Port Grand Junction I’ve rarely dwelled on this, much, but … I do, indeed, live in a location which is just about as optimal as can be. Granted, I don’t live in an alpine setting, where majestic granite-faced peaks are … Continue reading
I used to believe in the innate and inevitable goodness of mankind.
Frequently I wish I still did. But all too easily, I get annoyed. Vindictive. Angry.
Do you ever find yourself just hating people?
People in general, groups of people you don’t know, maybe people in groups you do know? Whole nations of people? The milling mindless morass of humanity present past and future, most of whom have no redeeming features nor attributes, collectively destroying the very planet we live on — just makes you sick, eh?
(Regretably) Occasionally I have been wanting to do painful and excruciating harm to certain entities. What kind and form of entities do I wish this upon?
I hate
those who kill elephants for their ivory
heck, anyone who is mean to any elephant
those who kill big cats
or gorillas, or both gorillas and elephants and/or big cats
abuse animals “for fun”
abuse ’em even if it ain’t fun
slaughter wildlife (and not-so-wild) indiscriminately — a case a few years back of brain-dead soul-less yahoos driving the hills of central Moffat County (Colorado, I’m all the more ashamed to say) shooting and in many cases not killing but wounding and maiming elk, deer, antelope, whatever else, to limp off and slowly die
This definitely includes anal-orifices in meat-processing facilities who do not treat every living thing with respect.
Woe to you if you are in any way involved with devastation of the rain forest.
heck, sometimes I am really annoyed at indiscriminate litterers, and
even more egregious, everyone involved in the banking/collapse of the housing market scandal — ethically-bypassed GREEDHEADS who obviously think of self-gain at the expense of everyone else;
most politicians, especially as more and more it definitely seems NONE of them are in the game to help “the people.” Sigh. No wonder I sometimes have lost whatever faith in mankind …
and those six young men from India who, a few months back, raped and tortured a young woman on a bus … I especially wanted to inflict what I felt was suitable punishment upon them. I thought about and considered what that punishment would be. Suffice to conclude that it would be very similar to what they had done. I’ll spare you the details — but there is/was a part of me yearning, nay, perhaps LUSTING for retribution. Vengeance. Revenge. An anger, coupled with outrage had arisen, and it seemed the only way to “bed it back down” was through actions such as this.
Justice? No, not really.
When I pull back for perspective, and in doing so, believe I am able to view a more-full picture, such actions are not “justice.”
Yes, they (and to varying degrees, all of us) are
TORTURED SOULS.
If one believes, as I must, at some level, that all spirit is from a common timeless infinite source, then one must consider people who perform such actions are definitely behaving contrary to the call which all must, inevitably, it may take time, millions of years, to heed.
“I”
(i put the self-identifer in quotes, as, yes, i had a seat of consciousness, could perceive, maintained an identity, as it were, of self and separateness, but did not have a “body” per se) …
where was I? Oh yeah, during my first psychotropic hallucinogenic experience, after the initial several hours of confusion, running around, getting lost elsewhere in my dorm, etc., and etc., I lay down and meditated. I had ‘discovered’ (or, meditation had discovered me!) this half a year previously while under the influence of cannabis. To my pleasant surprise, I later found that I could engage in the meditative experience when NOT under any such influences!
As I peeled through layers of the onion, the sensation of expanded awareness intensified. I made the effort, as one does in meditative undertakings, to limit and curtail distractions, thoughts, STOP THE INFURNAL DIALOGUE until …
My eyes were closed, probably, but I entered a gate.
The METALLIC DOORWAY TO INFINITY
It was as if there was a transition from a seething flurry of voices and experiences and sensations involving all the senses to an abrupt level of TOTAL CALM. I felt as if I went from a warm sticky-humid noisy room through a door. The door was of metallic aspect, and the word “dank” seemed appropriate. Metallic taste in my mouth, electric, everything cool. The Light Immanent within, without, everywhere, didn’t exactly “shine” but was all there was. I took a breath. One breath. It was as if my lungs were outside my “body” — a part of “me” which sensed or “knew” on an equivalent level to my brain — whatever part of us that “knows” — where the “is-ness” resides.
