I remembered my GIST prayer practice this morning – Gratitude – Intention – Support – Thanks.
Today, I am grateful for my mind. I use it everyday and it is a source of continuous fun for me. It entertains me, comforts me, surprises me, challenges me, and sometimes shuts down to allow me to rest.
Today, my intention is to take care of myself. The holidays have been a stressful time for me and I am still feeling emotions that sometimes overwhelm me.
Today, the support I need from a higher power is to help me stay focused on improving my environment. I also need support from friends to check in with me and let me know they care.
My then wife awoke a little after midnight. “I think it’s time”, she said. We timed the contractions and it was time to go to the hospital. I remember running a red light to get there. The rest is a blur until Anthony was born around 7am. I remember an old doctor coming in and checking on Anthony. He placed his thumbs on the soles of Anthony’s feet. Anthony’s toes curled around the doctor’s thumb. I exclaimed “Oh, that reflex must be from when we were monkeys and swung from trees.” The doctor looked at me confused and said something like “well, if you believe that fiction.” Since this story is burned in my memory, I was obviously shocked by a doctor not believing in evolution.
Yesterday, I saw a puppy sticking out its tongue. I was reminded of how very similar humans are to the other animal species. All life forms known to humans share a common genetic code origin which is highly conserved. This fact has always fascinated me since I learned it. In the winter of 2022, I started blogging on all the amino acids, beginning with A is for Alaline. An interesting thought experiment is to imagine that a probe finds life on asteroid, or even some frozen RNA/DNA fragments. How would our view of our origins change based on this discovery and analysis of the found RNA/DNA? What if it obviously matches our genetic code and appears from Earth? What if it obviously doesn’t? What if it doesn’t, but shows a common heritage?
In pondering these questions myself, I arrive at a creation story. Around 14 billion years ago our visible universe was reborn from whatever ancestor universe came before it. A few billion years later, our Milky Way galaxy was similarly reborn. Soon after, one of the solar systems in our galaxy began evolving life. The origin of this life occurred either in that solar system or another one that interfered with it. That solar system eventually died in a supernova or similar event. Hardy microbes survived in icy rocky asteroids that eventually found their way to our solar system as it formed. Initially in the Kuiper Belt, at least one of these asteroids crashed into Earth around 4 billion years ago. The rest is evolutionary history. Life is both very precious and very abundant in the multiverse. Creation is a recurring theme.
When I read my blog post from five years ago, I am reminded that I still struggle with replacing consumption with creation. I also failed in my 2020 intention of only checking my stock portfolio monthly. I still own AAPL, AMD, IBM, and WT. I sold SFM around $80 as it skyrocketed from $15 to $150 over the last few years. I also sold DS and NOK and bought EB, INTC, PYPL, and YELP.
Full Moon on Mar 18th, 2019 – a day after I reconnected with Anthony in downtown Austin
Five years ago, I talked about my struggle with beginning a new habit of daily blogging (Ref: https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2020/01/02/2020-day-2-feeling-a-short-trip-and-closing-the-wormhole-behind-me/). I am feeling a similar struggle today. An assertion I made then was that “reality is more than what I see”. We exist in a multi-dimensional reality. I continue to find this viewpoint helpful. For instance, it helps me stay grounded when there is chaos around me. It also helps me understand how easily miscommunication can occur. This brings up my topic for today – the importance of listening and the importance of being heard.
“Just left Dr have no voice”, my Aunt texted me earlier today. Without context, these six words, ordered as they are, can be interpreted in multiple ways. Pause now and make a note of your first interpretation. Then, consider a second and third interpretation. Can you imagine others? My first interpretation is that she has laryngitis or similar. I am biased though because I heard her talk yesterday and she was hoarse. Ignoring my bias, my second interpretation is that her doctor wasn’t listening to her. My third interpretation, is she is referring to herself when saying “Dr have no voice”. I can’t think of a fourth. Actually, if I remove everything I know about her I can think of a fourth one. It’s like the second one except Dr refers to her partner. She is breaking up with her partner because she feels that he (or she) doesn’t listen to her. She is also upset now and using voice-to-text to send the message to me as she drives somewhere. Did you come up with these same interpretations? Any others?
In this case, given my prior knowledge of the context, I felt near 100% sure in my first interpretation. In other past cases, I have been much less than 100% sure in my first interpretation. I have had friends ask me to interpret a text someone sent them. I have had friends misinterpret a text I sent them. I’ve misinterpreted texts sent to me. What’s my point here? My point is having a shared interpretation is critical for effective communication. Furthermore, active listening and feeling understood is critical for maintaining a healthy relationship. And finally, it’s a multi-dimensional world out there so cut yourself and others some slack when there is a miscommunication.
