Dreaming Up LIfe

Dear Ones:

My initial spiritual awakening happened when I was about 15, at a Christian retreat. It was a true dissolution of ego – I was slammed to my knees and the only word I could get out was “LOVE!” My entire life was remade in that moment. From that day on, people have always been drawn to me. The relationships that result from that phenomenon almost always result in some sort of profound inner transformation for the person, while simultaneously propelling me further into the awareness of myself as inherently spirit; my body only an illusion that tags along to help me make sense of my presence in this world of matter, causality and logic.

At the time, I decided that this was all coming from Jesus, and adjusted my personal theology accordingly. I had yet to question the basic assumptions about Christianity that I was raised with. It turns out that almost ALL of the beliefs that go with today’s “traditional” Christianity are either mistranslations, misinterpretations or complete bullshit. It wasn’t until MUCH later that I deduced just how often this crap turned out to be something that enhanced the power base of the church/priest as well as fattening the church coffers. Once I got this little nugget, I became disenchanted and turned away in disgust.

All through my teens, I explored drugs of all kinds, but especially my beloved entheogens (psychedelics.) I have always wondered why everyone says they “experimented” with drugs. Hey – after the first time or two, it’s not an experiment anymore! Despite the widely believed propaganda that screamed “drugs are an escape from reality!!” ALL my experiences helped me to go deeper and deeper into my own consciousness, and the awareness of unconditional love. Since this was all happening in the late 1960’s, I also had unfettered access to the rich and meaty world of Eastern and Western philosophy. The combination: Spiritual awakening, religious disenchantment, drugs and exotic philosophies synergized into the perfect storm. I was READY for something BIG!

Well, I most definitely got that “something big” I was looking for. I went off to college in a small town, with a major in philosophy and theology. I STILL hadn’t given up on religion and was planning a career as a Lutheran minister! I was the eternal innocent and attempted to sell some cannabis products to my fellow students. Less than a month later, I was arrested, and shortly after that I was on my way to the penitentiary. I had read enough to know that I was in serious danger of getting raped inside, and I had absolutely ZERO fighting skills (including the inner ferocity it takes to actually strike another human being.) I was in TROUBLE!

During my first few nights in prison, I cried myself to sleep every night and prayed for a miracle. I begged God to let me wake up and find myself back at home, getting high with my friends and holding my girlfriend. After a few nights of this, I gave up. I was already fighting for my life (AND my virginity.) It was at that moment that I gave up on God completely. Hey! I was his fair-haired boy! People came to ME to get “religiously awakened!” Well, God – if you can’t do this ONE little thing for me, then FUCK YOU! Little did I know that my most potent spiritual experience was yet to come.

I was soon moved to a minimum security facility out in the beautiful Southern Wisconsin countryside. There were a few other “hippies” there, doing time on various small-time beefs, mainly possession or sale of marijuana. Not only that, but several of them were musicians, and I had gotten my alto sax shipped in to me. We were allowed to participate in lots of free style jams; an experience WAY better than drugs. They also introduced me to dozens of amazing books on spirituality and philosophy. I was able to read Hesse, Leary, McKenna, Yogananda, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Q’uran, The Bible and all the Baha’i Faith writings all became part of my consciousness. Since I had given up on God, I needed to make some sort of sense of the awakening I had experienced, and how to move forward. I learned then that religion has NOTHING to do with spirituality. I also learned that true spirituality could create a chronic state of ecstasy and bliss, as well as enhancing my personal power.

An example of that personal power came about two months after I had been transferred to the camp. Let me give a bit of background here. Even though I am white, and was raised with PLENTY of the middle class, passive-aggressive type of racism, I had already come to question that deeply and was on a “search-and-destroy” mission to notice and eradicate any residual racism in myself. That was put to the test by the fact that well over 90% of the guys that were a sexual threat to me just happened to be black. I was constantly being hit on, threatened, and offered various kinds of payment if I would just be someone’s bitch. The most common one was to be someone’s “kept punk.” The theory there was that if I would only traumatize and humiliate myself with ONE predatory asshole, he would protect me from the others. I was deeply dedicated to nonviolence at the time. Conventional wisdom had it that the only way to get these guys off my back was to hurt someone – badly! Conventional wisdom didn’t have any juicy solutions for how to deal with potential gang-rape. I managed to make sure that I was never alone, nor was I ever far from the watchful eye of the guards. Gratefully, I was locked in a place where the guards did NOT participate in the rampant sexual sadism that is prison life.

