Twilight Zone in the Tent

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Mike Clelland’s blog, hidden experience, invariably intrigues and mystifies. This story is about extreme fear caused by…well, that’s one of the big unknowns. The story straddles boundaries between light and dark, dreams and wakefulness. Welcome to Mike’s Twilight Zone.
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I just returned home after spending two beautiful weeks in the four corners area. A close friend, Natascha, flew in from Germany specifically to explore and camp in the canyons and sandstone of this amazing part of the West.

During our trip we had a collection of curious happenings, and this posting is one of the more dramatic experiences. Natascha is here with me as I write this, and she’s been adding details she remembers as we try and make this written work as accurate as we can.

Late in the afternoon of Thursday May 13th, Natascha and I asked the very nice coffee shop girl in Cortez Colorado if she knew of any spots to camp near town. She said there was open camping on the BLM land outside of the town of Dolores, just a few miles up the road.

We followed her directions and ended up in a secluded area of tall trees a short ways off the forest service road. We found a secluded spot with an old fire ring and some broken beer bottles. Perfect for our one-night camping needs.

We set up our tent and headed back into the town of Dolores and ate pizza at a cute local brewery. Our table was situated right next to the window and it looked out on the very quiet corner of a VERY tiny town.

During dinner, Natascha was quite emotional. As I write this she explained that she was very much in crisis, she was feeling sad and didn’t quite know where these emotions came from.

After pizza we went back to the camp site and climbed in our small tent. It seems like we quickly went to sleep. This is where things get strange.

I was suddenly jolted awake because Natascha had screamed. It was just a short shriek of fear. My instantaneous response was to bolt upright and scream with an intensity that would be hard to describe. I was screaming in fear, sure enough, but it was also a primal outburst of defense.

I’ve slept in the mountains for decades, and I’ve dealt with some scary stuff in the dark. Bears in camp, moose tangled up in my tarp strings, rats crawling across my face – but I have NEVER been frightened in a way that would come close to those moments in that tent.

I switched on my headlamp and held it in my hand. I asked Natascha what happened. I actually had the wherewithal to say, “Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Don’t think, just tell me what happened.”

She said almost nothing, simply stating, “I saw a face.”

Natascha later explained that she felt blocked, like it was simply impossible to tell what she had actually seen. She also tried to articulate that she was perhaps still in a lingering realm where time had a different meaning, and I was firmly in our time reality, and it created a sort of disconnect between us.

While in the tent in the moments after our screaming session, I stammered to Natascha, in a voice on the verge of panic: “Look – if we need to – we can just leave – right now – we can leave the tent set up and just drive to town and get a hotel room – we can do that if we need to…”

I was freaked-out, and it came out in my voice. This is something I would never say in any normal circumstance.

She asked me, “Do you believe in evil ghosts?”

I thought carefully and replied, “No.” My response was less out of honesty, and more an attempt to keep the mood from getting any scarier.

At some point I looked at my watch, and it was only 11:40 PM. My reaction was, oh sh*t, it’s so early and now we have to worry about scary stuff for the rest of the night!

I had one arm over Natascha as we lay there. We sat in silence for a short time, we must have spoken a little, but I can’t remember anything of what we said. Perhaps we were both silent. I know my heart was pounding, and my thoughts seemed trapped in a kind of horror.

I lay there thinking, “This is f*cking terrifying. This is insane. How could I EVER camp out here? How could I ask for this kind of f*cking sh*t!” My mind was spiraling out of control.

I ended up chanting a repetitive mantra in my head, “Love and Light, Love and Light, Love and Light…” Over and over and over. This is how Anya Briggs ends her emails, and it might seem corny, but I really MEANT it!

At one point I put my arm back in my own sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep. I have to say it seems weird as I write this that I could slip back into sleep after being SO freaking’ terrified. It seems impossible that we could both simply doze off again.

Later that same night I had a dream. This was a weirdly vivid dream. It took place inside the same tent, no dreamlike distortion, it was very accurate to the interior of the tent. (see the illustration above)

I saw a big round mandala figure up and too my left, situated in a very specific point in the tent. It was a simple circle about the size of a large pizza with a lone dot in it’s center. It looked very much like the blurry cataract image in my right eye, and strangely flat unlike a 3D orb. (more on that below).

