Close Encounters

Hey Mr. Spaceman. Won't you please take me along for a ride...The Byrds

I read and watch a lot about UFO's. I enjoy looking at the night sky and wondering who might be out there looking at the stars at the same time. Also, wondering if anyone is looking back at our little rock in space.

"Do you have to drive me out of my head? I says Hey you, get off of my cloud"...Rolling Stones

I don't have a strong opinion on what UFO's might be. I've seen some things I can't explain and one that I still can't believe I saw. The human mind appears to be designed to perhaps filter out things if they blow our reality apart. At least it seems that way.

But, still for the most part I just have fun with the subject of UFO's. I recently read a book that I believe first came out in the 80's. It was by a French scientist called jacques vallee. He is well known in UFO circles as a serious researcher. As a matter of fact the scientist in the Close Encounters movie is said to be based on him. I read some of his stuff back in the day. But, recently read an ebook called "Messengers of Deception."

I thought they were angels. Much to my surprise we climbed aboard their starship. We headed for the skies...Styx

He takes the UFO myth from ancient times through modern sightings. In another book "Passage to Magonia." he compares ancient biblical accounts such as Ezekiel's wheel up through Celtic fairy lore or The Fae right on up to Victorian airships and balloons to the modern flying saucer, foo fighters and flying disks. 

He makes connections that actually point to the possibility of an ancient active consciousness manipulating and pushing human kind in evolving right up through present day. Kind of fun and interesting and just the kind of stuff that I've always enjoyed. He also connects some Asian, African and Aboriginal accounts and traditions.

But in Messengers of Deception He gets a little darker. What if some government or even world black opps are manipulating the "UFO" myth for their own gain? Perhaps to hide their secret weapons or maybe even to mask  psychic experiments on unwitting citizens. Like I say it's a twisty conspiracy laden trail and I don't subscribe to it. But. What if?

"And we want to know who's wing are you under? You better step to the right or we can make it hard"...Eagles

I also recommend Project Beta by Greg Bishop. That one will open up a scary and proven operation that led to the suicide of a man who was caught up in government manipulation simply by being curious. 

So my happy little extra terrestrial world does have a darker side. Thankfully I have a healthy skeptical approach to the subject. I keep an open mind but I keep my distance from the black holes of conspiracy theories, angry ET's and ouija boards. 

As a matter of fact check out Nick Redfern's "Final Events" or Nigel Kirner "Song of the Grays" if you like your UFO'S blended with the demonic and the apocalypse.

I prefer to think that a higher consciousness would be ushering us into a new evolutionary jump beyond our tribal politics and religions and wars. Maybe a place where we realize there are not different races but one race. The human race and we can take our place among the stars. 

"With your mind you have the ability to form and transmit thought energy far beyond the norm.

Calling occupants of extra ordinary most extraordinary craft."..Carpenters

Until then I love to grab the popcorn and stream Invaders from Mars or Close Encounters of the third kind and enjoy. Or walk out under the stars and think "what if" The universe so they say is expanding. Everything exists within consciousness. So maybe my optimism is justified. After all. I'm part of this vast cosmos and maybe we even transcend it. Who knows "What Dreams May Come"

Peace.

Aliens, Bigfoot and the Multiverse

I grew up loving comic books.my love of reading didn't start in an English Lit or American Lit class. It started with Batman, Superman and Archie comics. The bright and dark colors along with the fun and make believe took me away. My grandparents lived in a little coal mining town called Altoona in Northeast, Alabama. Named after a larger city in Pennsylvania after some folks from the Nawth came South.

 Anyway, there was a drug store that was pure Americana. Soda fountain, comic books and a small town innocence. Beside it was a little place where you could get burgers and ice cream. I would walk from my grandparents house to get a comic book. Stop by and get a two scoop cone and sit on my grandparents front porch and be in another world.

As I got older I graduated from comic books to ghost stories and sports stories. Then when I got a library card in my bigger hometown of Gadsden, Alabama I haunted the stacks and was always in a different world. 

I read both fiction and non fiction. My favorite subjects were the supernatural and of course UFO's were part of it. I loved the tabloid type headlines and drawings of little green men from Mars. Starry night time skies and quiet neighborhoods being visited by streaking lights falling from the skies. 

I didn't know if there were aliens but I knew there were aliens. I still love the pop culture of it. I still love to fall down internet rabbit holes (which didn't exist in my youth) and read the possibilities of UFO and alien abduction writers. 

However, I do it as much for fun and the "what if" wonder of looking at the night sky more than trying to prove anything. I can entertain the possibility of other worlds and dimensions without making a religion out of it.

Also I have read a little about the multiverse arguments. Everything that could happen has or will happen. Everything we do starts a different timeline and branches off. Everything we chose not to do we did do somewhere. But, that one just makes me dizzy. So I shift back to the lights in the night sky.

Then there is Bigfoot. Truth be told I never really had much interest in Bigfoot. I mean discovering a hairy,smelly ape just didn't move my interest needle much. Still, some of the Bigfoot hunting TV shows are interesting. But when it comes down to it I'm very skeptical of an animal running around in the woods that never leaves poop, bones or DNA. 

I enjoy listening to podcast while I exorcise or do chores. Paranormal interviews. I never try to ram my views down anyone else's throat. But, if anybody ever tells you there are no credible people working and proving ESP or remote viewing or past lives or non local consciousness then the following is very informative.