Our musical activities all happened in a large common room that also doubled as a cafeteria, a meeting hall, a chapel, and a visiting room on certain days. In the corner was an ancient, creaky old upright piano. Almost all the ivories were gone from the keys, about two thirds of the keys didn’t work at all, and the ones that did were hideously out of tune. It still beat Hell out of nothing at all. I had gotten into the habit of jamming regularly with an elderly black man whom I will name Clarence here, for the sake of anonymity. Clarence wasn’t an amazing player, but he could plunk out a killer Blues bass line and comp some authentic Blues chords. Clarence also was not a sexual threat to me, and had offered me important warnings on a couple of occasions, if he got wind of someone planning to bushwhack me. One night, my fiancée had just left me for one of my friends, claiming that her father didn’t want her seeing a convict. The truth is that SHE didn’t want to be seeing a convict. Suffice to say that I had The Blues. I arranged to jam with Clarence, and we got together after supper. I was wailing away. My eyes were squeezed shut in exquisite agony, grieving the loss of the woman I had believed I would have babies with someday. I was positively SCREAMING the Blues with that saxophone; every bit of my life force was saturated in those sound waves that emanated from the bell of my horn. I could feel the energy in every cell of my body – Heaven, Hell, God and The Devil were in every note I played, and there was absolutely NO hesitation in me – I was playing an absolutely pure expression of my soul in that moment.

Finally, I was exhausted and had to rest. I stopped blowing, lit a cigarette and started to catch my breath. As I looked behind me, there were about ten people sitting there. All of them were huge, tall, black men – the exact same people that had been sexually stalking me for almost two months. Clarence was behind me, however he had already made it clear that he was not willing to fight my battles for me. He was, after all, well over 70 years old. As I goggled in horror, they all stood up at once and began to walk toward me. I began to shake uncontrollably, and weep in terror. I was 100% convinced that I was about to be the central figure in an epic gangbang; the first in many hundreds more to come. As they came closer, they circled around me, smiling in what I took to be sadistic, predatory anticipation. They all reached out their arms and began slapping me … on the back. “Yo, man! You sure can blow that sax, dude! You da man! Don’t stop now, man – keep on blowin’!” I nearly passed out with relief! After I managed to suppress my urge to vomit all over everyone’s shoes, I simply said “thanks, man!” and consented to play the Blues some more.

From that moment onward, I was never in danger of being hurt or raped again, and any new inmates that passed through camp were clued in immediately that “you don’t fuck with the sax man!” I had stumbled on a way to be seen as a man in their society without once lifting my hand in violence.” No one will ever convince me that this was not a spiritual matter. I now believed in guardian angels, though my guardian angel is – ME! My spiritual power became focused through my sax playing and created a miracle – it manifested a situation where a group of VERY Earthy men chose to see me as a man; every bit as powerful as the most brutal sadist in the joint.

Once I tasted my own personal power, I decided to revisit the teachings of Christ, but to do so from a completely neutral point of view – no assumptions. I would not assume Jesus to be either Divine, or Human. I would not assume that those two things were mutually exclusive. What I discovered is that the teachings of Jesus Christ are every bit as spiritual, and every bit as powerful when viewed as Divine, Secular, or both. He brought us a truly unique way of expanding our souls. He was a role model for how to be a spiritual being having a human experience, rather than vice versa. Thomas Jefferson actually wrote his own version of the Gospels, called “The Jeffersonian Bible.” Jefferson was offended by the idea that Jesus was somehow magical or mystical. He essentially rewrote the four Gospels from the point of view that Jesus was a philosopher, leader, teacher and great moral example, rather than a religious or spiritual being. I disagree, in that I see no great difference between spiritual and human. I’m guessing that Jefferson probably experienced his own disenchantment with religion, and in his bitterness was never able to separate the two – the hypocrisy and dogma of organized religion vs. the essential divinity of the entire Universe, including all Humanity.

There are numerous books that offer suggested explanations for the “missing 30.” In the Bible, Jesus disappears as a young boy, and then suddenly reappears in his thirties, sharing his teachings of prayer (meditation,) unconditional love (ahimsa practice,) and the unvarnished statement that we are ALL Divine, and that He is meant ONLY to be an example; a role model for how to be Divine. He did act as a channel between the Human and the Divine, but only so he could teach us to do it for ourselves. It seems obvious that he never wanted to be “worshiped.” If he had heard people refer to him as “Lord,” (especially in the feudal, European sense of the term) he probably would have been disgusted. He was our touchstone for True Humility. True Humility is embodied in the Second of His commandments: “Love one another as YOU LOVE YOURSELF.” In the First of His Commandments, He says “Love God above all else.” He did NOT say “The Lord Thy God.” That is a mistranslation, based on the medieval English that was being used at the time that The King James Version was assembled.

If you really think about what it meant to be a “lord” at that time, you see that the term is unflattering in the extreme. In those days, a Lord was the equivalent of what was referred to in Goodfellas as a “made man.” They were the wise guys of their day, albeit with the sanction of the Church and State of the day. They became rich from extorting the farmers under their domain, they schemed and scammed for favor in the King or Queen’s court, they exiled and murdered people for political gain, they raped anyone who was not protected by someone else with power, they seldom bathed, and the majority were sexually inclined toward sadomasochism in bed. I really don’t think anyone intended to equate Jesus with these characteristics, yet people use the term to this day. In their day, Lords inspired fear and loathing and one was expected to bow down obsequiously and kiss ass accordingly. This is why we talk to this day of “worshiping The Lord.” In my opinion, Jesus Christ would have most likely preferred a warm embrace or a kiss, and He wanted everyone around him to experience themselves as Christ, NOT as a worshipful, falsely humble, ass-kissing sycophant. Those were the ways one honored a Pharisee or a Sadducee at the time – two extremely pompous types of Jewish holy men in His day.