Then I was floating up off the floor of the tent. The sensation of slowly up rising felt strangely familiar. I thought to myself, “I need to remember this – I need to remember this – I need to remember this…”

Then the the environment of the tent changed to a backdrop of white light. I thought, “Am I on a table? Am I on a table?” I didn’t understand where I was. It was a mysterious realm with a uniform white glow around me. Was I on my back? Was I upright?

The dream abruptly ended when Natascha spoke up and said, “Mike, you are floating!” I don’t think she actually said this, but I remember it clearly in that dream state. Her words sort of pulled me back down onto the sleeping pad, and the dream ended.

The next morning we immediately began to talk about the events of the night and more details emerged.

I asked Natascha what she saw that made her scream, and she explained that she saw a face within a circle. I pressed her for more details and she said, “I can’t say, but the only thing that seems to match is that drawing you did, of the face in the circle from your blog.” [ link ]

This was very curious, she didn’t know about my dream yet, and she described something very similar to the round mandala I saw. The way it looked to me was like the image I see in my right eye.

I asked where the face was positioned, at the time I assumed it was directly over her, centered above her face. She instead pointed up and off to her left, at an area in the wall of the tent – exactly where I saw the glowing circle in my dream. Again, I hadn’t shared the events of my dream yet.

What actually might have happened is very difficult to say. I cannot dismiss the irrational fear that overcame both of us. This feeling of terror was entirely different than any emotion I have ever experienced, amplified in a way that seems extraordinary. I must have sensed something beyond a jolt of surprise when Natascha woke me with a short scream.

What is even more bizarre was the extremely vivid nature of my dream, along with the matching details to whatever Natascha witnessed. This is also extremely curious.

Posted in dreams, mike mcclelland | 13 Comments

What $ Can Buy

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This update isn’t about the horrors of the spill. It’s about BP’s efforts to control the public’s access to information. According to ABC News, BP has bought several phrases on search engines like Google and Yahoo, so that the first link that shows up leads people to BP’s official website. A search on Google, for instance, for the term “oil spill”  now brings up a link to BP’s official website at the top of the page. It says: Info about the Gulf of Mexico spill. Learn more about how BP is helping.

“If you look at it from BP’s perspective it’s a brilliant move,” says Kevin Ryan, CEO of  Motivity Marketing.  . “The other option BP had was to just not do this and let the news interpret what’s going on. But they’re getting so much bad press that directing traffic to their own site is a great PR strategy.”

Scott Slatin, an analyst who runs search engine marketing company Rivington in New York, estimates that BP is paying upwards of  $10,000 per day to maintain the various search terms.”They paid to lock themselves into the first position against the oil spill terms, essentially putting a positive message on top of the news,” Slatin said.

Debra Page has really nailed it on her latest post.

 – Trish

Posted in BP, oil spill | 15 Comments

The Couch Synchronicity

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

In 2005, five years after we moved into our current home, our next door neighbors decided to take advantage of the boom in the housing market. They sold their home and moved to North Carolina. Before they moved out, we bought three pieces of furniture from them – a coffee table, a love seat and and the large couch featured in this photo. It was a good deal for us and saved them money in shipping costs.

A couple of weeks after they left, the new neighbors moved in – Annette and Kevin, a young couple with two small kids. During their first Christmas on our street, they invited us over for drinks. When we walked into their house, we were shocked to see this couch:

Same couch, but with the designs reversed–the animals on the couch instead of the cushions. Take a close look and you see the same animals: Giraffes, lions, elephants.

The couch was placed in the same spot where our couch had been located. It was as if the couch and its message had returned, slightly altered, after we had bought it.

