary streak of violence that now had Alice frightened for her safety. On their last date they had been accosted by a panhandler.

Mark had beaten the poor man nearly to death.

When Alice tried to pull Mark off the bum he turned on her and she had fled.

Today Mark had turned up at her library all smiles and asked her for another date as if nothing had happened. Alice had been afraid he would make a scene if she turned him down at work and that she might lose her job if he did, so she had agreed to see him again Friday night even though she now did not want to see him again ever.

Meryan comforted Alice and they held each other close. Meryan was at first reluctant to respond to Alice’s advances as she was clearly in great turmoil, but in the end she relented and they loved each other tenderly ignoring the people around them whom they might be entertaining. They fell asleep in one another’s arms and the last thoughts Meryan had were of her own blissful contentment and joy in discovering a friend she could love so easily.

In her dreams that night Meryan found herself singing a lullaby and wandering through strange dorms seeking a special door she knew she would find. In the end she found the door partly blocked off by a couple wrapped up in many blankets who seemed to recognize Meryan and gracefully move aside to let her enter the room behind them.

The door was locked and at first Meryan did not think she had the key, but when she reached into the pocket of her jeans she found a keycard which unlocked the door for her.

It was dark in the room and there was a familiar scent to the air a warm smell of fresh urine and baby powder. She entered the room carefully and as she progressed a light slowly came on to one side and Meryan saw a small bed centered in the light which held a baby girl.

The baby smiled at her and looked into Meryan’s eyes and spoke to Meryan in her mind to say her name was Lisa.

Meryan reached for Lisa to help her with her diapers and woke up.

Meryan smelled a slightly sour odor in her friend’s hair and considered her friend carefully. The baby dream had been a precognitive dream; of this she was absolutely certain. She had had such dreams in thee past and there was always a strong element of truth about them, she would one day meet Lisa for real and love and care for her. But Lisa could not be her own baby. Nor had Lisa appeared to be Pama’s baby, so almost certainly Alice was pregnant and Lisa would be their baby together.

Meryan cried with joy and fell asleep holding her friend close to her heart. Lisa would be a very special baby, of that she was certain. Lisa could already talk to her and could be barely six weeks old. Lisa knew about her mother’s turmoil. Lisa had incited her father to his act of rage to drive her mother away from him before he could become a permanent and harmful influence in their lives.

Meryan listened carefully to the baby’s story and vowed to protect her and to love her and Alice at all costs. Meryan never questioned how she could talk to the infant, she had had enough experiences with PSI powers in her life to frighten her into learning more about them and this had led her upon a path toward personal freedom and self empowerment. This was the secret she had not yet shared with Alice concerning her special attitude towards life.

Lisa explained to Meryan that she had called for Meryan to come and meet her mother and rescue her from her father. Meryan accepted this too. It was her destiny. She would soon be a mother to a wonderful baby girl. Lisa then pardoned herself and said she would sleep awhile, they might speak together again soon, and she would be in touch if there was need.

As the new surrogate mother and her prenatal daughter fell asleep together the two mothers seemed to glow with a radiance that others might have witnessed had anyone been paying close attention.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Dreaming – How Real Are Our Dreams?

We wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmarish dream of our demise and wonder whether we have just been warned. Or we linger in a dream that is gratifying a primal but unfulfilled desire in our life for happiness or success until we can remain within the dream no longer and we must awaken. Do our dreams have any real significance and if so how can we know?

Many people claim not to remember their dreams upon awakening, or even deny that they have any dreams at all. But dreams appear to be a fundamental function of our minds as necessary as sleeping or breathing; many people sincerely believe that their dreams have great significance or add immense value to their lives.

Whatever significance may be found in our dreams is ultimately up to us to discover. There is no way to empirically know what value our dreams may have, but subjectively we may assign them whatever value seems appropriate to ourselves. A dream which may appear to be a warning may serve to avert us from some future disaster. If such a dream fulfills its purpose it is possible we may never encounter the circumstances which we were warned about and may never then empirically know if it really had been a precognitive dream. If in fact it was a truly precognitive dream which helped to steer us clear of some disaster in our life then that dream certainly had a great deal of value. And, if we are lucky enough to arrive upon the scene of our dream and emerge from the event unscathed, in part due to our forewarning, then we are very lucky indeed because we know in our hearts the dream was given to us to help us. However, there still remains no empirical proof regarding the validity or nature of our dream experience.

