Honaunau New Age Workshop - 50 Year Old Caucasian Women Searching For Self - Off Topic Remarks Key To The Path - EMF Complications - Symbology Of Linda S. Hanek's "Vision de Chaos" - Inverted Triangle With Symmetrical Cross, The Family Hero - Circle With Plus Sign And Minus Sign Inside, The Mascot

Spiritual Commentary - March 23, 1998

1998.3.23.

I spent this past Saturday at a new-age-type self-empowerment work shop. The event was packed with the usual attendees for such things: Caucasian, middle class, college-educated women in their late 40's or early 50's. An insipid spirituality filled the room. The goal for the day was to reconnect with everything that was left behind some 30 years ago when motherhood was chosen over self-development. There was a lot of work to do in the training's eight short hours. It appeared mostly too little, too late. Which isn't to say that spiritual development ever stops or becomes pointless. But you're supposed to deal with this stuff while you're young and at your peak. Transcendence is not an armchair pastime for the middle-aged.

The homogeneity of the crowd turned me off. And of course, being closer to Kailua-Kona [the work shop was held in Honaunau] -- with its increased exposure to electromagnetic pollution -- I was emotionally strained from the get-go. I was also irritated with the passivity and "Oh! -- Isn't-everything-great!" Panglossian disposition of the attendees. Yeah, there were a few interesting people there -- people with greater-than-average emotional intensity. But overall the company was not something that I would trade a day's salary and nine hours of precious free time to partake of.

If you understand how I operate in crowds, you can be certain that I had my usual off-topic witticisms to offer. For example, when it was my turn to say how I would respond to a certain situation -- an activity designed to explore personality types -- I stated that my resolve to act (in accordance with the expectations of the written scenario) was diminished by the typographical errors in the question itself. There were three errors in the paragraph. The logic (and humor) here is that I found a referent other than that which was expected. I've always had a knack for that. When the group leader described our presence at the work shop as an indication of our being open to personal change, I countered by saying, "I think most of us are here in order to be with other perfect people." At another time, a woman read her "mantra" or personal statement of purpose designed to promote personal change. It included a new BMW and other high-end consumer goods that she felt it necessary to acquire. When the leader concluded that the woman's intention to spiritually improve her life was faltering -- with doubt being cast on the need for a luxury car -- I interjected, saying that if the presence of the BMW was giving the woman trouble, that I would be happy to take it off her hands. Similarly, when it was closing time for the day's events and we were holding hands in a big 30+ member circle, and everyone was heaping praises on the group leader, all I chose to say was that the organic green salad [that we ate for lunch] was delicious and that the afternoon breeze in the vicinity was delightful (Honaunau is frequently hot and windless). The litmus test for me was that several people laughed on the half-dozen occasions in which I made some wry remark. I knew that my comments were on target and lifted people out of their compulsion to behave in a scripted fashion. What I said was truthful, spontaneous, and not what people expected to hear. I have always had a gift for articulate, razor-sharp, subversive speech. But by early afternoon, the heavy EMFs in the area (from the large tower complex overlooking Honaunau) had made any kind of liberating repartee most laborious for me. Also, I don't like being in the company of other self-consciously "spiritual" people when I don't feel well. If I'm sick -- hacking up phlegm constantly and looking tired and worn-out -- I have no business engaging subtle contests of energy or insight.

To fully represent the Truth means that the whole package needs to be together and intact. With visible candida fungal infections and disturbingly enlarged veins, I felt more like a monster than a messiah. To my hypercritical eye I might as well have been a leper auditioning for a modeling job. How could I convince strangers that all of my problems stem from a spiritually-based radiation sickness? The proposition seems preposterous! To argue my case in a convincing fashion takes a real toll on my energy level. Inherent in the argument is the need for proof that I am so unusually charismatic and intelligent that the far-out proposition coming from me must be true. But if I don't feel well, and if becoming impassioned makes me more ill still, then how can I demonstrate anything? In the end, my life story is like the Titanic, an odyssey with tremendous potential, but which ends in disaster before arriving at its destination. Even if I am able to convince people that manmade EMFs are a serious environmental stressor, it is impossible to have them appreciate why EMFs are so much worse for me. First, I am talking about a process that few (or none) are familiar with; second, I end up likening myself to Moses (or some other epic spiritual figure) -- neither of which do much to bring people closer to me and my point of view.