I’m watching a movie on my laptop, up late with Carol. The movie creates a truly chilling lack of boundaries between life and death, depicting a young woman whom only the undertaker can hear, uncertain whether she’s still alive or not. The movie ends, and there is still ZERO clarity regarding life vs. death. As usual, Carol has already dozed off for the night, unworried about such trivialities as plot resolution, and I follow soon after. Like always, I am up and down several times for the ubiquitous “old boy” trips to the bathroom, and a couple of alarms for me to take my heaps of meds. I find myself at a party with many loved ones there and I am greeting them all with a few words and a loving embrace.
Suddenly, there is a titian-haired, gorgeous young woman there, greeting me and sharing a nice hug. It is my mother, Gloria. Gone are the lines carved deep in that face from the stresses of an adult life thrust upon a perpetual little girl. Every line of her face is smooth and wrinkle-free; no sign of the careworn mask, etched in place by decades of horrible psych meds. Her body is lithe, relaxed, at ease. She is, of course, dead. As I greet her, I say something about how it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, and she gives me the STRANGEST look, like “oh, honey, don’t you know yet?” It is then that I realize ALL the people at the party are deceased, at least in such terms as we measure things on Planet Earth. I awaken, trot off to take care of the necessaries, and attempt to settle back to sleep, another Columbus train blowing it’s sad whistle in the middle of the night, right outside my window. But sleep isn’t coming for a while, at least not the comforting, warm blanket of a trance that I am blessed with as part of having cancer.
You see, tonight I have death with me as a companion. No, not the skeletal guy with the scythe and the robe. He holds little terror for me – me who has lived every day for the last couple of decades as though it were my last. No, this death is much like a little imp – a sort of Sonic the Hedgehog with all black coloring like Krazy Kat and a sense of humor to match. He is sitting outside my window, and I can feel it – a cold, hard, polished obsidian teardrop right in the middle of my chest. It’s the cancer and whatever the doctors say, I know it isn’t gone yet. After a few minutes, I realize I can do nothing but just let it all go, and I drift off to sleep again. Not much I can do about it, after all.
Because you see, I am dreaming up life! So are you, but that is YOUR business. It has been many years since I saw the physical world as “reality” and the “dream” world as “fantasy” or “imaginary.” I am in close accord with the Aussie Aborigines on this point. Life is but a dream. Sha la la la la la la la la LA sweetheart! My dear brother asked me just yesterday how do I deal with it? He realized that I DON’T “deal with it”– It just IS. I SO vividly remember when I got the diagnosis of lymphoma. I wept bitter tears and ranted “I don’t deserve this! This is NOT fair!” And then I realized that there is just NO way I can stand to keep worrying about this 24/7/365. I just don’t have that kind of worry bullshit in me.
Because life is just like stringing liquid jewels together, one by one, each resplendent, iridescent, opulent, and yet life is also the entire necklace at once. The necklace is completely flexible and can be bent or folded so the jewel showing the little imp of death can be folded up next to the moment of birth for any of my children, can be again worn next to my moment of spiritual enlightenment when I sank to my knees in tears of joy, unable to utter a single word except “LOVE.” All these beads again can sit next to the moment I was on the street, hungry, cold, broke, alone, and my first time falling in love, and a memory of playing my very BEST saxophone licks for an enormous crowd of perhaps 30,000 people. And the first time I saw Carol’s eyes, realizing that I had seen those eyes MANY, many lifetimes before and was just finding her again so we could dance the dance; we could play the game of life and death with a prized and precious companion, yet one more time. Thank you, God, for THAT one!
And so the moments continue while all time and space is one. It is a life sentence, it is a death sentence, and I have sworn that I REFUSE to die! Whenever I hear someone say “well death is one thing we all have in common” I say “not me, buddy! Not me! I have chosen the ultimate Peter Pan existence – I have decided to NEVER discorporate. To avoid loneliness, I am inviting as many of my loved ones as possible to join me in dreaming up ETERNAL life. No, I am NOT talking about some cheap-ass wiggle-out clause like “well, we all live on as energy in Heaven” or some such. I am talking about wearing THIS BODY for eternity. It is, after all, a self-healing machine. One of the things that ran through my mind when I was diagnosed was “Oh shit! I can’t die! I’ve already made up my mind to live forever!”
And now I am entering the realm of choice as I step into dreaming up LIFE once again. For today, I have chosen a patriarchal God, full beard, throne of gold and gems, redolent with Frankincense and Myrrh. He is not necessarily the same God the Father” that most Christians, Muslims and Jews claim, but he most likely shares a few characteristics. For sure, anyway, he is the creator of all, and has created me in his image. I am not fool enough to think that tattoos, shaving my head, or donning a dress could negate that deal. God the creator creates Patrick the Creator in HIS image. As I approach the throne, HE says “Here! Sit down! YOU try wearing this shit for a while! I’m going out gambling, since I created the laws of probability just to keep things interesting. Yes, yes, of course I could always know which cards to bet on, but like most of you human creators, I have chosen not to peek for a while, just to keep things interesting. What’s that? Life is too serious to be a game? Why is that? I see … because of … DEATH! But I just told you that time and space don’t exist. What are you going on about now?
Well, anyway, I sit down in the throne, and I feel tendrils of energy creeping out from the gold, silver and gemstones, blending with the swirling rainbow lights and the tingling love energy that everything is made of. Although the throne weighs an infinite amount, I feel light as a feather. The jewels are like liquid light, and everywhere the glowing radiance shines, flowers blossom, the old are made young again, and I feel lighter. Oh, HO HO! So THIS is the big “cosmic joke” I have heard about. That we always picture God as this Heavy dude, man! Hasn’t shaved in like, for EVER, takes on all the cares of the world. But wait – that last part is WRONG. God doesn’t take things seriously! He DID, after all, INVENT Bill Hicks, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, and Steven Wright! Now THAT’s a God that can take a joke! Seems like the kind of guy I’d like to have a beer with. But wait, I forgot, I don’t drink! Just another one of His jokes, I guess. LOL.
So I have decided that I am NOT giving this throne thing back. It is just WAY too much fun! Instead, I am leaving the base of the throne right where I found it, and I will travel via my liquid necklace of jewels – i. e. events in the time space continuum as seen by a spiritual grown up. It’s no wonder the Tea Party guys don’t trust science! Science has actually proved the existence of God, as well as disproven the existence of Science. Whoa HO! Now THAT’s a regular knee-slapper. It makes me wonder just how many of these so-called “Tea Party” folks have considered the ramifications of the Tea Party in Alice In Wonderland? A psychotic haberdasher, a snotty, privileged young rich girl who can’t follow damn directions, and a strange little imp of a dormouse … SAY! What was IN that tea, anyway? And WHAT, may I ask, has the current Tea Party been smoking?
And so, I invite you to use the sense of humor God gave you (might have been me, I don’t remember) to see just what an incredible fucking joke this life is, and consider pranking the whole game by refusing to die when the “grim reaper” dude shows up. “I’ll stop the world and melt with you.” I don’t remember who sang that, but it sounds like a GREAT idea to me. Only there’s NO need to stop. As Americans, it’s our job to show people how to play with this stuff – how to get it rockin’ while you’re on the fly. Except for texting and driving – don’t fucking DO that, man! I am sitting with a 4 month-old friend of mine who CLEARLY gets it. His smile wraps around this entire Universe, and ties in a bow in the back, including all the lifetimes we have know each other, and all the sacred contracts we have honored upon our previous meetings. “Ughbleevawrlalwlr. Arrrrrrrrrrr” he states. I for one, choose to believe him, because it clearly has something to do with cherishing the NOW and everything that connects to the NOW. Love to all. Let me know if you are choosing eternal life with me. P.S. No crucifixion or bloodletting necessary, unless that’s your thing.