So with dreams it often boils down to a matter of faith in the value of our dreams and our skill in understanding what our dreams may mean. The fact that we dream is of course very real, even if the content of our dreams may appear to be unreal. Dreams speak to us on many levels. They may have meaning in context to many different things in our lives. When we study our dreams we should look beyond our first efforts to interpret them and dig deeper to look for as many meanings as we may be able to find.

Dreams have often been thought to derive from a single source, but in fact many dreams are blatantly derived from multiple sources with many different interpretations all of which may be valid from different points of view or contexts. When we attempt to unravel the meanings of our dreams we should be as open-minded as possible to the many motivations we have for assembling our dreams in the manner in which we experience them, we will often want to consider that sources external to ourselves are also involved in the processes by which our dreams are delivered to us. We may be receiving messages from the future, from god, from a soul that has passed away or from a living person whom we may or may not even know.
Whatever the sources of our dreams may be, whether a non-conscious internal process or a divine message from an angelic being, our dreams have many potential meanings to explore and may deliver inspiration, warning, affection, perspective, and much more to us. The value we place in context to our dreams is personal, but those dreams we value highly often have a profound influence on our lives and therefore profound meaning in our lives.

Wherever we find influence and meaning we find something real and valuable to ourselves so our dreams have the potential to be very real indeed, and they may even transcend the everyday reality we are accustomed to believing in and may radically change our beliefs or change how we experience our world.

When we focus our attention on our dreams we may make them stronger and more potent templates for events that will subsequently manifest in our lives, making our dreams appear to be very real indeed. Through prayer, meditation, writing, painting, music and many other activities we may turn our dreams into something we may use to transform our lives and we may even extend that transformation of our own lives to transform the lives of other people.

Our minds are very powerful assets which we may use to deliberately change our world to make ourselves happier and healthier. Our personal beliefs and expectations play very powerful roles in how we manifest the events we will experience in our lives. Our dreams are some of our most potent tools for change in this regard because our dreams do something our conscious minds have great difficulty doing, our dreams synthesize various parts of our lives and experiences bringing them together in new and unexpected ways which may transcend our personal limitations or transcend internal or external conflicts that our conscious minds can scarcely perceive let alone reconcile or use to our advantage.

In this invaluable synthetic process our dreams may bring us new potentials for growth and may help us to heal and to become happier human beings. Through our self improvement and our shared joy and delight with the world which our dreams can help us to achieve we may be empowered to be more compassionate and loving, nurturing people toward those around us with whom we share our lives

This makes our dreams very real indeed because the influence of our dreams can manifest in our lives profoundly in so many different ways to make our world a better place to live.



BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Chakra Song: 'How to Use' Article & Update

We may feel we are familiar with the practices of prayer or meditation and we may have tried these unsuccessfully and wondered why such time honored avenues to self empowerment have failed to work in our lives. We may hear many testimonies that describe the effective power to transform our lives which these practices can bestow upon us and we may have felt frustrated that we have not learned how to use these tools to make ourselves feel happier, healthier or more content. Now a new tool, the Chakra Song, is available which may help you to realize the goals you may have felt you might never be able to attain.

Many healing traditions all refer to an energetic body that is the template for our physical body and which is directly related to our health, happiness and wellbeing. This energetic body has nodes of energy called chakras which are directly related to different aspects of our health and how we manifest our lives in this world. When the energetic body is functioning poorly we may work to heal it; one of the most fundamental parts of the work we must do to heal our energetic bodies is to cleanse our chakras of stagnant energy.

Clearing our chakras has immense benefit. Our natural energy flow can be bogged down by so many different things. Anything which creates stress impedes the health of our energetic body, that part of us which is healed by practices like Reiki, yoga or acupuncture. When the energetic body is healthy our minds work better, our emotions are healthier, and our physical bodies become healthier as well.