There was one interesting work shop topic that I wanted to relate. We looked at a series of symbols to see which one leapt out at us as being most consistent with our personality type (from Linda S. Hanek, "Vision de Chaos," 1990 - doing a web search in 2013 I couldn't find a reference to it). Of the six symbols, one looked familiar to me as representing how I used to be; I felt in my gut a dim recognition of this past mode of being. The other one resonated with who I am now -- who I have become since EMFs became such a plague to me. Even before I read the definitions of the symbols, the symbols made sense to me. The equilateral triangle with one point toward the ground and a symmetrical cross in the center represents the "Family Hero." This category used to be the one most consistent with my personality. Some of the traits associated with this symbol include: first-born; high achiever; needs visible success such as beauty, health, good grades, wealth, great achievements; feelings of inadequacy and guilt; and compulsion toward the positive. Prior to the dental appointment in December 1994, I felt that the world was a place where I could excel -- a place where I could become anything that I wanted to. I felt that my only limitation was my imagination. My role as a public school teacher was surely a distraction, but I felt that it was but a temporary restriction upon my energy and that soon -- with continued spiritual progress and the money generated by my creative writing -- I would be near to being entirely free of worldly restraints. I was suffused with a sense that my heart's longing was achievable, and that I was equal to the task. In my mind I was the "hero," showing my family and others what it was possible to achieve in life.

Of course, everything changed with anesthetic's and manmade EMFs' becoming anathema to me in 1994. My body's lack of defense from these toxins proved my downfall. I entered a state of depression and utter inability to reconcile my spiritual knowledge (gifts) with the conditions of my world. Enter the symbol of the "Mascot," a circle within which lay a plus sign with a minus sign hovering above it. It represents someone who is afraid of the world, someone who is not able to reconcile what they feel inside and what they see or experience outside. This kind of person feels insecure, fragile, and anxious. They have delusions of being crazy and are usually the last child. They are confused by the circumstances of their life and tend to be hyperactive. They dissipate personal, professional, and familial tension by making savage jokes. I think this is who I am now. I have been transformed from messiah to clown. I am now endlessly frustrated by my life. I am caught in a job that sucks an inordinate amount of my life force and does not pay me enough to achieve my material goals. This EMF awareness has caused me to invert my every life practice. I cannot breathe, exercise, or sit straight as anything healthful increases my body's amplification of ambient EMF. I endeavor now to be depressed and sloth-like. My survival depends on my indolence and insentience. I masturbate and make stupid jokes far too frequently; but they are my best means of reducing my consciousness of the horror of my condition. I am constantly distracting myself from what is going on at the center of my being. Therefore, the clowning "mascot" is more descriptive of who I am now than anything else. But I still aspire to be the hero, though that desire has been forced underground. I pray that this submersion of me is only temporary.