Going Deeper: Often when I listen, my mind is predicting what someone is going to say next. Sometimes, I even interpret someone to finish what I think they are going to say. I have learned that many people dislike the interruption, regardless of whether I’m right or wrong. It is still difficult for me to just listen without interrupting, but I’m getting better.
On the first day of 2020 I decided to try blogging daily beginning with https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2020/01/01/2020-day-1-seeing-is-believing-good-morning-new-universe/. I purposely chose that day to start. I felt a strong urge to do so. I also believed my chances of daily blogging were higher. Starting on a date well known for people trying to change their life and adopt new habits seemed strategic. I still believe in trusting instincts. It’s also important to take advantage of the new year to form new habits. Today, I noticed a very strong urge to restart blogging again, not necessarily daily, but consistently. Let’s see how things play out this time.
Today I definitely woke up in a new universe as well. My friend’s dog passed away last night. I sometimes called him Buddy Ollie. He was in my bathroom this morning until just an hour ago. I didn’t grow up with a pet and so never went through the death of a pet. I’m not including the eight aquariums that my Dad bought and filled with a mixture of fish. Counting the dead fish was a regular morning occurrence for the few weeks afterwards. Today felt strange. I tried to live my life as I normally would. In the background, my mind kept remembering there is a dead dog in my bathroom. His death seemed near the last few days and much closer yesterday. My friend and I were with him as he took his last few spaced out breaths. A couple hours later, the fireworks exploded in the night sky. They burst over the back fence as everyone celebrated the coming of the new year. The loud noises frightened my friend’s two puppies and their bodies trembled as we held them to calm them down.
Being with Buddy Ollie as he passed on reminded me of being with my Uncle when he was near death. I was with my Uncle a few minutes before he died. It was difficult to watch him struggle – he had requested a natural death at home. I left to walk around his house and when I returned, he had taken his last breath. For me, both deaths felt similar. My friend felt an energy move behind her shortly after her dog’s death. It seemed to move to one of her new puppies. While I still ponder the existence of a spirit world, I don’t imagine it being exclusive to humanity.
It’s been a few days since returning from a 9 day road trip with Zae. We learned we can travel together in a free flowing state. Zae is very much in the moment. She is more free flowing than me and being with her gives me a taste of what it might be like for other’s to be with me when I’m in a free flowing state. I often would be planning ahead when she would interject “Do we need to decide that now?”. We were 4 hours from Austin, and 1 hour from checking out of the camper we had rented for the night when she asked “Can we stay another night?”. As in many cases before, I found myself quickly scanning the set of universes around me and focusing on the two major sets – staying or leaving – and feeling into my body as I resonated with the energy of each set. Being so close, time wise, to the two sets of universes did give me a stronger body sensation of each set of universes. This is one thing I learned from the trip, that while it is possible to quantum sense multiple futures that are days, weeks, months, or years away, it is easier to quantum sense multiple futures when they are minutes or hours away. A related corollary is that the larger the differences in the two sets of universes, the stronger the difference in feeling it will have in my body when I’m quantum sensing each set of universes.
Artwork created from our to go boxes from Pasta Cafe Italian Bistro, Roswell, NM, Sept. 14, 2021
Our trip started out with a long drive to Roswell, NM, on Sept. 8, 2021. Along the way, we were talking about “would of, could of, should of” and how that really doesn’t serve us, and how we have both come to this point in the present moment from different paths and experiences. We then saw this church sign on the side of the road with the message “It is not where you’ve been, but where you are going”. Of course, there are lots of different messages in these words. The message we heard was to live fully in the present moment.
“IT IS NOT WHERE YOU’VE BEEN BUT WHERE YOU ARE GOING”
We continued our drive, making a few rests stops along the way, but still on the road at sunset.
Sunset on drive to Roswell, NM, Sept. 8, 2021
We got in late and checked into the Day’s Inn. Feeling hungry, we almost ordered takeout from the nearby Pasta Cafe, but for some reason decided not to. It was a bit synchronistic that we ended up eating at the same Pasta Cafe on the way back home a week later, having the spaghetti with home made meat balls and the green chili alfredo, and then driving back later for chocolate cake dessert.
We decided to skip the first day of the festival and camp at Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgway, CO. On Friday, we took our time driving to the festival, stopping to enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery.
Painter near Ridgway, CO, Sept. 10, 2021
The festival was at Tico Time Resort at the northern border of New Mexico. When we got there, the performers were testing their equipment and most people were cooling off in the river running through the property.