And so here I sit, before my computer, arguably the most expensive typewriter/deck of cards ever invented. I have had a blessing forced upon me in the form of copious amounts of free time as I recuperate (presumably) from cancer. For years, my friends and loved ones have encouraged me “you should write a book.” Ah, but where to start? It’s not that I can’t think of things to write about – it’s just that I don’t know where to start or how to put it together into an actual B-O-O-K, book. Those of you who know me are well aware that I am FILLED with words. When doing some of the most important personal growth work of my life, I was bequeathed the nickname “Chatty Cathy” as a trigger name to help remind me when I was spouting off at the mouth; pumping out words with no apparent raison d’etre. I even practiced silence for a time, and managed to fool some people into perceiving me as a “strong, silent leader.” Hah! Little did they know!

I am a child of the 60’s. You can make that mean almost anything, but one thing it means for sure is that I grew up to the constant drone of a television set (broadcast TV was born the same month I was,) silver-plated spoon of middle-class privilege in my mouth, and the flat assumption that I was entitled to instant gratification. Anything that involved the “P word” (practice) was WAY too much work for me! It’s sheer luck that I was born with an excessive amount of musical talent, or I would have NEVER made it in that field. Eventually, the focus on practice, discipline and pedagogy is what convinced me to quit High School band, and mosey on off into being a “British Invasion” bass player. All that eventually evolved into acid rock, of course, but one thing that continued to happen with devastating regularity was that my band mates would physically pull the bass from my clutching fingers, hand it to the “rhythm guitarist” and say “play the sax man!” I would protest that I hadn’t practiced the parts, and they would say “You know the stuff man! Fake it!” I would then proceed to “fake it” by simply trusting my musical intuition and creativity to let me know what worked and what didn’t. This book is the literary equivalent of that process.

At that point began a major romance with psychedelic (AKA “entheogenic”) drugs. Even with those, there was some sort of implication that a person was supposed to have learned meditation, Eastern philosophy, Yoga, or some such. Our fucking puritanical upbringing just couldn’t get away from the idea that even FUN is supposed to be hard work. As the various Gurus, Yogis, Swamis and other snake oil salesmen (and women!) proliferated, the choices vacillated between “just give it all up and let the Guru do the work” and “work your fool, white asses off on these weird diets, yoga asanas, belief systems and fasting practices, and you just might achieve Nirvana/Samadhi/Bliss/Satchitananda/(insert esoteric term for “getting high” here.)