All normal sense of distinguishing distance and time was irrelevant. When one breathes with one’s lungs INSIDE the body, they are contained. Confined. Finite space. This sensation of one’s lungs (or whatever metaphorical equivalent of breathing apparatus) OUTSIDE of what I perceived my body to be — was bewildering at first. “I” was breathing … no, not “breathing” per se, but something analagous to the intake of life force (and expulsion of spent prana) — and … what am I trying to say? — that the lung-equivalent could expand and fill to ever-greater dimensions. No, I didn’t experience “infinity” (a finite mind cannot grasp that) but I sensed … a feeling of expansion beyond anything I would have thought imaginable. A bewilderingly borderline incomprehensible sense of expansion, as if the shimmering curtains which, when parted, would show FULL ON INFINITY, just parted ever so slightly.
“I” filled the space behind this metallic door, the space filled me. I was there an instant, and in that instant I felt a span of time the magnititude of which overwhelmed my ability to even begin to grasp the very edge of.
Don’t ask me exactly ‘how’ — but since that experience I have not only been convinced of the underlying (or is it more appropriate to say “over-enveloping“?) unity not only of all life, but of everything. Well, frequently I lose sight of that conviction, which, by the way, is not only a ‘conviction’ but at a level you might call “the core of my being” it is A CERTAINTY.
And, those tortured souls I want to punish … what would whacking the six Indian rapist/torturers repeatedly, hard, on their pee-pees, accomplish? The temporary feeling of satisfaction of revenge, punishing the wicked, but it would not complete any circle; satisfactorily resolve anything.
Sure, we must lock them up and maybe put them to work mining uranium or pushing the turnstiles to mill grain.
Drawn, quartered, pulled apart on the rack, the six individuals would feel great pain and probably wish that they’d hewn to the straight and narrow all their lives, and utter exhortations that that they would do so forevermore. The bodies extinguished, but the spirits would be more un-evolved and disturbed than ever, between lives, re-entering the material world, with the past karmic debt no closer to resolution. No, I don’t think a tit-for-tat, eye-for-eye, savage response would, in the ultimate analysis, do any real good.
mostly about sally When I began this reminiscence, ’twas early/oily Novembrrr 2009 and I’d been considering. Considering … projects — many — either undone, not yet started, barely started, in progress, virtual — and I reflect back to an uplifting … Continue reading
B ‘n me yoosta fly across the country semi-frequently. Her family lived on the east coast, and we didn’t. B had no qualms whatsoever about going up and talking with celebrities waiting for flights in the airport.
Richie Havens was sitting by himself and B just walked over, sat next to him, and they conversed for the better part of half an hour. She knew stuff about who he knew, what he had done (besides, she had been to Woodstock!). I wasn’t going to appear to be the groupie, or fan. I tried to maintain a thin shred of dignity.
Oh heck, I had to get up, shake his hand, chat a little. And he wrote some cosmic saying in my notebook and signed it. I wonder if I still have it, the notebook, that is.
“& … I hope you don’t mind … ”
It is recommended that people 50 years of age and older undergo a periodic medical procedure called The Colonoscopy. I’m fairly sure most everyone knows some of the basics. A camera is snaked up one’s fundamental posterior aperture, assessing the condition of the colon. Quite difficult for the recipient to maintain even a modicum of dignity, to be sure.
I finally relented. There was one doctor I knew in particular who had lost his father shortly after the mid-century mark, and every time I visited him — for an altogether different medical condition — he would ask if I’d gone and done it yet. And each time he’d glower, and I guess I decided I could not bear a subsequent glowering.
An appointment was made, a date set, I visited a different doctor’s office the day before and received the instructions. Again, most everyone can guess the basics of the preparation. Mainly: make sure that there is NOTHING in your system. I don’t remember the names of the concoctions one has to drink, but it’s a sure bet that you’ll get most the Sunday paper read or a big chunk out of whatever book you’re working on while the procedure produces the desired result. Yes, a lot of time with a short tether to the commode.
Betty drove me to the hospital early the next morning. Of course I felt weird — gastro-intestinal system completely devoid of anything and you’re not supposed to have even coffee before the procedure.