Our energetic bodies respond to our thoughts. This is why when we are conflicted or angry or depressed our energetic bodies become damaged and then function poorly. This is also why simple meditation or prayer can be so effective at restoring us to a state of wellbeing in body mind and spirit. By focusing our thoughts on healing our energetic body we restore ourselves to happiness, health and wellbeing.

It can sometimes be very difficult to learn how to meditate or pray effectively. Our minds are often too bemired by inner turmoil or too easily distracted by external and irrelevant influences. It takes patience to learn to quiet our thoughts so that we may empty ourselves of all the beliefs and conditions which may get in the way of successful prayer or meditation.

We must learn to recognize that many of our thoughts are vicious circles that never arrive at any functional conclusion but simple run about and about in circles endlessly consuming our minds and our time. Once we see that this is true we may begin to recognize when thoughts of this nature arise in our minds and begin to interrupt them, to stop thinking them. The more we practice not thinking these consuming thoughts the more we free our minds to think in healthier ways and the closer we become to realizing true internal peace.

In that peaceful state we can focus our thoughts more clearly on those things which really matter most to us, like our health. We can take control of our wellbeing and direct ourselves to become healthier, happier and more content. This works because everything that is manifest in the physical plane of this world begins as a thought form in our energetic bodies. By cleansing and healing our energetic bodies we create an effective thought form or mental template for our state of being which is healthier, happier and more fulfilling.

This template then manifests in the physical world by making our bodies healthier and bringing us new opportunities to enhance our lives and the lives of those we love. In this manner, the simple quiet practices of prayer or meditation become transformational tools with which we can effectively change our lives and make the world around us a happier, healthier more abundant place for all of us to share.

To help with the visualization work related to cleansing my chakras I decided to write a song. Song is one of the most powerful tools in my life. The music is borrowed from the ‘Popcorn’ part of the soundtrack from the movie “A Clockwork Orange”. I chose this music because it is so happy, light and energizing. I hope you will find the music for this song and will then enjoy it as much as I have.

This song works! It has practically written itself. My chakra visualizations are much stronger and clearer. What's more, as I was composing this song during my drive home from work I had scarcely any pain, typically driving has been a very painful activity for me because of needing to grasp the steering wheel, even when I remember to use my open palm against the steering wheel rather than grasp it the pain while driving has been pretty bad. No more!

Please feel free to modify this song in any way that works best for you.


The Chakra Song

In my root chakra I find - red life energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s vitality that strengthens me and helps me to survive
Now the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your root chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower

In my loin chakra I find - hot orange energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is sexual; it inspires me, it helps me to create
Now the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your loin chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower

In my mind chakra I find - yellow energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is teaching me; it makes me free, it helps me to be me
Now the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your mind chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower

In my heart chakra I find - sweet green energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is compassionate; it’s full of love, it helps me be healthy
Now the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your heart chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower

In my voice chakra I find - loud blue energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It communicates; it speaks to thee, it sings along with me
Now the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your voice chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower

In my brow chakra I find - purple energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s intuitive; it knows the truth, it helps me to perceive
Now the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your brow chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower

In my crown chakra I find - violet white energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s the god I am, my divinity; it realizes me
It connects me to infinity and all that I can be
Now the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your crown chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the violet white chakra power opens like a flower

Now you know the chakra song; so we all can sing along
Now the divine rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until all of your chakras are clearly visualized together then move to the YES line...
Yes, the divine rainbow chakra powers open like a flower

Now the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
Repeat until your root chakra’s 4 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower

Now the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your loin chakra’s 6 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower

Now the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your mind chakra’s 10 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower

Now the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your heart chakra’s 12 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower

Now the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your voice chakra’s 16 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower

Now the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your brow chakra’s 2 petals stretch into descending cords of energy that weave back and forth through your lower chakras like a caduceus symbol then move to the YES line...
Yes, the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower

Now the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your crown chakra’s 40 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy and a solid broad cord of white energy connects your crown to the heavens then move to the YES line...
Yes, the violet white chakra power opens like a flower

Now the lovely rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until all your chakra’s radiating cords mingle their energy in your energetic body then move to the YES line...
Yes, the lovely rainbow chakra powers open like a flower

Now the divine living chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until your crown chakra is connected to the heavens by a strong white cord then move to the YES line...
Yes, the divine living chakra powers open like a flower
Now all the divine living chakra powers open like a flower


Once you have experienced the connection from the heavens to the crown chakra open wide follow up by singing the Beach Boys' “Good Vibrations”; make up the lyrics as you go using any positive affirmations you like that describe yourself as a happy healthy human being whose good fortune brings you everything you may wish for.

Please note that your visualization of the chakras may take some time, many years for me, but I have now given you the key that turned the trick with me.

Don’t worry about where you visualize these at first, it can be easier to visualize them in front of your mind’s eye and then later transfer them to their respective places within your energetic body.

Chakra Descriptions:

    Crown Chakra - located on the top of the head, it is connected to your divinity
    Third Eye (Brow) Chakra - between the eyebrows, related to intuition & ESP
    Throat (Voice) Chakra - near the larynx, related to speech & self-expression
    Heart Chakra - below the sternum, related to healing, love & compassion
    Solar Plexus (Mind) - behind the navel, related to power & mental functions
    Sacrum (Loin) Chakra - behind the sex organs, related to sex, emotion & creativity
    Root Chakra - below the base of the spine, related to security, instinct & survival

Your visualizations need not be complex at first and may begin with the individual chakra colors which you may then try to shape into balls of light.
As you get better at visualizing balls of color for the chakras start to visualize the petals of each chakra as they appear on the surface pointing inward.

Then visualize the petals unfolding outward from the center to form flower shapes.

As the flower shapes appear visualize the petals stretching out into cords of energy that radiate outward like stars.

Later as you visualize all the chakras radiating watch as the rays of the brow chakra descend through all the chakras in a weaving pattern like a caduceus. The rays of the other chakras will mingle with one another filling out your energetic body.

Today my energetic body resembled a tree covered in vines with all the chakras within it glowing and radiating and merging their energies into all the subtle leaves (organs or nodes) of my energetic body.


BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Transformation in Progress – Cleansing Chakras

Does an epic battle truly exist between Light and Dark? I have enjoyed writing and reading stories about battles between good and evil that have been characterized as Light and. Dark, and many believe that such an epic battle is actually taking place with our Earth as a prize to be claimed by the winners. It has been my opinion that there could not be such a battle of this nature taking place but could I have been mistaken?

While trying to perform some chakra cleansing work recently with the help of a Reiki master both my Reiki friend and I came up with the same thing after she experienced a block when sending me energy. The thing we each came up with independently was’ parasites’.

I have been told in the past that I have incorporeal parasitic entities attached to my aura which were making holes in it. So when my Reiki friend and I both came across these parasites I decided to communicate with them to learn what they were and why they were attached to me.

I am not sure what these parasites may be or why I would be protective of them, but they were giving me chills when I began to investigate them. I suspect there is a symbiotic relationship of sorts wherein these things enhance or facilitate my psychic abilities or some other property related to how I perceive and work with the universe.

What they may get in return I cannot yet say.

I know at one time I thought these creatures were hitch-hikers that attached to me during my astral travels. While there do appear to be creatures waiting in the astral which may appear to be malevolent or harmful predatory entities, these symbionts do not appear to be in that class of creatures. I can't say how many of them there are except that there are many; like a colony of some sort. They say they help me or they want to help me but I am not sure if that is not a self serving message to beguile me from getting rid of them. I do tend to feel that I should trust them; however I also believe that I clearly need to find out more about them.