What the FUCK? Oooooohh, I get it! WE are supposed to temper the Eastern obsession with discipline, and the demeaning of the individual by inserting our taste for instant gratification! In other words, we should be able to take what we learned from the East, and find ways to mass produce it; make it idiotically easy. It should be possible to achieve enlightenment in mere minutes – or guess what? – mere SECONDS! I know, I know – there are a lot of very grumpy spiritual seekers that will be offended by this idea, but that does NOT take away from the fact that IT WORKS! Let me be VERY clear about that. Imagine I am on a rooftop, with a bullhorn, surrounded by billions of people sleepwalking through their uber-boring lives, never dreaming that there is anything more than eat/shit/sleep/work/fuck/lather/rinse/repeat. I put the bullhorn to my lips and shout, in a mellifluous voice: IT FUCKING WORKS!!!

You see, there is FAR more to this enlightenment business than just trying to access states of Bliss. Don’t get me wrong, getting high is important – gotta keep those pleasure/reward circuits happy or we start doing incredibly stupid shit, trying to fulfill false survival urges with bonehead crap like drugs, shopping, obsessive sexual behaviors, gambling, etc. Yes, there’s MORE! In each and every one of us, there is another piece to the survival urge that Dr. Darwin spoke so eloquently of – the urge toward looking out for each other. Compassion, love, caring about others equally to caring about self – yes, THIS is hardwired into our survival circuits, every bit as much as the burning urge toward fight/flight/freeze behaviors that kicks in with the big meth-shot of adrenaline we get when threatened.

What I am saying is that we ALL have a deep-seated need to live in a world that works; a world where most, if not all people treat each other decently and make fucking SURE that everyone has ENOUGH. We live in a world that is teeming with abundance. Despite claims to the contrary, there ARE NO SHORTAGES!! We do NOT have a food shortage! Just look at how much food is thrown in the trash every day, right here in the USA! We don’t have a quantity problem, we have a distribution problem. The problem with having this deep-seated need to be decent to each other, is that it seems hopelessly complicated. It has now reached the point where it seems utterly IMPOSSIBLE to achieve. Feed the hungry!? How are we going to fucking do that? We have been trying now for decades, and have gotten nowhere. No one seems to be able to agree on HOW to do it. Conservatives scream “If we just GIVE the food away, they will feel entitled!” Liberals scream “Have a heart, man!” Both are 100% correct, but also DEAD WRONG. It turns out that avoiding entitlements and having a heart are 100% synonymous. Not only that, but it’s fucking EASY. That’s actually part of the problem. We have decided, as a people, that the problem is hopelessly complicated, and now refuse to look at simple solutions. Most of us have simply given up in an orgy of helplessness.

Here’s the deal – the entire thing (enlightenment, feeding the hungry, fulfilling our bliss, etc.) can be accomplished with almost NO effort, in bursts of attention that usually only last for seconds. As a human being, you have been given the creative powers of a God. Regardless of your religious beliefs, (or lack thereof) one thing is a bottom-line truth. Whatever you picture in your Conscious mind will be picked up by your Subconscious mind (The Genie of the Lamp) and routed through your/our Superconscious mind to become a physical reality. This always works. Yes, it never fails. The problem is that we have been told how HARD it is to visualize things, or get a clear picture of what we want. We have been raised to believe that we live in “Murphy’s Universe” and that when wishes are granted (check your local Fairy Tale on this) there is always an evil twist at the end, making sure that a commoner cannot actually have what they truly want. We have become CONVINCED that “there’s always a catch.” We not only refer to our most cynical brothers and sisters as “smart” but we stumble around with the illusion that being negative and cynical is somehow protecting us! Did you get that? We have learned to worship the idea that negative thinking is self-protective! I guess it maybe guarantees disappointment, and so in that way keeps us safe from being happy but … wait! Safe from being happy?

I am a professional counselor, and I have worked with populations of people that have lived through several consecutive fresh fucking Hells, and are still working on one now. These are people that have been frequent fliers in our prisons, Emergency Departments and treatment centers for years, sometimes decades. They have EVERY reason to think negatively. In their minds, they have ample evidence to show that life is a horrendous experience, and that the Universe is a hideously hurtful place. I want to tell you a story about one such group of “clients.” They were in an early release program from prison, and part of their treatment was to attend group therapy sessions with me as their facilitator. The kinds of problems these folks face daily are NOT the ones you see on the Internet under “first world problems.” These folks are getting their children taken away. They spend 8-9 hours a day taking buses to get where they are going, which starts at the Parole Officer. There, they are told that they MUST get a job – no excuses. Never mind that it is perfectly legal and de rigeur for employers to discriminate against convicted felons. Never mind that most citizens have already decided that these men and women are extremely dangerous, and are probably child molesters to boot. It appears to be a national pastime, making up ugly stories about this population.