The doctor’s daughter and mine had been on the same tennis team a few years before and we chatted about that. An IV was inserted, and I was wearing ONLY the open-in-back thin hospital gown. It was chilly in the pre-operating/waiting room and I kind of felt like I was a slowly-cooling corpse in the morgue.
Wheeled into the operating room. No, this isn’t an “operation” with scalpels or laser-scopes invading, puncturing the sanctity of the body, but, yes, it WAS an operation where the body gets violated anyway. The doctor was front and center, constantly chatting and checking on equipment. There was a nurse also bustling nearby, and I was aware of the anesthesiologist standing quietly mostly out of my narrow field of vision.
The anesthesia was injected into the IV tube and the doctor gave his final speech. “Okay, we’re going to begin and soon you’ll be unconscious and won’t feel a thing. Again, I’m Doctor Pacini, assisting me is Nurse …” (I don’t remember her name, nor the knock-out doctor, but …) what I do remember, and I’m not 100% sure if this actually happened, but again, I’m 99% sure it did happen, because …
as the Doctor continued his monologue of instructions and introductions, the operating-room curtains parted and
” … and I hope you don’t mind,” he continued, as a dozen or more young nervous-looking women, girls, actually, were revealed by the opening curtains
“… the nursing students at Mesa State have to witness two or three procedures a month …” and the next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room. Betty had an appointment somewhere, and my brother, Ricardo, was there to take me home.
After the procedure, and the sleepy-time medicine, and my gastro-intestinal system’s recent traumas, I felt weird, loopy. Driving would have been dangerous.
Great timing on the Doctor’s part, I reflected — “hope you don’t mind” just as the anesthesia takes total effect. It was like some nagging fragment of a dream, but imprinted in my memory and senses was the brief sight of perhaps 12 or 15 mostly young women (there may have been a couple boys) — body-piercings, spiky hair, casual skate-boarder clothing. The faces I remembered from my less-than-a-second imprint displayed nervous smiles. They were probably feeling a little sorry for the mostly naked old man. I felt a little sorry for them — I’m sure they would have preferred a young athlete’s posterior, instead, for the presumed educational close scrutiny. There was nothing I could do about it and I felt no identification with being, in a sense, a cadaver donated for medical research.
I also plan on maintaining as much alertness as possible before being ‘put under’ during the next procedure, and asking pertinent questions — such as, “will there be any surprizes?”
High on the list of THINGS NOT TO DO would be anything that sounds like a good idea after having imbibed in “a whole lot” of tequila The Tao Te Ching frequently mentions “the 20,000 things.” I surmised that that … Continue reading
I recently got to thinking of all the live musical performances I have attended. Before I met my wife there were several. And after meeting her, many more, rarely without her. ONE musical evening we both attended stands out in … Continue reading
![450px-ScholasticNarnia[1]](https://betunada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/450px-scholasticnarnia1.jpg?w=231&h=300)
Rosco and the Chronicles of Narnia
It was the spring of my 22nd year. Like most, or practically all guys that age, there were a few things which could and would inexorably attract my undivided attention. One thing in particular. Most of you know what I mean.
Now it is 40 years later and when the occasion presents itself, I (usually) get just as interested. But I am not waiting expressly for those occasions very much. I am just about as interested in beer, beer with the guys, beer alone, dressing up in hockey-goalie equipment and getting abused by whoever my companions are at the time, responding when the writing muse strikes (or, usually, merely whispers in my direction), soaking in hot water, and the juxtaposition of place and climate and time for a nap.
However. I had an on-again off-again girlfriend. She would get the mood sometimes, and if I was lucky, I was around. I was in the mood all the time. But that didn’t matter — the ring on the merry-go-round would present itself on rare occasions, so I had to be eternally vigilant.
We were talking one day. She mentioned a series of books she had read and enjoyed, and I said that I didn’t know a thing about them.
She measured me with a steady gaze. I can’t remember exactly how she said it, but she would withhold certain, shall we say, favors, until I read those books.
It may have been within minutes, at most the next day, but I rushed down to the Boulder Public Library. Reading those books became the foremost and most important objective of my life. Well, a means to an end.
