June 3, 2004

• Fear?
  
  Selfishness?
  
  Force of habit?
  
  Masochism?
  
  Stupidity?

  What
  keeps me in the unmindful state?  I first wrote, “mindless”, but
  it’s not mindless, not a lack of mentation–even in linear, logical,
  mundane Beta state this brain mentates (most of the time, until the fibro-fog rolls in) with the best of ‘em. 
  Sitting here now with the Hypnotic Brain Bird
  singing around and around in my head, it occurs to me that I have been
  denying myself the pleasures of Theta state along with my abstinence
  from drugs. 

  I started to write “for the same reasons as”
  abstinence from drugs, but there was no reasoning behind it. 
  Theta can be addictive and there have been times that I’ve chosen to
  spend whole days for weeks at a time in Theta.  At those times, I
  was smoking dope as well.  Perhaps a subconscious part of me did
  not want to be in Theta without the weed–it can be somewhat like going
  into battle without my armor on.

  I spent the whole day yesterday in Beta, what’s usually called “normal
  waking consciousness.”  Throughout the day, from time to time, I
  went back over and over my dream, trying to figure out its
  symbolism.  I thought about dogs and cats, black and white, hugs
  and kisses, and frozen/thawed ground beef.  I thought a lot about bees.  I thought about C.G.
  Jung and his guidelines on dream interpretation:  every person in
  the dream is an aspect of the Self; the symbolic language is one’s
  idiosyncratic own.

  At some point, around the time Doug went to bed last night, it dawned
  on me that there were elements in this dream that were not my
  own.  Ever see French Stewart on Third Rock: 
  “uh…uh…uh…iiiincoming message….”?  Still, I did not plug
  in the earbuds and adjust my brainwaves into receptive Theta.  I
  got out the runes.  I confirmed what I’d known or “suspected” all
  along and preferred to ignore, deny.  Seph is hurt and/or in
  trouble.  That much was definite.  In what way, how badly,
  how it happened…?  I did not do one simple runecasting.  I
  asked question after question, chasing details and clarity.  There
  is no clarity.  Runes that came up time after time were those for
  waiting, pain, challenge, renewal… and a clash with authority.

  During his training in the U.S., Seph reveled in the physical
  challenges, marveled at his fellow-soldiers’ stupidity, superstition,
  drinking and womanizing.  He seemed genuinely surprised that the officers liked him, and that his
  superiors kept suggesting he get a college degree and go into officer’s
  training.  At his eventual posting in Germany, he made a niche for
  himself in the motor pool, not under the greasy trucks but at the
  computer in the squadroom, doing work that his sergeant found too
  challenging. 

  I haven’t
  had a phone call or letter from him since he has been in Iraq.  I
  can only assume that the relationships I know about, with his
  fellow-soldiers, have continued and probably have taken twists and
  turns and been intensified by war.

  Seph is a martial artist,
  skilled in unarmed combat.  He lived with our sensei for a while,
  training daily with him and his sons.  He is also a swordsman, a
  self-taught master with a sword longer than he is tall and heavy enough
  that when he lived with us and I had to move it, it took both hands.

  He is a demon at games, too.  In Germany he got into Yu-Gi-Oh and
  would report to me week after week that he was still undefeated and had
  a terrific, growing deck of cards won from defeated opponents… until
  an older German man beat him once.  But he kept playing.  As
  far as I know none of his U.S. Army opponents ever beat him, and he
  went on winning far more often than he lost. 

  Seph’s skill and strength are as much a challenge to his
  fellow-soldiers as his sensitivity and independence are a puzzle. 
  He used to laugh at the guys who were afraid to cry, and he’d joke with
  me about the comments some of them made over the stuffed animals in his
  room.  He specifically mentioned his purple unicorn.  Need I
  say that his fellows found this man’s contrasts and apparent
  contradictions strange? 

  Some of them saw in him a challenge they had to try and best.  In
  one of his phone calls Seph articulated some physical fear, that one of
  the “champions” these guys kept finding in other units to challenge him
  would end up injuring him someday.  He’s not a big man, and he said
  some of these guys were “huge  manglers.”  The only injury he
  ever reported to me, however, was self-inflicted.  Once, he swung
  Masamune over his head a bit too close and sheared off a dime-sized
  hunk of scalp.  As he related it to me, I responded, “Yeah, scalp
  wounds do tend to bleed a lot.”

  I know that he retained his independence of thought despite the
  Army’s efforts to program him.  Need I make explicit that I love
  him, admire him and feel as if in him I’ve found another
  soulmate?  Amid all the ambiguous answers I got from the runes,
  one of the only definite ones was a solid “no” to the question, 
  “Is Seph alive and well.”  When I asked if he had gone to Spirit,
  I got a conditional no.  When I asked if he has reincarnated, I
  got a yes.

  When I go, he just might be worth coming back for…
  but that’s a thought I regret and call back as soon as I think
  it.  Is anything worth coming back for?  I’m not sure. 
  Throughout many lifetimes life itself has been worth coming back
  for.  In the depth of my soul I don’t think I’m done with it.

  Do I trust the runes?  Do I trust Loki, Heyoka, Coyote, Anansi and
  Raven?  I respect them, and I know how they love to play games
  with my mind.  I will remember the old advice attributed to
  Confucius:  “Ask the oracle once, you get the truth; twice, you
  get a lie, and three times, you get a riddle.”  I overdid the
  rune-search, I know.  The runes kept telling me last night to,
  “wait and see.”   Foolishly, I kept seeking and found only
  confusion.  Now I’m waiting.
  

  • 2:50 pm
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