Donald Hoffman, Dean Raiden, University of Virginia Perceptual Studies, New Thinking Allowed podcast, Buddha at the Gas Pump podcast, TOE podcast with Kurt Jimengal. There are many more but those are good jumping off points.

But, if you're like me then you have your own worldview and you just want to share fun and intelligent information. I recommend looking at the night sky. Enjoying things that interest you and never asking permission from anyone else in order to explore your part of this journey.

I love a good atmospheric horror movie. There is a lot of junk out there. But also a lot of fun and chills. The Haunting 1963 Robert Wise version is my all time favorite horror movie. The Evil Dead 1-3 is very underrated. Friday the 13th with no sequels and Halloween with no sequels. Saturday the 14th was funny and entertaining. The Faculty is highly underrated. The Exorcist is great and I enjoyed the uncut version. Willard and a remake in the 90's or early 2000's if memory serves was fun. 

Funny story about Willard.  Cindy had gone somewhere or was working late. I really can't remember. But I had popped in a vhs of the Willard remake and it was dark. I never turned on lights back then when I watched movies. So as the evening progressed and the shadows got longer. The popcorn bowl was empty and the soda finished I was well into the movie. What was that shape on the floor? It was dark and I hadn't noticed it before. The little voice in my head said RAT! But, I said "no, that's silly. We don't have rats. Watch the movie." But the little voice said a little louder "yeah, but what if?" so I kept an eye on it and watched the movie. Cindy came in at the end of the movie and flipped on the light. "What is this doing in the middle of the floor?"

Then she picked up my old tennis shoe and asked me how my evening had gone. 

Peace!

God, guitar and life.

 Lord of creation I'm getting old. I feel it when I pick up this guitar. I hear it in my strained voice and how quickly my hands get numb. But then I pick a little "Tuesdays Gone" and I close my eyes. Just for a minute I swear I need to brush the hair out of my eyes. 

I feel like I'm 22 out in the country and my hair is dark and long. My eyes are bright and I can feel the first time I ever managed to pluck out the pattern to "Hotel California." Not the lead. Just enough where somebody could at least recognize the song. 

I start to think about life. You know Holy One an atheist once asked me to define God. That was a little tough at first. But, later in my growth out of the religious dogma of my life I understood something.

I couldn't define God because I couldn't define myself. There's a scripture where it says something like "how can you say you love God. Who you have not seen and yet hate your brother who you have seen?"

I didn't know who or what I was or who anybody else was. So how could I put you in a box and define you? So, I'm searching for you in myself these days. In the eyes of other's. In every creature and in my deepest thoughts and intuitions.

But, what I'm really doing is searching for myself. My essence. My sense of "I Am." not so much my memories of childhood or adulthood. More of my own being. Just quietly waiting and being still.

But my guitar is also my meditation. My breath isn't flowing the way it did in my twenties. My hair isn't brown and thick. But, my sense of being is still just as strong.

In here where I live and where every once in awhile I get a glimpse in a dream or in the way the sun slants that light never dies and my spirit has joined this dance before. 

Holy One. When I say Holy One. I'm trying to describe something that is indescribable. That sense of pure knowing and universal being that all consciousness is part of. 

But then again how do I even describe myself? Am I completely a manifestation of chemical reactions inside my brain? Science has given me some more years onto my physical life. I'm so thankful that our consciousness has evolved to being able to keep hearts beating longer where they once stopped early. 

I'm so glad that what ever I am I'm part of that larger intelligence that can use our tools to create a science of medical breakthroughs.

I think one day we will come to explore consciousness in ourselves and realize that what's going on isn't produced as a by product of a chemical/physical reaction. One day soon we can outgrow the myths of angry deity and primordial soup. 

Music makes me feel young again. Southern Rock makes me want to go down a country road with a cold Pony Miller. Country/Western makes me remember my mother's love of George Jones and Loretta Lynn and my step dad's love of Hank Williams. My maternal granddaddy was a coal miner and he thought Loretta Lynn hung the moon.

I don't listen to music  constantly. I like my quiet time. But, sometimes I pull out my guitar and I'm somewhere else in time. I crank up the sound in the car and I'm Slow Ride bound with Foghat. 

Tonight I thought about my life. How quickly it's gone by. I know I have an appointment soon with my cardiologist and maybe new medication or other changes. So, I ask "God don't you notice my time isn't as long as it was?" But then I think "Well. You've had a lifetime." I don't know how many years I have on this leg if the journey. But, it's a lifetime.

I suspect I've done this journey before. I don't feel the need to convince anybody else these days. I'm insecure at times. But not so insecure that I have to have everyone else to validate me. 

I always recommend "Autobiography of a Yogi." by Paramahasna Yogananda. I hope I spelled that correctly. Not because I'm a Hindu. I'm not. 

Not because I think every word is absolutely true. I'm skeptical. 

Not because it's a great read. It's a little ponderous at times. 

But, because the overall view of God/Goddess/Eternal Consciousness/Ground of being resonates with me.

Also because chapter 43 touched me in a way that made my own  abandoned Christian views on resurrection start to make more sense again. 

So tonight my meditation was my guitar. Or my guitar was my meditation. My prayer tonight comes from my former pastor at the Gadsden Vinyard back when I still did church. 

He once said "Steve. Sometimes the only thing I know to pray is "Oh God" oh God, oh God." that one works for me. In the face of injustice, war, scary times and health issues and inner turmoil.

Oh God, oh God, Oh God!

Peace!