Then, after getting “the news” from the PO, they hop the bus again to go see Child Protective Services, where they are informed that, maybe, their children are going to be removed from their custody and they will then have their parental rights destroyed, permanently. For those of you out there who are parents, take a minute with this one. These CPS workers do NOT have to have a lot of evidence of neglect or abuse – they can just wave their shit-stick little magic wand and destroy someone’s life. Usually, after a year or three in prison, these parents are SO relieved to get back with their kids that they wouldn’t dream of being harsh with them, let alone abusive. If the “client” attempts to negotiate or stand up for their rights in any way, they are met with threats of expedited loss of parental rights. They must merely grin and bear it.

Finally, after HOURS on the bus, we hop another one to get to “treatment.” If they show up more than 10 minutes late, they will be denied entrance to group, and their PO will be informed that they are noncompliant with their group requirements. Do not pass GO, and under NO circumstances may you collect 200 fucking dollars. Since many counselors think more like jailers than counselors, these “clients” never know who to trust, and so work very hard to stay on the “good side” of whoever is facilitating their group. As icing on the cake, many of these folks are ALSO required to attend the shaming, disempowering AA meetings that are epidemic in every treatment situation. Add another 3 hours on the bus, and a solid string of negative affirmations such as “I AM POWERLESS” or “I AM CONSTITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF LIVING A LIFE OF RIGOROUS HONESTY.” Just for fun, they might add a few ideas about “giving it up to God” where the person is encouraged to NOT have a brain, a heart, a life, or a desire for anything other than being falsely humbled.

Many of my colleagues that facilitate the treatment groups share the belief that these are fundamentally “bad” people. They are described as “manipulative, lying, drug-seeking, malingering” people and frequent warnings are issued NOT to trust them or “buy into their stories.” Well, thankfully, in my case , I AM one of these people; ex-con, recovered addict, guy who attempts to negotiate every situation, survivor of childhood abuse who has dealt with the suspicious, probing eyes of CPS before on bogus complaints.

On to my story: I introduced a practice into our group therapy sessions. I explained that group members could bring challenges and problems to the group, and that we could all choose to visualize a positive outcome. A little training was in order. We would NOT be visualizing that CPS please NOT take a client’s kids away. We would instead be visualizing that same client, sitting with a smile, arms wrapped around all their kids, and holding a special piece of paper with big black letters that says “PARENTAL RIGHTS AFFIRMED 100%.” We don’t want to give the Subconscious mind negative pictures to work with. We would learn to see another client, happily working away in his chosen profession, smiling and fanning out a LARGE roll of currency with MANY zeroes on it! And, do you suppose that these clients thought this practice was a great idea? Yeah, right! They immediately assumed that it would be hard, that it would take a great deal of mental effort, and (sadly in many cases) that they would be incapable of mastering such an esoteric practice. I continued to explain, and they finally got the picture. This practice takes, at most, about 20 seconds! That’s right – to utterly and totally change our world into a world that works, it takes a grand total of TWENTY FUCKING SECONDS to accomplish. Not only that, it’s a VERY easy twenty seconds! All you have to do is see that picture, or (in the case of those who are convinced they “can’t” visualize well) use words as clearly as possible, and it’s a done deal!

Well, to wrap up the story: I facilitated that group for about 6 months. During that time, I had about 80 clients come and go, almost all through successful graduation. They brought some unimaginable problems to the group. Spouses leaving, beatings in progress, children being taken away, PO’s threatening to revoke them back to prison, old rap sheets coming back and threatening them with new prison time, on and on, and on… My dears, no matter WHAT was brought before that group, it was solved 100% and usually in less than a month’s time! Yes, that’s right – us ex-con mother-rapers and father-stabbers – we batted 1000! Please make note of the fact that these are NOT lifelong Yogis and Yoginis – they wouldn’t know an Asana if it bit them in the ass (which would require excellent flexibility, would it not!?) These are some down-to-fucking-Earth people who had every reason in the world to be cynical and to doubt this practice. I left after about 6 months, but this practice did NOT. They said they insisted with their new counselor (who, thankfully, had a brain in her head and chose NOT to mess with success) and for all I know the practice continues to this day.

So Patrick, you ask, why the fucking story? Easy, I say. Because it demonstrates that we do NOT need any special talent, training, patience, giftedness, etc. to make this work. We need two things. First, we need to acknowledge that IT IS POSSIBLE to create a world where every child OF EVERY AGE is fed, clothed, sheltered, healthy, loved and given space to express their spirit. WE CAN create this, and it won’t take any extraordinary amounts of money, effort, training, etc. Second, we need to JFDI – Just Fucking Do it! Again, it has NOTHING to do with how busy you are, how much time you have, how fat your bank account is, or even whether or not you’re a nice person. Assholes need love, too, and even more, they need to feel useful. I read a book years ago that suggested I choose the biggest, most selfish jerk in my life (asshole.) I was to then to go to that person and ask him or her if I could have a hand with some pre-chosen task.  Invariably, the first words out of the person’s mouth turned out to be “sure – what do you need?” We ALL have a purpose in life, and no one else knows what it is! When someone is stuck in their first chakra (asshole) and seems to be extremely selfish, they are only after the same things as you and I – survival, the desire to love and be loved, and the craving for purpose. This last can also be expressed as a craving for spiritual self-expression. Each of us already HAS a purpose, but we have been raised in a society that teaches us from breath ONE to ignore that purpose and attempts to hijack our energy and activity to fulfilling someone else’s purpose. This is why churches all universally damn the ego. A person that knows their own spiritual purpose is utterly useless to a church. After all, why would a man, woman, or child blunder off to murder innocent strangers in a crusade if they had already realized their own oneness with Christ? People often ask me if I am a Christian. I refuse to cop to that label, but I do have a personal relationship with the guy. When I was a teenager, I reached an inner state that was 100% open to spirit, and was filled with the TRUE awareness of unconditional love and giving. THESE are the true survival instincts – altruism IS a survival trait.