What are the odds? Over the years, I have wondered about this strange little couch synchronicity. When Annette and Kevin first moved in, they didn’t have any pets. Now they have a dog and two cats. Recently, Annette’s sister’s family moved in with them until they find a home in the area. They brought two cats and two dogs with them. So there’s a regular kennel in their home now! We have a dog and three cats. The synchronicity now seems obvious. We pet sit for each other.
– Trish

Posted in furniture, neighbors | 10 Comments

Traingular shaped UFO in Delaware

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This UFO story occurred to Gypsy’s daughter on April 14, 2010, around 9:30 PM, in Delaware. She didn’t get any photos – she explains why – so we included this video from MSNBC about similar sightings in Ireland.
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She was coming home on highway 1 south, leaving Dover and headed south to Milford – it was pouring rain – she was just a bit north of Milford when she noticed several lights in the sky to her right [west]. They were just there – hovering – not moving. She thought it must be a helicopter at first because it was so low and it was hovering without any movement.

Then she saw the body of a triangular shaped dark body from the lights coming out of the bottom of the object. There was one large white light on the front point of the triangular object and one such light near or at each side/end point of the other two angles of the triangle. She watched the object as she drove and it never moved, no sound at all from the craft. She rolled down her windows even and still there was no sound to be heard.

She continued to watch it as she drove on down the highway and just a bit further down was another object exactly like the first one – it, too, was hovering and making no sound whatsoever. During this time, she called me from her cell to tell me what she was seeing. I was  really excited and wanted her to stop and get out and take a picture with her cell phone. But she wouldn’t. She was alone, it was late and dark and she was on a highway that’s never  busy at that time of night. It was also raining. All she wanted to do was go pick up her son and get home.

We have lived here several  years and are very familiar with all the aircraft flying around. There aren’t any commercial  airports in the state and only one or two very small private ones in the whole state. The planes flying in and out of Dover Air Force Base are the C-5 cargo planes. If you’ve ever seen one of those, aside from their unique sound, you will not mistake it for a triangular object with 3 lights hovering over the woods. Dover is the mortuary air base so there is not the kind of traffic in and out like other bases. Very, very rarely is there  ever any other type plane in the air over Delaware. Occasionally, there will be a crop duster in season or a small single engine plane. Once in a while, there’s a medical helicopter, but that’s it. The nearest commercial airports are Philadelphia or Washington DC. In any event, this was nothing my daughter had ever seen before, but she did say that the shape reminded her of the stealth bombers she has seen photos of.

In checking with Dover’s PR department,I was initially told by the female officer who took my call that she had “people to talk to” before she could comment or give any information and wanted to know with whom I was associated – what company. I had begun my conversation by telling her that I am just a private citizen calling to inquire as to whether or not Dover had any information regarding any military aircraft being in that area on the night of April 14. She immediately wanted “contact information” as she would have to “make phone calls.”

When I asked her why her office didn’t already know what was in the air at any given time at a mortuary air base, her feathers ruffled a bit. I told her  it was really a simple question: Did  that base know whether Dover or any other military installation had in the vicinity any aircraft which was dark in color, triangular shaped with 3 white lights, made no noise and which was capable of hovering at low altitudes for long periods of time.

Anyway, when she called back, she said that  yes, Dover did, in fact, have two planes in the air that night – both c-5s, so that must be what was seen. I then asked if the military had recently changed the design of cargo planes so they were now wingless, triangular shaped, made no sound whatsoever and hovered over civilian areas near major highways on rainy nights. You can see where this was all going. So the final word  was that Dover had no information on any military or other plane being in the air over the state of Delaware at that time other than their own C-5s.

The Milford police department had no other reports of sightings nor were they aware of any such aircraft in the area at that time. Now, interestingly, enough I found another sighting of a similarly described ufo made by someone up north of Dover,  about 45 miles away that was seen the previous week on April 7. It was described as a “diamond” shaped object with 4 lights on the bottom, one light at each end, black in color, and moved along with the two young witnesses’ [18 yrs old] vehicle as they travelled a main road. It stopped and moved as they did, then disappeared. Then there’s another report of April 17 made by a man in Frimley, Surrey, UK, who witnessed a triangular shaped object that appeared silver in the sunlight but otherwise black  that was “floating” over this urban area in broad daylight – the witness referred to himself as “well travelled and educated” – see www.ufoevidence.org site.
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Has anyone else seen a triangular shaped object like what Gypsy describes?

