Thursday, 7/5/18

Last night we had a nice little barbeque—as soon as the sun lowered enough that the back yard was in shade and comfortable enough to be out in. Samina was at work, so it was just George, Jessica, Heidi and me, sitting around sharing stories over hot dogs, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob as pretty fireworks lit up the sky over the rooftops, and distant booms punctuated our conversation.

I haven’t done a 4^th of July barbeque in longer than I can remember, and it was very sweet. For many years I worked with Pyro Spectaculars, doing hand-fired fireworks shows with the crew for three nights along the Russian River. Nothing quite like the rush you feel from mortars going off right beside you! And lying on the ground looking up directly underneath the exploding aerial blossoms…

This evening Samina and I are going over to Marco & Heather’s for dinner. And tomorrow evening a bunch of our Desert Moon Circle friends will be coming over here to hang out. Saturday I’ll be presenting a 2-hour workshop on “Quantum Consciousness” at Haven Craft. Pre-registrations indicate we’ll have a full house—something I could never get in Santa Cruz.

Wednesday, 7/4/18

May the Fourth be with you!

Tuesday, 7/3/18

I’m still trying to find some value in TCIM, so I’m going through the Table of Contents and then looking up pages that might have something to offer. Chapter 15 has a subhead: “The Only Real Relationship.” Since I’m really into relationships, I checked it out:

“…let Him Whose teaching is only of God teach you the only meaning of relationships. For God created the only relationship that has meaning, and that is his relationship with you… The reality of this relationship becomes the only truth that you could ever want.” (pp. 299-301)

Nope, that doesn’t work for me. Sure, I have a relationship with The Goddess, but my relationships with women as Her avatars, and men as avatars of the God, and animals as avatars of the Totems, are all really important to me, and I would never dismiss or deny them!

How about Chapter 16, with subhead: “The Illusion and the Reality of Love:”

“The special love relationship is an attempt to limit the destructive effects of hate by finding a haven in the storm of guilt… The special love partner is acceptable only as long as he serves this purpose… It is sure that those who select certain ones as partners in any aspect of living…are trying to live with guilt rather than die of it… There are no triumphs of love. Only hate is at all concerned with the ‘triumph of love.’ The illusion of love can triumph over the illusion of hate, but always at the price of making both illusions… The special love relationship is an attempt to bring love into fear, and make it real in fear… If special relationships of any kind would hinder God’s completion, can they have any value to you? … The special love relationship is the ego’s chief weapon for keeping you from Heaven.” (pp. 314-317)

Having had a “special love relationship” with my beloved Soulmate for 40 years, and many other “special love relationships” as well, I just can’t agree with any of this. So I skipped to the end to see what the conclusion might be:

“And now we say ‘Amen.’ For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation recognizes You, and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your likeness does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are one, and we are Home, where You would have us be.” (p. 622)

Hmn. Skipping past the Christ references, I can see those final three sentences as an appropriate response to “The Charge of the Star-Goddess”…which, as far as I’m concerned, could replace the entire previous 621 pages.

Monday, 7/2/18

I’ve now slogged through 240 pages of “A Course in Miracles,” and I’m afraid I just can’t take any more. The 6-page Preface was all about immanent Divinity (“Thou Art God”), the interconnectedness of everything, the underlying core essentiality of Love, and the “One Mind” of Universal Consciousness (the quantum field?). Things I’ve believed and striven to live in accordance with most of my life. So I thought, “this is cool,” and eagerly plunged on to see what other grand revelations awaited in the following 1,327 pages.

Unfortunately, I found nothing else to add to those excellent basic premises. Rather, the book went on and on making 2nd person (“you”) accusations, condemnations, and sanctimonious admonitions that I just didn’t get it; that my ego prevented me from seeing the truth; that I was too pig-headed, arrogant, egotistical and ignorant to understand, etc. And all this in the constantly reiterated context that I must accept unquestioningly the authority of the Word of God–Father, Son, and Holy Spook–as presented herein.

Despite the book having been supposedly “channeled” (by Jesus Christ, no less!) through a woman (Helen Schucman), in the first 240 pages at least, there is no hint of anything feminine. No mention of Mothers, Sisters, Lovers, Wives, Daughters–let alone Goddess. Only Father, Son, Brothers, and other masculine references. All “He” and no “She.”

And despite the frequent references to Love as the core essence of everything (which I wholeheartedly believe!), there is nothing about love of people for each other–nothing about romance, affection, sex, soulmates, courtship, marriage, children, family, community, friendship, or any other form of human love for one another. It’s all a pedantic lecture by Jesus Christ to the solitary male reader (presumably an orphan bachelor), and all the Love is just Father-to-Son-to-Man.

The Introduction says, “The underlying premise of the work is the teaching that the greatest ‘miracle’ that one may achieve in one’s life is the act of simply gaining a full ‘awareness of love’s presence’ in one’s own life.” I do agree with that. But I think we have different understandings of what that means…

Moreover (and this is inexcusable!), the book is stultifyingly boring–a real put-you-to-sleep no-page-turner. It’s redundant AND repetitive (try that!), endlessly rehashing the same tired admonitions over and over. And over. I just had to give it up, lest I throw it out the window (and it’s not my copy).

Of course, your mileage may vary. The book has been enormously popular for over 40 years, so many people must find that it works for them. But not for me.

Sunday, 7/1/18

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit! (Google it) Today and the following three days Samina is working at the Venetian as a singing gondolier. She has muscles like an Amazon from paddling her gondola four days and evenings a week!

Last night we popped popcorn and watched a couple of movies: “The Boy,” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Alice was by far the most fun! The Boy was a scary psychological thriller with some surprising twists, but not exactly a fun flick.

Friday evening Samina showed me a DVD of her legendary father’s final nightclub performance, 4 months before he died on Dec. 4, 2016. His name was Carme Daniel Pitrello, but everyone knew him as simply Carme; his obituary says: “Italian singer, comic, impressionist and a 2012 inductee into the Las Vegas Entertainers Hall of Fame… With more than 10,000 performances during his over 40 years on the Strip, Carme was gifted with an outstanding baritone voice, flawless comedic timing and a special rapport with the audience.”

Samina was born and raised in show business, often on tour, performing onstage with her father when she was growing up. She showed me her photo scrapbook, full of 8”x10” glossy b&w autographed PR pics of her with dozens of famous performers. She’s a stage magician, singer, dancer, burlesque queen, showgirl, and all-around class act. She performed as “Jessica Rabbit” after the “Roger Rabbit” movie came out, and she really looked the part!

Samina turned me on to the thick “Course in Miracles” book (1,333 pages!), which I’m reading while she’s off at work. It claims to be channeled from Jesus, and as a Pagan I have to struggle a bit to translate from the Christian metaphors and the lack of any feminine/Goddess/Mother perspective. But there’s a lot I can relate to regarding “Thou art God,” interconnectedness, and Love…

The Introduction says, “The underlying premise of the work is the teaching that the greatest ‘miracle’ that one may achieve in one’s life is the act of simply gaining a full ‘awareness of love’s presence’ in one’s own life.”

According to Wikipedia, the book states that “everything involving time, space, and perception is illusory. It presents a nondualism which states that God is the only truth and reality: perfect, unchanging, unchangeable, extending only love, though not in time and space, which cannot really be comprehended from a dualistic perspective. The theory further states that all life as we perceive it is actually one life, dreaming of separation and fragmentation.” Ehh…could be.