And so I am asking you to join me. NO, I am not putting myself up as some sort of tinhorn guru, and God forbid (please shoot me!) I should ever become a “motivational speaker.” Your motivations are your own business; I just happen to KNOW that ONE of them is in wanting everybody to be OK. So I’m asking you: What if it’s possible? What if it’s EASY? What if it takes no more than a few seconds here and there out of your busy day to stop, give permission to our world to actually function correctly and toss a few positive visions in the hopper? On Facebook we see it so often: “Please be sending prayers/white light/well wishes to so-and-so who is suffering from (insert organ recital here – she has a bad thyroid organ, her liver is weak in the knees, he has Erectile discombobulation, his pecker is too pooped to peck .,. yes, THOSE organs). Why do you suppose people ask for such support? BECAUSE IT FUCKING WORKS! All I am requesting you do now (having given permission for things to go OK for once) is to simply notice places where you can do a big little thing.

You can visualize a positive outcome. You can see someone screaming at their kids in the supermarket, and instead of saying “Parents from HELL … insert judgment here … BAD mommy and daddy” which merely contributes to the conflagration, you can take twenty seconds and say “I can JUST SEE this family taking a nice deep breath, and starting to listen to each other until they all feel heard.” Come on! How fucking hard is that!? PUHLEEZE do NOT try to tell me you are TOO BUSY to take 20 seconds for this, because you and I both know you are full of shit. One of the reasons we ALL feel too busy, MOST of the time is because we feel stressed and helpless about all the suffering we see in our world.

I’m a huge proponent for news fasts – avoiding ALL news sources for up to a month at a time. I have done it many times, and never ONCE have I missed anything important or Earth-shaking. Trust me – people are all too excited about passing on bad news! The reason I suggest this is because it is NOT news – it’s the same old fucking story – if it bleeds, it leads. If you could open a newspaper from 100 years ago, you would be shocked just how similar the stories are. Well, anyway, you can do the fast if you want. If you don’t want to, then I suggest you add a piece to your news fix – MAKE some news. If you become aware of an article about the War in Afghanistan, (or wherever) DON’T just wring your hands and say “that sucks.” Why? Because it will come true, that’s why! Instead, take twenty seconds, and imagine our world leaders sitting down to a nice meal, focused on truly hearing each other out and set this mastermind the task of finding a solution that WORKS to the war. Believe it or not, these agents of your own problem-solving abilities will work tirelessly, 24/7 to come up with solutions. Yes, damn it, it IS possible – we could actually have a world with NO war. We just have to give it permission to turn out like that, and then lay out some tools; twenty second tools. You have ZERO proof of such hoary chestnuts as “there will always be war.” There are those that WANT there to be a war because they profit from it, and THEIR intentions are exceedingly clear. If you LOVE the idea of your tax dollars being wasted on machines of murder, then keep it up. Keep on believing that there will always be war. If you want a world that works, however, you must create one. And it won’t be hard, and it won’t take long, and it requires NO discipline, practice, nor do you have to sleep with your hands on top of the covers. Just take twenty seconds and do this one big little thing.

There is a hidden bonus to this practice – it gets you high! Getting high is essentially a chemical process in your brain. Your glands supply the dope, which becomes neurotransmitters, which then become sensations in your pleasure center. The only reason drugs work at all is because they chemically resemble these hormones and neurotransmitters. You actually have your OWN killer weed, right there in your own skull! These chemicals are called Anandamides and Endo-Cannabanoids. They are fat-soluble (Just like THC molecules, and – oh my! – brain cells) and they require VERY little stimulus to get you high as a kite, and keep you that way. The only difference is that if you do things the natural way, you won’t be stuck with the munchies, or break out in handcuffs on a possession charge. In this case, we are talking about a simple spiritual practice – unconditional giving. When you stop for twenty seconds, and visualize a positive outcome to a current situation, you are giving unconditionally of your time and energy. These folks will probably never know that you stopped and visualized Afghanistan as a country at peace. They WILL, however, prosper and raise healthy children that might cure cancer someday in the country of Afghanistan at peace. Your giving here is anonymous, and it is done without expectation of someone giving back to you – unconditional. No thanks necessary. What happens then, is that your amazing brain is hard-wired to give you a HUGE dose of Anandamides, coupled with a blast of a wonderful substance called Dopamine, which immediately orders your pleasure center to come all over itself. One of the main reasons that Cocaine, Ecstasy and stimulants such as Methamphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Ephedrine, etc. are all in such demand is that they cause a HUGE surge of Dopamine in the brain’s pleasure center. The problem there, is that they sort of fry things in the process, and eventually they train the brain to NEED the artificial drug to keep the expected amount of Dopamine going. With the natural method, (and this is just one) your system stays balanced, and no brain damage occurs.