Posted in triangular shaped, UFOs | 13 Comments

Dolphins and BP

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 Three times, Megan and I swam with dolphins. Twice, it was at a place in Key Largo called Dolphins Plus. The third time was on the island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela. Each experience was unique, magnificent, and in a strange way, even spiritual. I felt I was in contact with a consciousness so far beyond anything humans can even imagine that it took me years to process the experiences.

I had read John Lilly’s books about interspecies communication with dolphins.  Lilly was a medical doctor who lived in an isolation tank with dolphins in the Virgin Islands and claimed he could communicate with them. He experimented with hallucinogenics – LSD was his drug of choice – while living in that tank. I had read other books on dolphin/human communication and of miraculous healings that took place when people swam with these splendid creatures. But none of these books prepared me for the actual experience. As a result of those experiences, I wrote a novel called Vanished, which isn’t in print anymore, about how dolphins, whales and other species rebelled against human incursion and travesties in the oceans.

So it was deeply troubling to run across an article this evening on the Huffington Post about how dolphins have fared during this oil gusher in the gulf. It’s a roundup from various news sources. From the NY Daily News: “There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” one contractor said. “The things I’ve seen: They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil. I’m going to show you what BP never showed the President.”

 This dolphin carcass was found on Queen Bess Island in the gulf. The BP contract worker who took a NY Daily News Reporter to this area, said, “When we found this dolphin,  it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at.”

We can struggle to imagine a clean gulf, where life flourishes. We can try, collectively, to envision a world where this sort of thing doesn’t happen because we have alternative energy sources. We can employ the techniques that Abraham – aka Esther and Jerry Hicks –  suggest about seeing it from within the vortex. We can even use some Seth stuff here (Jane Roberts) and say that free will prevails on all counts – that the dolphin chose to be sacrificed on the altar of big oil to drive home a point. But does any of that mitigate the horror and sadness I feel when I read about a dolphin filled with oil?

Not really. Today, federal regulators granted a new drilling permit to Bandon Oil and Gas for a well that will be 115 feet deep – a shallow well. – 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. According to the article cited above, “Obama quietly allowed a three-week old ban on drilling in shallow water to expire.”

I voted for Obama in 2008. I believed in his message of change. But he has flipped on so many major issues that he won’t win my vote again. It’s not like I’ll vote Republican (not in this life) and it’s not as if Obama will miss my vote.

But a vote is my contribution to a democracy – that is beginning to look more and more like that a corporate game. When the supreme court recognizes corporations as individuals, you know you’re in deep trouble. There’s a standing joke – a very dark joke – among some progressives that when people like Obama make it into the White House, they’re shown the Magruder film of the Kennedy assassination and are told to tow the line or else. So they flip flop. Conspiratorial? Maybe. But suppose it’s true?

And yes, as the NY Times reports, there’s some serious talk about nuking the gusher.

Here’s what author and radio guy Thomas Hartmann has to say about it:

PS I was angry when I wrote this and know I probably will vote for Obama in 2012 because I simply won’t vote Republican. If there’s an independent party candidate, however, who’s a progressive and – dare I use the word? – genuine, then all bets are off.
– Trish

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Posted in dolphins, oil spill | 28 Comments

The Ghost of Cassadaga Hotel

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Trish and Rob
Cassadaga 1936

Cassadaga, Florida is a Spiritualist community just north of Disney World. We’ve posted about it several times. Established in 1894, it’s now a flourishing little town where nearly every resident is a medium or psychic who specializes in contact with spirits.  On weekends, the place is jammed with cars and tourists, all of them walking through the old, narrow streets, past Spirit Lake, in search of exactly the right medium. Hotel Cassadaga is usually booked solid on weekends.

 When Megan was just a baby, we went to Cassadaga for readings and stayed at the Cassadaga Hotel. We were surprised that we were the only guests and later learned it was bike week in Daytona, so that’s where the tourists had gone. We had our choice of rooms and selected one on the third floor. It was actually two connecting rooms that  overlooked the Colby center – now a bookstore and gift shop.

