“You have a right to be here. You are needed”

Monday, May 23, 2001

5:15 AM. I have been thinking over things as they come to me, as I lay in bed unable to sleep for the past hour or so. So, thought I might as well get up and try to accomplish something.

Peter Woodbury, as Edgar Cayce, mentioned how painful it was to lose the hospital, and how ill-suited Cayce had been to be executive director of the hospital. I find that comforting, since it is equally true of me and Hampton Roads.

My friends, it has been several days. Since Saturday the 14th, I see, looking back. No wonder the work on organizing things seemed to leave me a little lost.

Well, we aren’t an addictive drug, we trust. At least, it wouldn’t be helpful to treat us that way.

No, but maintaining the inner connection seems to require more consciousness these days.

It’s a pretty large subject. Is that what you want to discuss today?

It depends. Is there another subject that is more timely? I sort of thought so, but can’t find it. But fire away on whatever target you prefer.

You heard Peter Woodbury at as Edgar Cayce, trying to make him into a reality for people – a sensory reality rather than only a theoretical or abstract reality, say. He was reminding them that Cayce was a man – and in the question-and-answer format (which is where he was doing his work) he was attempting to encourage them to apply it all.

Yes. I hadn’t quite realized that about the Q and A but it is clear in retrospect

How different is that from what you are seeking to do in print, and are doing in person via encouragement?

Rhetorical question, I take it.

You are a networker, a connector of people into a vast loosely coupled web, not unlike our side, whether that has occurred to you or not.

It hadn’t. You’re saying the form is familiar to me.

Isn’t it?

Now that you mention it, it is a way of relating that seems natural. It didn’t exist so easily before the Internet, though.

Not so easily – but maybe that is why you adapted so easily to the net, and e-mail. Not everybody creates lists and sends off whatever seems of interest. It is a way of connecting only at one facet of shared interest. It is different for every subject. It moves. It may be deeper connection between you and some with whom you share deeper connections – that is, redundant areas of shared resonances – and shallower with others with whom the one link is all. And of course the number and intensity of links varies with time and circumstance.

Note that in sending your very personal newsletter to your Hampton Roads customer list, you were doing the same thing, only targeted more to publishing, and one-way because of the limitations of the technology (not so easy to hit Reply), and far less frequent because of the expense and trouble. We’re pointing out, networking is natural to you.

This has served in a way as a practical rehearsal for the explanations we have given of life on the other side when freed from time-space constraints. It is a practical, sensory-evidence example like Peter Woodbury portraying Edgar Cayce or Hal Holbrook being Mark Twain.

That’s very interesting. So The Cosmic Internet wasn’t a bad title.

What makes you think it was your idea?

I don’t know what came over me. Of course it must’ve been yours – which proves that it was a good idea.

We smile too. So, the point is, you exemplify one aspect of things. Others in their lives exemplify other aspects. Only everything can exemplify everything, and only with everyone contributing can every aspect of things be represented. The hermit in his room, the networker on the net, the go-go-go hustler in the marketplace, the cops and the robbers, the victims and villains and the savvy traveler, are all needed. If they don’t represent something real, what are they doing upon the earth?

You know the piece that says you are a child of the universe; you have a right to be here.

“Desiderata.”

Well, do you see that you not only have a right to be here, you are needed here? And do you see that everybody else has a right, and is needed, regardless whether you or anybody likes them or respects the values they embody? Only everything represents everything. Anything else leaves something out.

You are not assigning value judgments to various combinations of characteristics. I started to add, “I take it,” but then I remembered that 10 years ago, you told Rita and me that the drunk who dies in the gutter has nevertheless created a flower by the choices he or she made in life.

That’s right. “A long time ago.”

Inside joke, that. Yes, a long time ago by some measures.

So, that is the sermon and text for the day. Anybody who reads this, no matter when: You have a right to be here. You are needed. Don’t listen to anybody without or within suggesting otherwise.

And, to bring it to specifics, use your experiences to give yourselves glimpses of higher orders of organization, as the Internet is a metaphor for, or a reflection of, the interaction on the other side of the veil. Seen properly, everything in your life can provide reflection and instruction, and thus, support.

Relieving the feeling of loneliness, if nothing else.

Loneliness for some, pointlessness for others.

Okay, I’m going to cut this short here, unless you have other ideas.

Stopping is fine – but, a gentle word of advice. Don’t let your life start to make you feel pressed. The difference between how much time you have and how much you think you must or should do in that time is not relevant. Go placidly and steadily, resting when you wish and working when you wish, and all will (continue to) be well. And when “external” forces harry you, remember that internal and external reflect each other. The way to sooth external waters is to sooth internal ones. This is not airy-fairy nonsense but very practical advice. As we said “a long time ago” in 2001, the rougher the times appear to get, the more important and effective it will be that people keep their center. Anybody anywhere in any circumstances can exemplify this – and the greater the difference between external and internal, the more striking the contrast will be, and the more liberating their example will be to those who notice.

All right, many thanks as usual. Till next time.