Dear Giver ,

I’m getting in touch with you because I need your support with something. Yes, I will mention money, but that will be totally up to you, and I will never know whether you chose to support me in that way, or by some other means (or if you just clicked away from this page, for that matter.)

In any event, I’m only talking a few bucks. If you want to cut to the chase, you can do that right now, here at:

http://fundly.com/patrickdieter?track_email=1

to donate. If everyone I know on Facebook, and through PSI and my connections in the music business sent me just $10, I would have my goal in a week!

Let me explain.

If you’re reading this, it means you probably know one thing about me. I was born to play the saxophone. Some people are born with the gifts of a brain surgeon, others are great ball players or mathematicians, but since I first heard that sweet sound in my ears at age 3, I knew “That’s what I want to play!” You most likely know that I did just exactly that, for almost 50 years! I have been told that I have a gift. I do know that I love to play, and that people seem to love it when I do. I also strongly believe that “It ain’t a gift unless you give it.” We each have talents, and I think we owe it to our world to share and express those talents.

You might know that I give a lot of myself as a counselor and have helped a great many people get free of addictions, or other severe mental and emotional troubles. You might be aware that I have raised 5 awesome kids to be wonderful adults and we still all love each other. You may know me because I have volunteered countless hours as a life coach and facilitator – chances are you were shoulder to shoulder, right there with me! You might have danced, or jammed with me as I played hundreds of benefits, fundraisers and charity balls throughout those sweet decades. No matter what, I did (and do!) those things because I love to be a giver, plain and simple. I very much want to continue doing that, for as long as I get to keep breathing.

The catch?  I ain’t no spring chicken no mo’. I have some serious health issues that are stopping me from playing professionally, and by fall I will be in Wisconsin with a heap of gigs to play. I so dearly want to do that, but if I don’t get my health taken care of, it’s not going to happen.

If I had been born a surgeon or a math whiz, I would be in Bermuda right now with TWO new sets of teeth, a Tesla Roadster, a Lear Jet and a trophy wife (Just kidding, Carol!) That’s just the facts of life for all but a tiny fraction of pro musicians, and it ain’t that much better for professional counselors.

I had to screw up my courage to share this with the world, but I feel like you all have the right to know what’s going on if I am going to ask you to support me. That’s why my profile picture on the fundy.com website shows me in all my toothless glory instead of with my ill-fitting, extremely painful false teeth in place. I didn’t want to let my vanity or my “looking-good programs” to get in the way of this.

Here it is, warts and all. I have no upper teeth, and the lowers need some serious reconstruction. In addition, after having had my right retina reattached last year, I now have a great deal of cloudiness and “floaters” in both eyes, so I feel like I am wandering around in half-darkness all the time and am virtually night blind. This is sort of a Catch-22 as all the health problems have prevented me from most ways of earning the money or accessing the kind of health insurance that could really take care of this stuff. If you know me, you know I’m happy to work hard and pull my weight – I just need to get my health back together to do so.

Fortunately, all this stuff is VERY fixable with routine surgery, and the upper teeth can be done by a local guy here who is a mini-implant specialist that has done 6 other pro sax players, all with excellent results.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT ME: I am asking you to donate here, at:

http://fundly.com/patrickdieter?track_email=1

and spread the word to others by clicking on one of the Share buttons (email, Facebook, Twitter, etc). Please just chip in just a few bucks to help me defray the $14,000 bill. Once I have taken care of my health needs, if there is any surplus money, I will find a charity that takes care of others in my situation, perhaps through the musician’s union. If the money keeps coming, I will consider setting up my own charity, since (as I am sure many of you know) VERY few musicians have health insurance.

If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t feel right for you to send me money, that’s fine. I would ask that you at least support me by passing this page on, or tell anyone else that knows me and might feel differently. If I could think of another way to get this handled, believe me I would have already done so.

HERE’S HOW I WILL ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT: Once I am able to play saxophone again effectively, I will gather all my talented friends together, find a studio and create an album of saxophone music dedicated to your love and generosity. The world desperately needs to know that we exist and that we are givers; otherwise nothing gets through but the BAD news. It might take me a few months to get the album produced, but you will receive a certificate and a download code when you donate that will allow you to download a free copy of my “opus” to date, once it is finished. For those of you who are not into downloading, I will look into hard copy accommodations of some kind. When you make the donation, you will receive an email with a thank you note, and a code to unlock the download, when it is finally ready for you. I am in hopes that it will not take me longer than ’til next spring to create an awesome album of my very best saxophone work for you, supported by the best all-star players I can round up.

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO, I love you just as much as ever, totally, unconditionally and from the bottom of my heart. I will keep going until I find a way to get this handled, and continue doing what I was put on this Green Earth to do — to touch people in ways that heal and bring joy and passion. Peace, Love, and Flowers everybody!

Yours in unconditional love and giving, Patrick

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!