We walked around the town that afternoon, pushing Megan along in her stroller. I think we had readings with Hazel Burly, mentioned in the linked post above. I have this vague memory of Megan crawling around on Hazel’s floor, scampering after her cat or dog. That evening, we ate at a restaurant in nearby St. Helen’s.

When we entered the hotel later that evening, I was struck by how eerily quiet it was. The hotel doesn’t have an elevator, so we folded up Megan’s stroller and headed up the stairs to the second floor. It was so still, the groan and creak of the steps and the old wooden floors sounded abnormally loud.

We settled in for the evening with our books. We didn’t bother locking the doors.  The town was deserted, the hotel was empty, what was the point? Around eleven or twelve, we turned off the lights. Megan had fallen asleep earlier. I remember it was unusually chilly that night and my feet were cold. I got up to scour the closet for additional blankets, found one, and fell back into bed. Just as we were drifting off to sleep, we heard footfalls on the stairs. Loud footfalls. It sounded like a troop of bikers from Daytona had arrived wearing heavy boots. It sounded like an army.

I was a little spooked and whispered, “Hey, Rob, aren’t we alone in the hotel?”

“That’s what the guy at the desk said. Maybe he’s doing his midnight rounds or something.”

Rob is more grounded than I am when it comes to this stuff. But I could hear uncertainty in his voice. We lay there, listening. The footfalls became echoing thuds. It began to freak me out. The clerk, I recalled, was a short, skinny guy; these thuds sounded like they came from a 300 pound monster.

I suddenly got up and hurried into the adjoining room to get Megan. Rob turned on the lamp, but the light didn’t do much to mitigate my mounting fear and panic. The thuds now sounded like something out of The Shining, so hard and loud I thought I could feel the hotel shaking. I swept Megan out of her bed and rushed back into the other room, where Rob was now locking the doors. I set Megan, who still slept on, oblivious, in our bed and hurried over to where Rob was.

“What the hell is it?” I hissed.

“Not the night clerk.” He pressed his ear to the door.

The clunks and thuds reached the top of the stairs. A sense of profound malevolence electrified the air, that’s the only way I can describe it, and for moments, neither Rob nor I moved. The thuds escalated to the point where it sounded as if a semi was slamming repeatedly into the building. Then the thuds stopped. Total silence. We could hear someone breathing outside our rooms.

Rob and I immediately pushed a heavy wooden dresser in front of one door and moved the bed in which Megan had been sleeping in front of the other door. We moved back to the bed, Rob on one side, me on the other, both of us terrified that whatever it was would break through our defenses.

The knobs turned, rattled. The inside of my mouth flashed desert dry. We simultaneously reached for Megan, Rob grasping one of her hands, me grasping the other. I don’t know where we thought we would escape if whatever was on the other side of that door broke in. There was no fire escape, just a roof – and a long jump to the ground. Whatever it was kicked the door viciously, then the thudding footfalls continued down the hall and gradually faded away.

 We didn’t sleep much after that. The next morning, when we checked out, I asked the clerk if the hotel was haunted. He sort of grinned. “You bet. But we’ve only got friendly ghosts here.” It even says that on the hotel website. 

We beg to differ. What  happened to us in Cassadaga was terrifying. But we had a similar experience in the Dominican Republic that was energizing. We didn’t feel threatened then. I’m not sure why the experiences differed so radically emotionally. Perhaps it had something to do with the spirits involved.

 Rob wondered whether this story is a true synchronicity. So let me add this to put his mind at ease! For Carl Jung, many types of psychic phenomena fell under the larger umbrella of synchronicity. Jung had several experiences with spirits.

During the winter of 1924, he spent vast stretches of time alone in the tower of the home he built on the shores of Lake Zurich. As author Deirdre Bair recounted in Jung: A Biography, he experienced “ghostly presences” in the tower. “He heard music, as if an orchestra were playing; he envisioned a host of young peasant men who seemed to be encircling the tower with much laughter, singing, and roughhousing.” Bair says these experiences happened only once to Jung, but that he never forgot them.
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Cassadaga today
Posted in Cassadaga, ghosts | 14 Comments

What We Attract

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This story is about what we attract. We’ve posted some synchronicities in this vein before, but this one illustrates just how immediate manifestations can be. It comes from Gypsy, who is very likely one of those individuals I think of as synchronicity generators!

