Personal Story

Did you ever want to go beyond what technology offers?

Way beyond what governments offer?

Way beyond what art or entertainment offer?

To live beyond the horizon of now.

I really like the idea of the outer limits.

A place in the unknown that has discovery everywhere.

Yes, it’s like being a child again – seeing what is in the world – this place and time I find myself in.

Plato believed that everything already exists – every idea, every work of art, every everything – and that we only need to discover it, find it, uncover it.

How long can you smile?

Can you consciously keep a smile for a day? for an hour? for 3 minutes?

I’ve tried this, and it does take effort.

Even consciously returning a gaze with a smile.

There are those rare people who always seem to have a smile – they actually always seem happy.

At the supermarket, anywhere where there are strangers, it is kind of fun and interesting to hunt for visually happy people.

I remember going into a garden shop and being happily surprised to see a huge parrot in a great cage. It was so unexpected. To see a parrot by itself would be a surprise, but to see it in a place where it usually wasn’t, made it shine even the better.

A similar thing happened when we visited a paper store that sells gift boxes, tissue paper, cake boxes, and so on. In the back, in a fenced in area, was an emu, you know, an ostrich – actually a pair of them. It’s like seeing a dandelion growing in a sidewalk crack.

Sometimes the earth seems more beautiful than ever, like when the sun lights up the fall leaves, from behind – the leaves literally glow.

The light is always changing, so that what five minutes ago was a dark, drab patch, is now sparkling with bright leaves that decide to shine.

When the light is just right, any scene becomes lit like a theater stage.

I just have to be still outside, and beauty comes to me – or perhaps I tune in. A squirrel comes by, or a chipmunk, or a hawk.

I love stained glass windows. The colors are so luminescent, especially deep blues with glints of deep red. The windows glow.

The fragments of glass set in lead, all fit together, like a poetic puzzle. All the glowing pieces are bordered in dull silvery lead, as if someone outlined everything in the picture.

They are huge and intricate, often mounted high up. Sometimes I go into a church just to be inspired by the stained glass windows, and smell the incense, and see the candles.

Do you dream in color?

The question came up one day, and gee, I am not sure.

I do remember dreams that were incredibly realistic. I saw individual blades of grass, and it was very green.

In some dreams there is a crowd, and all the faces are individual, different – yet incredibly, all strangers.

Some dreams that I’ve had a long time ago, I suddenly remember while I am awake, like a déjà vu. I think most of my dreams are in black and white, and occasionally in color.

One of the most popular games with my children was to write on the child’s back, and have them tell me what I wrote.

It starts really simple, like writing an “A” or an “O”. Then I’d draw some symbols like a plus sign, a box, a triangle, or even a tree.

Then more challenging was writing a word or a phrase.

This is really fun, sensing what someone is writing on your back. It could be your arm or leg, too. But we used the back.

We would reverse roles, too. And I would guess what they were writing.

When my children were very young, we would play a game. They would smell spices, herbs, and other flavorings. The idea was not necessarily to know their names, but rather to become familiar with them directly, meeting them, letting them talk to the children.

Remarkably, many years later, I learned that this is how indigenous people would learn about healing plants – by meeting them and learning from them, rather than human experts.

The children really had definite opinions about each flavoring.

I sometimes see myself as invisible – pure consciousness. I like how this feels: liberating, free, as if I’m the wind.

It’s so much easier to feel connected, when there’s no body to have to connect to. The body I see suddenly is just a vehicle, going on by itself, a made-up projection of my thoughts. I set this viewpoint in my mind.

Where I am is more open, since there’s no skin and bones to show where I end, or think I end.

I don’t have to project an image wherever I go, or talk. I’m just sort of the watcher, the observer. I like this feeling.

Inspired by visiting Tickled Pink in Seymour CT (www.tickledpinkshoppe.com) .

In the local valley, with a backdrop of towering mountains and clear lakes, there is a small boutique nestled among rows of antique dealers. To me, this is more than a store. When one steps inside it, it is like being transported to a place of wonder and beauty.

Tickled Pink offers a magical, ambient setting that truly makes one forget daily concerns. It is like its own world, an enchanting, compelling, truly breathtaking realm.