Main Stage, Tico Time Resort, Unison Festival, Sept. 11, 2021SUP Acro Yoga, Unison Festival, Tico Time Resort, Sept. 11, 2021Scott Nice set, Unison Festival, Tico Time Resort, Sept. 11, 2021
We decided against camping at the festival and instead stayed at a hotel nearby in Aztec, NM, the Presidential Suites – one of the few hotels allowing pets. The double queen bed room was the one we ultimately found to be the most roomy and comfortable for both of us. I found myself drawn to one of the books that Zae brought with her, “The Little Book of Stoicism”, by Jonas Salzgeber.
The Little Book of Stoicism, by Jonas Salgeber
In reading the book on Stoicism, I understand now that Stoicism is not about the suppression of emotion, which seems to be a common assumption. Even the google definition #1 says “the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.” The second definition is only slightly better, still stressing an indifference to pleasure and pain:
Stoicism: an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
What I came to believe from reading a few pages, is that Stoicism is about being present with, and not possessed by, our natural emotions, however strongly they are. For instance, on our road trip, there were a few times when I felt very strong emotions. I want to encourage myself to feel these emotions, and feel the debts of these emotions, and be present with them as they move through my body. Even if I am feeling emotions based on grieving the perceived loss of a future possibility, or an unrealized expectation, these emotions are valid and I want to feel them fully. However, I don’t want to have those emotions take me down a rabbit hole of depressions that affects the rest of my trip. I want to observe them as they pass through my body and know that by being present with them, and feeling them as if in meditation, that they will not remain stuck in my body.
Some quotes on Stoicism from wikipedia seem relevant to post here:
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul; it is this same world’s guiding principle, operating in mind and reason, together with the common nature of things and the totality that embraces all existence; then the foreordained might and necessity of the future; then fire and the principle of aether; then those elements whose natural state is one of flux and transition, such as water, earth, and air; then the sun, the moon, the stars; and the universal existence in which all things are contained.
Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the structure of the web.
This quote from wikipedia on Stoicism seems consistent with the model I use for universe surfing:
Stoic theology is a fatalistic and naturalistic pantheism: God is never fully transcendent but always immanent, and identified with Nature. Abrahamic religions personalize God as a world-creating entity, but Stoicism equates God with the totality of the universe; according to Stoic cosmology, which is very similar to the Hindu conception of existence, there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. Similarly, the space and Universe have neither start nor end, rather they are cyclical. The current Universe is a phase in the present cycle, preceded by an infinite number of Universes, doomed to be destroyed (“ekpyrōsis“, conflagration) and re-created again,[27] and to be followed by another infinite number of Universes. Stoicism considers all existence as cyclical, the cosmos as eternally self-creating and self-destroying (see also Eternal return).
This quote also resonates with my own personal spirituality:
A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism; according to the Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should live in brotherly love and readily help one another.
Back to the trip, we stopped at Echo Pavilion where Zae played the ukulele and had a photo shoot.
On the way back to Austin, we stopped at the Inn at the Delta. Before we checked out, we discussed staying another night but due to not being in a very Stoic state, our emotions led us to get on the road. Later, after our emotions calmed, we both regretted the decision as it was quite a nice place to stay. Maybe we will return another day.
Inn at the Delta, Room #5
We made our way back to Roswell for the night and in the morning went to Bottomless Lakes State Park. Olli was living his herd dog instincts to protect us from the dangers of the deep.
Bottomless Lakes State Park, Sept. 15, 2021
We did another photo shoot before getting back on the road towards Austin.
Somewhere outside Roswell, NM, Sept. 15, 2021
We found a camper for the night in Garden City, TX, which is where we hung our artwork shown at the beginning of this blog post. Upon checkout, we decided last minute to stay another night even though we were only 4 hours from Austin. It felt relaxing to have a “free day” to not be on the road and was a reminder to me to insert rest days into my future road trips.
On the way home, we stopped at a park in Eden as we did at the beginning of our road trip.
Park in Eden, Sept. 17, 2021
I’m noticing a desire to be a bit more public in posting pictures from my trip. To date, I’ve kept posts absent of personal pictures and details. I can sense that in the future, I do post without these restrictions.
Head versus heart – my head says that our trip was quite perfect in all ways – healing, grounding, free flowing, intimate, loving, romantic in a friendship way and centered in the universe with which I feel most alignment and seems most aligned with Zae’s wishes. My heart feels desire for more romance, deeper intimacy, and an attachment to limitless possibilities of future growth together with Zae.
surfing the universe 