They say that they found me lost and that they returned me to my world but now they cannot return themselves to wherever it may be they came from. I don't know how true any of that is, right now I regard it as just a story they are telling me about which I cannot get any verifiable detail. If I understand what they are saying then they are telling me that I lost a part of my mind and that they have replaced it for me with themselves. According to these parasites it’s part of my mind necessary for the integration of my physical form in the physical plane. This is the clearest communication I've ever had with them regarding our relationship to one another. It is strange to talk with them they have so very many tiny little voices that all speak in unison in order to be heard.

The closest I can come to describing these creatures might be to call them nanites. They are non-physical ultra tiny consciousnesses. They have once more repeated that I somehow got lost and that they brought me back.

I believe I used to have nightmares about them.

In one of my recurring dreams I meet invaders from outer space or another dimension and they proceed to take over our entire world by subsuming everyone they invade in a collective consciousness similar to the group mind of the invaders in the ‘Body Snatchers’ movies. In these dreams I have always rebelled against the invaders and refused to allow them to possess my body or to coerce me join their collective mind.

Hmmm, it has been awhile since I last revisited those dreams. I never really knew what to make of the invaders in these dreams so while these dreams would have made a very good basis for a story I neglected any opportunity to explore the story further.

If I try to interpret the dream then it is I myself, and not the world which has been invaded and it is my consciousness that is being channeled into alignment with a collective conscious or super-conscious mind.

These creatures say they are repairers. They fix what is broken. There voices are somewhat stilted, they speak in broken fragments. It is a little weird and very emotional for me to listen to them and to channel their words into this story. There is something which part of me does not want to know which is pivotal to why these nanite-like beings are a part of me.

I know intellectually that I must learn what this knowledge is that I am so deliberately avoiding. I can distinctly feel a fear or reluctance to bring that knowledge into my conscious awareness. This knowledge is very strongly linked to fear and to pain and to death. The death experiences which are a part of this forbidden knowledge seem to be related to this current lifetime rather than to ‘past lives’. The nanite creatures seem to be telling me that each time I die they create an alternate dimension in which I continue to live.

This purpose which the nanites are describing feels as if it began with an early childhood death; possibly, and this does feel very right, it was a death in infancy; a death where I willed myself to die.

I have that history; I was one of those ‘failure to thrive’ infants. I have terrible memories of my prenatal experiences and after my birth my parents were very afraid that I would die, I refuse to eat and my parents had no choice but to force feed me with a large plastic syringe pushed down my throat. I hated that so much I learned to eat on my own to make it stop.

Ok, now the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Is this information real, or is it some form of deception? It does feel real, but things in my mind often get so slippery that I am accustomed to doubting everything, and my doubt has become habitual enough that it has very nearly been my undoing by doubting the efficacy of prayer, remote healing, meditation or visualization, all of which have recently benefited me enormously. My doubt is chronic and sometimes dangerous and so I have found that I must even doubt my doubt.

My conclusion has been to accept the information that has been received in this channeling as being real until it may be proven otherwise. I do not mean to embrace this information in a manner where I might have difficulty letting go of it if the truth shows up and labels it deception.

The nanites say “we fix broken things.”
They say “What will not live on its own which needs to live anyway is made to live until it can live on its own.”

They also say that they are very sorry for all the painful living that must go on until I can learn to live on my own and that every time I choose to die they must bring me back to life. They say I am not permitted to die and I must learn to live on my own.

I have known for a long time that I am not permitted to die, but it is a strange message nonetheless coming from these many, many tiny little beings.

Their voice(s) are familiar; I have channeled information from them in the past.
This is just a bit confusing, if these tiny beings are symbionts are there also parasites (two different groups)? Or do the symbionts only appear to be parasites? Or are the symbionts really parasites masquerading as symbionts?

Do I suspect they are symbionts misunderstood to be parasites because that is in their best interest for me to believe or because it is actually true?

I explained to my Reiki friend that I would try to determine more about these entities I have called nanites or nanos and what the truth of this situation might be. In the course of that day in which I was blocked from receiving healing energy I was directed to two new internet sites by a new member of one of my frequented forums. The second site had a section that described parasites or other entities that may attach themselves to someone’s aura.