I obtained a Member’s Library Card. Where the heck were those books? The Children’s Section, of course.
I was slightly embarrassed, but as I said, there was a very important result to be obtained. So, I became familiar with venturing to that section where the only other adults were there with their children.
There was a young man in charge, and he tried to diffuse my not-completely-convincing attempts to act un-embarrassed.
“This is a great series. It doesn’t matter how old you are. And,” he conspiratorially whispered, “I still read these myself.”
I checked out volume one and sauntered home quickly to read it. I had to admit, that even without the incentive, this was fun. I was immersed in the C S Lewis world and knew that I would enjoy subsequent visits.
![Narnian.world.map[1]](https://betunada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/narnian-world-map1.jpg?w=560&h=197)
Girlfriend-at-the-time gave me the Book Quiz. I knew all the important character’s names, their relationships, how they got there, what was going on, what destiny intended to be going on, how the story ended. And I was awarded my prize.
I checked out the second book in the series. A couple days later, I’m back for book number three. She probably had an ulterior motive, perhaps several motives, but I was hooked. If the star by my name during the summer-school reading program was not to be issued, the probability that I’d still read the remainder was not miniscule. Never-the-less, to my delight, there were a half-dozen or so books remaining.
Oh, that all assignments in school, and in life itself, had incentives like this. Having said/written that, it could easily be argued that yes, all assignments do, indeed, have, if not the same exact incentive, an incentive which is identical in other unforeseen and equivalent ways.
Thirty or so years later, the Chronicles of Narnia movies started coming out. I’ve seen them all so far, and I wonder, sitting in the audience, if I’m the only one who views the screen with a curious mixture of romantic tugs from the past, the shreds of actual memory of the story line, and waiting to see what happens next.
![Aslan2005[1]](https://betunada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/aslan20051.jpg?w=300&h=196)
BEYOND PARKOUR
(My WP buddy, BlueInThisLight, posted a “parkour'” experience recently, and)
We all, all of us,
have, haven’t we? traveled REALLYfast THROUGHtime &SPACE, perhaps instantaneously, at least once.
I read “Mitch the Singing Cowboy”s remembrance of performing parkour as he was chased by a 2700-pound bull when he was 10 or so years old. A spark (or, if you don’t think my clouded mind has the necessary ingredients for combustion, perhaps something akin to even a primitive form of pre-ignition) went off in my head. There was an occurrence in my life where I, and a friend, translocated instantaneously several dozen yards when we felt our lives were in danger.
“Allow me to explain.”
I used to study paranormal and psychic phenomena, and the term “translocation” meant the ability to move one’s body instantaneously from one location to another. That sort of thing …. could have …. happened to me, and a friend, once.*
Kevin and I and the rest of the high school track (and field) team had just finished a workout and, like cows back to the barn, went to shower in the locker-room. There were more athletes than shower spigots available, and Kevin and I wandered out into the hall to go to the girl’s locker-room. Now, this was usually a ‘safe’ thing to do, as the girls did not (as far as we knew) use the locker room at this time. There would be plenty of room, hot water and soap, and we’d saunter back to our lockers, dripping clean and wet, without having to wait our turn.
If memory serves, I don’t think we brought towells, so cavalier were we in our sense of security and mastery of our corner of the universe. Showering complete, we went to open the door from this locker-room into the hallway …
We heard laughing chattering happy girl’s voices, lots of them. The locker-rooms were across the hallway from each other, down a corridor accessible either from outside or down from an interior stairway. To make matters even more scary, the boys locker-room door was ten or so yards closer to the stairs than the girls door. The chattering and laughing intensified. We saw the first pairs of feet appear at the end of the hall, coming down from where the hallway framed the descending stairs. Kevin and I froze, giving each other brief piercing stares of sheer terror as our immobile and electro-shocked brains went into hyperdrive in an attempt to assess the situation.
The next thing we knew, we had instantaneously zipped flippulated willed ourselves back to OUR locker-room, panting and out of breath. The shock of our experience must have been etched deeply in our faces. Fred “Smokey” Barnes, the team’s affable genial giant state-ranked shotputter, wrapped a towell around his bounteous middle and sauntered out into the hall.