A couple of years ago, around the winter holidays, Gypsy  was really wanting/needing a break from everything. But let her tell it!
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I wanted a real vacation, except that I couldn’t really take one right then. I was in the midst of seeing someone with whom time was a real commodity. Anyway. this particular Friday,  my friends and I were standing around as we were leaving work, talking about our weekend plans, etc – and I mentioned how I was thinking of just checking into a local motel for the entire weekend. A friend was in the hospital, so I said, “On second thought, I’m jut going to go over to the hospital and check in. That way I’ll be able to see my friend and have a complete at my command.  

“Be careful what you wish for,” warned another friend.


I laughed and said, “Yeah, right, I’m counting on it!


Well, I go home, everything is fine, I go to bed. Within an hour I’m awakened by severe nausea and minutes later, I’m throwing up. I have terrible stomach pains and just can’t stop vomiting. 

My daughter and granddaughter are visiting and are in the other bedroom. Lisa hears me getting sick and by daylight, Lisa has called my other daughter. She takes one look at me and they call  my doctor, who says to come to her office right then. I get there and my doctor takes one look at me and sends me across the street to the hospital. 


I end up in the hospital for the entire weekend on IV fluids for the dehydration and nothing ever showed up in the lab work or radiology results. Nothing – not a virus or bacteria, absolutely nothing that would explain this. But there I was,  with exactly what I had wished for.


When I got back to work, of course, my friends were beside themselves with it all and still, when we get together, this story comes up at times!



Posted in law of attraction | 17 Comments

Tracking the Gusher

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This 39 second video tracks the gusher since its genesis through May 28. As you watch the spill spread and move, it’s eerie. I could see the shapes of marine life that are or will be devastated by this. Some shapes struck me as dead zones. It’s a Rorschach test for this disaster, a kind of oracle.

Posted in oil spill | 15 Comments

Woman in the Yellow Dress

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Rhodes, Greece

We love travel synchronicities. They’re always intriguing in one way or another and underscore the mysterious nature of the world/reality in which we live.

Mike Perry’s blog on synchronicity often features a travel synchro. And, like Butternut Squash, whose travel synchros we’ve posted here, Mike travels to the most fascinating places. I always feel like an armchair traveler when I read their blogs.This synchro of Mike’s takes place in Rhodes, Greece, and has such a positive spin to it that we asked if we could re-post it.
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I was about to sit down to dinner with my wife when I had this clear picture in my  mind of a woman wearing a yellow dress. She was someone we had seen some seven or eight years ago, while in the village of Lindos on the Greek island of Rhodes.

At the time we had been staying in a fisherman’s cottage built into the mountain side overlooking the village. Lindos is on a hill which seems to erupt from the blue sea with sparkling white houses glistening in the sunshine and peaked by a monastery. It’s a very magical place.

One day we had been to the beach for the morning, swimming in the clear water and generally enjoying the sunshine. In the early afternoon we strolled back to the village and in the main square a wedding group were forming after the ceremony. Music started to play and there was laughter and happiness everywhere.

We decided to have a glass of red wine and watch what was going on. It was a real Zorba the Greek occasion and the wedding guests were soon dancing and enjoying themselves. Amongst them was a woman wearing a yellow dress.

She was so radiant that she stood out from the other guests. She danced, laughed and sizzled with being alive and enjoying the moment. Even as outsiders my wife and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the moment – and, for some reason, I was transported back to this scenario when sitting down to dinner a couple of nights
 ago.

I said to my wife, “Do you remember that woman in the square in Lindos?”

“Oh yes,” she replied, “The one with the yellow dress. We had such a fun time in Lindos, didn’t we? Do you also remember ….”

And over dinner we relived our time in Rhodes.