I had some trouble accepting some of what these sites had to offer because they describe a strange ‘history’ of the universe and a war between light and dark including a hierarchy of spirits all of which were unfamiliar and which I regarded dubiously. However, what was said in regard to channeling really got my attention. “If a channeled entity appears to be defensive in any way get rid of it.”

That part stuck with me; the nanos definitely appear to be defensive. So I decided they had to go. The nanos defensive tactics included trying to draw me back into many of my old self-destructive habits. I believe they were using those old habits to undermine my higher state of awareness and consciousness to try to prevent me from following up on my investigation of what they might be and to prevent me from getting rid of them.

It seems sensible that I should empower myself to live independently of whatever entities may have attached themselves to me and that I should proceed to clear any foreign entities out of my system. So the next morning I began working with my chakras and energy to try to clean out any parasites or symbionts.

There was a lot of resistance on many levels to this effort to cleanse myself. I am confident that I got rid of a lot of these things but I also believe that their may be enough left to maintain and rebuild their colony. So I will need to do more cleansing work to rid myself of these beings and follow up with visualization work to repair any damage to my aura or chakras.

The resistance and what might appear to be malignancy which I encountered that morning was sufficient to make me wonder whether there really might be a war being waged between beings of light and dark. Too many of my symptoms and experiences are described on the websites which helped to clue me in regarding channeling defensive entities, so I have had to wonder what else might those sites have to say which I doubt but which may really be true?

So I have been thinking about all of this; I have been wondering how much of the information which I found on those websites that described a war between light and dark has merit and how much of that information may only be delusional stuff like I sometimes find in myself.

Since then I have had a chance to further sort things out. One suggestion made by my mother was that these creatures were indeed a survival and support mechanism which I may finally have outgrown. However, she also suggested that these creatures are putting up a challenge to make me work my very hardest to remove them as a test. If I can succeed in removing them then I have passed their test, a test which is meant to ensure that I have indeed adopted a genuine will to live and that I have sufficiently learned the skills necessary to maintain myself independently of any assistance from these creatures which seem to have infested me.

What are these creatures really? Possibly they are a part of myself which has been projected outside of myself because of a conflict within myself regarding my will to live and my desire to die. I desired death so strongly that I perceived my will to live as an externally imposed foreign will whose intent was to keep me alive in spite of my determination to die.

Why do these creatures appear to be nanites? At the root level in which the entire physical universe is created there are tiny conscious entities called quantums. Our minds interact with the quantums to manifest whatever reality we wish to experience. So these nanos may be my personal quantum-nanonic interface, something I have been searching for in order to learn how to better communicate with the universe so that I may consciously manifest whatever I may wish to experience.

Will purging myself of these nanos harm me or help me? The separation of my self into two parts, the nanos and that which I call my self is not healthy; it is a dichotomy that undermines my wellbeing. My efforts to purge them may be misguided, perhaps I must integrate them. Then the only thing I need to purge is my state of perception of these parts of myself as being separate from me. Once that is achieved then all of my powers which I have projected outside of myself in the form of these nanos return to me, completing me.

Is there a war between light and dark, or are there merely many ways in which we create conflict within ourselves which we project into a concept of a war between light and dark? On reflection upon this issue I still believe that no war exists. We may battle with ourselves fruitlessly over our internal conflicts until we learn to clear ourselves of all such inner turmoil, but these battles are not artifacts of a greater war. They are our personal struggles to learn truth for ourselves so that we may realize ourselves as independent self empowered beings.

The war then is a figment of our imaginations created from our ignorance. However, as with all hermetic orders and magickal traditions, this war becomes a concept through which powerful healing techniques may be shared. The outer forms by which this war may be described are meaningless, the true meaning lies hidden within for anyone to discover once they understand the veil of words do not represent reality in any objective manner but do represent reality in an internal and subjective manner which each of us must discover for ourselves.

So the war between light and dark may only exist as an elaborate metaphor to guide us to a state of well being in which we become happier, healthier more loving human beings.



BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.

CREDITS:
My thanks to my friends Moonshadow, Light1 & Tepet, and to my Mom for helping work this out. My cleansing work this morning went a bit smoother; the visualizations were more clearly foucus.