He came back later, laughing, and said that the dozen or so girls had “seen something” out in the hall. They claimed that they heard two sets of doors slamming loudly, with a flesh-colored streak connecting the audible dots.
I don’t know about you, but if you were a geeky pale skinny guy with low self-esteem, this was as close to outright humiliation, setting the stage for many weeks of school-wide ridicule, which we had, apparently, narrowly escaped.
*I will attempt to contact the other party involved. We were bestest of friends for many years, and for reasons (or no reasons at all) unknown to me, are not, anymore. Never-the-less, “in the interest of science” I shall endeavor to send THIS STORY to him, whose name is Kevin, though we all called him the affectionate nick-name of “Slum” back in those halcyon daze — to ascertain if he remembers this, and, if so, is his memory congruent with mine.
Please log on to blueinthislight.wordpress.com and read a recent essay about bulls not liking children. Mr. Blue, IMHO, describes an experience in which he utilizes “parkour” even though he did what he did at the time without a label as to what he was doing.
Time Stood Still at HUNGRY CHARLIE’S
( a true story of love of the cosmic and comical sort, and, to some degree, about hamburgers)
On November 5, 1972, a Harvard Square hamburger joint, Hungry Charlie’s, was the stage for Act I, Scene I of the Betty-&-Rosco-Betunada Chronicles.
In an earlier time, perhaps ten or fifteen years earlier, I might have said that I had a rocket in my pocket and a two-dollar bill. However, in 1972, I was young, perhaps terminally optimistic and idealistic, and with $600 in my pocket had embarked on a journey which (in my mind) conceivably could go anywhere in the world.
In a sense that was what happened. I had hitched from Colorado with a friend to Boston. He was reuniting with his girlfriend, and I was on phase one of the aforementioned trip around the world. We hitched because our pre-arranged ride stood us up.
There was a massive early-winter snowstorm enveloping, it seemed, the entire country. Traveling through such conditions, in such an unpremeditated mode of transportation was an epic assault upon the imagination. And the senses. We arrived in Boston after three days on the road.
We got to my buddy Jeff’s love’s apartment. There was a spare bedroom for me and I slept for about eighteen hours straight.
Jeff, Holly, and I went out for lunch. She lived near Harvard Square, so we ambled there. Where to eat was easy — the ubiquitous greasy spoon — with a sign depicting a caricature of a wild-haired crazy man descending on the all-American plate of fries and a burger.
The place was packed. As we shuffled up to the order counter, I scanned the room for an empty booth. A solitary dark-haired young lady and I locked eyes. She was grinning. Sparkling. Beaming, actually. As our separate gazes melded into unity, I felt sensations which to the merely sane would have been disturbing. It was like the curtains of reality parted, shimmering, giving glimpses of misty behind-the-scenes wavering shapes and shadows. The floor became rubbery. Time itself stopped. Within that moment-less moment, I thought of nothing — but on the other hand, I could have considered and seen and visualized everything.
Children. A long life together. Adventures and memories and frequent joint escapes from the flying monkeys.
But it didn’t matter if we were to be together or not. I was totally happy just knowing such a person existed.
It could have been that there was no place to sit except at her mostly-empty booth; or it could have been that I was uncharacteristically forward, and … carpe diem … seized the moment by sitting next to her.
I rationalized that by being so positioned, she could not easily see me eating this big juicy greasy hamburger. (My anticipated messy eating habits could not be easily observed.) Jeff and Holly left the “pick up your order here” area, scanned the room, and were just a little bit surprised at my seat selection. Still, they did not miss more than half a beat. They sat themselves down across from us, uttered a few polite sentences, then began eating.
I can’t remember what I first said to her, nor her to me. I was, no doubt, affected by the initial cosmic time-stopping gaze. That, coupled with the follow-up seating arrangement and all that that implicitly and ultimately implied was, of course, much more than mere words. Much more.
We were married 364 days later. And Hungry Charlie’s, a burger joint in Harvard Square, no longer exists.
by Rosco Betunada
b e t u n a d a 