It’s always odd how an image from the past can form in the mind. When I went to my office later that evening I pulled out some papers from a file and there amongst them was the programme to a play we saw last year at the Minack Theatre.

The play was called The Greek and it was roughly based on Zorba the Greek and how a young studious traveller meets up with the life loving Alexis Zorba. The author Nikos Kazantzakis wrote:

“We stayed silent by the brazier until far into the night. I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. And all that is required to feel that happiness here and now is a simple frugal heart.”

I feel that my mind’s picture, of the woman in the yellow dress, combined with The Greek programme was there to remind me what happiness is all about – and that sometimes, perhaps, I take life a little too seriously.
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That’s a very uplifting story from Mike, an enchanted description of a time, place, and a dazzling individual. Now if you want somewhat darker, but compelling read, go to The Girl in the Yellow Dress, from Aug. 25, 2009.

Posted in greece, mike perry, travel | 11 Comments

God must be crazy

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We were at the dog park when it happened. When you have something in common with people, in this case dogs, strangers are usually quite willing to strike up a conversation. We had walked over to a bench in a shady corner of the park when a couple in their mid-60s strolled up to watch their Portuguese water dog play with our retriever, Noah.

We started talking about dogs, but one thing led to another and the topic turned to the oil spill and the government. My first instinct was to stick to dog talk and avoid politics with that pair, but Trish decided to engage them. The man quickly announced that he was a ‘religious conservative’ and that the liberals were destroying the country, that Obama was pushing socialism, intent on taking money from the rich, etc, etc.

Trish took after him, asking if he and his wife collected social security and took advantage of medicare. Yes, they did, and apparently saw no conflict in their beliefs and their actions.

The husband and wife became increasingly outspoken about their religious belief that only the faithful followers of Jesus would be saved, that the rapture was coming. “But you’re condemning billions of people,” I said.

“I’m not condemning them,” he answered. “They have a chance to be saved. Read the book, read the book.”

I suggested that the God in the bible, especially the old testament, was wrathful at times, and that the bible was written and re-written over centuries by PEOPLE. The couple vehemently disagreed. It was the word of God and a benevolent God, at that. Not like the Muslim’s God, who provoked terrorism.

“Do you think Obama is the anti-Christ?” I asked to see how far they were willing to stretch their beliefs.

The wife responded. “Oh, no.” The husband quickly followed up: “But he knows him. You can be sure of that. He’s alive now, after all.” (Hm, maybe it’s Bo, the Obama’s Portuguese water dog.

Read the book, it’s all there,” the man repeated before we parted ways.

Something about these people disturbed me, beyond what they were saying. There was something familiar about them. Then, as we started to walk away, the woman turned to me and said: “You know, you are our yoga teacher.”

Oh, my god, these people were in my Wednesday evening class. That’s where I knew them from. They’d come to several classes, always parking themselves in the far right rear corner of the room.  There were usually 20 or more people in the room and it was dimly lit. So I hadn’t recognized them. They did their best in class. The man, in particular, was stiff and now I realized he was as inflexible in his mind as he was in his body. (Synchronicity or cause and effect? )  When I mentioned to Trish who they were, she responded, “So what!”

My next yoga class arrived and there they were. All I could think, when I looked in their direction, was the man saying: “Read the book.”

Now, here comes the synchronicity. In the aftermath of that encounter, we received an e-mail from a friend that was literally filled with bible quotes. We were being nudged to read the book. But wait a minute. Who wrote these verses, anyhow–God? If so, she just might be crazy. Take a look for yourselves.
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Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law.

I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to  defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination … End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1.    Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2.    I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7.  In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3.    I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell?  I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4.    When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors.  They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.  Should I smite them?

5.    I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath.  Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6.    A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree.  Can you settle this?  Are there ‘degrees’  of abomination?

7.    Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight.  I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8.    Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9.    I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm.  He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I’m confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.
James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

(It would be a damn shame if we couldn’t own a Canadian 🙂

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God winks. And, oh, how tempting it is to bring a copy of that e-mail to yoga class and tell the couple. Guess what? I’ve been reading the book. – R

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