Later in the day I was asked to create my own symbol. What is most representative of how I view life (on a symbolic level) is something that shows a developmental or hierarchical pattern, but which also shows the inherent connection of all of these levels both to each other and to the central source. Being a poor artist, I drew a simple diagram of concentric circles. I started with a small circle, and continued by adding about 15 increasingly large circles around it. They were separate -- none touched. The picture had an attractive, mandala look to it. At the center of the symbol was an openness or emptiness which you could liken to the "void" or some universal "oneness." Each concentric circle gave the impression of including all the ones before it, or that were smaller than it. The hierarchical or developmental indication was there. But what I needed was a three-dimensional representation in which the source of each circle was the center itself. I have a picture in my head, but it is hard to describe it. Consider two single points on either side of an empty circle. Now, consider each of the two points being the points from which an infinite number of concentric circles both merge and reemerge. So, we have an empty circle with two sets of concentric circles emanating outward from the two points on either side. The number of circles emanating from each point is potentially infinite. But this is still two-dimensional, and fairly easy to describe. But add this for depth and complexity: the empty space is a sphere, and every point on the surface of the sphere is also a point at which a set of concentric circles both merge and emerge. But now, the concentric circles are no longer two dimensional--they are three dimensional. They are concentric spheres with a common ground. This is the hardest part: consider the entire surface of the central sphere or "void" as a single point. In this scenario we don't have an infinite number of sets of concentric spheres. We have just one set of an infinite number of spheres that share the entire surface of the empty space as the point at which they both merge and re-emerge. That's the closest symbolic representation of reality that I could come up with. Of course, I could not draw it. I don't have time to expound on its implicate meaning. But its gross characteristics lend themselves to an obvious explanation of reality as it appears to me: there is only one source; everything intersects with this reality at the same place; while there is differentiation of reality in gross and subtle ways, all differences either collapse (backward arc) or transfigure (forward arc) into the same place of their origin (or destination). But looking at my sad circles at the work shop, my picture looked more like the vibrations of the impressionist painting, "The Scream" than anything buddhist or mandalic.

Comments from March 3, 2013

I don't have much to say or add here. Presently I am just living in the California desert, about a mile and a half from the nearest cell towers, five days per week driving almost an hour each way to a place where I can take a walk that is not accessible by cellular phone. I was not doing well physically; so I made this commitment of time and energy to maintain a semblance of mental poise and physiologic health. At least I have a good teaching position. The best one I've had in a few years. Great staff, great kids, minimal higher-ups minding our day-to-day work. Workplace EMF levels are much less than what I had previously in the Ventura area.

Just noting that this post was from 15 years ago. Wow. I've had zero breakthroughs since then. More towers seem to be going up daily. My brain and body just get more tired -- less able to meet the many challenges I face. Yes, I did earn a masters degree recently, but it has done little to improve my sense of well being. In fact, all that seated concentration on matters I had little interest in (I earned the degree only for a salary increase) was quite harmful to my physical wellbeing.

With respect to the above, I don't think the mascot is an apt symbol for me. I generally speak Truth to people, or at least my truth, lower case t. I don't mask my concern for excessive paperwork in special education, chemtrail poisoning, cellular radiation, genetically modified organisms, or the corruption of our republic by financial elites. I might have limits to the amount of baloney I can confront at any given time, but I don't avoid any of it. Also, I am not a clown. In general, I am quite serious and non-distracted. If people are on a power trip, I usually call them out on it. I don't use sarcasm or cut people down. That's never been my modus operandi. I am still very much the hero, though on a much lesser scale than I had aspired to.

People -- mostly adults -- do bring me down. They are an energy drain. That is one of the great things about working at the high school level: there is much greater autonomy and individuation. Staff leave each other alone. This is in contrast to my 14 years at the elementary and preschool levels where everyone was completely enmeshed with everyone else. I don't miss the nonstop potlucks and group activities I was dragged through. What a tremendous energy outlay that was! Which is not to say there are not a lot of unconscious bozos where I work; but at least I don't have to collaborate with them.

Sadly, though part of me enjoys my newfound professional isolation, there is a greater sense of loneliness here in my first high school assignment. Especially when I taught preschool for nine years on the Big Island, I was very close with several teachers. The people were kind, real, and tolerant. I looked forward to my Pre-K-1 grade level meetings with those shiny, love-filled, wondrous, eclectic ladies, sitting on those tiny chairs. Despite the "enmeshment," there was far more emotional nourishment at the lower elementary level. The children were phenomenal, fully occupying a sacred space; and the setting -- rural, bucolic, green, and near the beach -- couldn't have been more inspiring.

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