Wednesday, June 11,2003
Three dreams on the tape recorder:
1) I almost didn’t recognize it as a dream, more like a daydream. At the end we are in a boat, way at the top of a hill. Lying there, feeling the motion of the boat I’d taken to and from Staffa. We – whoever “we” are – came out the back door, and there’s this long, long, long way down to the water.
2) The two ladies from the Iona Community gift shop, in the office by their desks. Suddenly they collapsed downward. That is, they disappeared, as though they had been angels rather than people.
3) There was some kind of building work being done in the church. And there was a man working who was somewhat skillful. I was involved with it at a less skilled level. The man had to quit. He couldn’t do it any more, there was something wrong. The posture hurt his feet, or something. I offered to do the work, or was asked, I forget which. The woman in charge of the thing said I had great [force?] The idea was that I could do the job, and otherwise it couldn’t be done. [Robert will send me some clarifying thoughts on these dreams after I return home. See Iona (16).]
I notice during the night that I was reluctant actually to record dreams. I was almost too reluctant to think about them. I didn’t reach for the recorder. It seemed too much trouble. Which is highly suspicious, since that is what I was waiting for, and wanting, since the night before when I had six. But again, this seems to be a case of when you search for something, it flees from you.
After breakfast, on this sunny morning, I climb to the highest point on the island, Dun I pronounced “done ee.” Not very high, a matter of 300 feet, but a nice interesting climb, what with wet heather, uncertain footing, sheep droppings, and periodic steep climbs that sometimes require a bit of thought, whether going up or coming down. After getting to the top, I find a spot sheltered from the unceasing wind, a little to the north of the highest point. I have my field glasses (one of the few times I remember to use them). Sitting there, I can see all the north end of the Island, which looks like an English village, all fields interrupted by houses, and sheep all over the place. All the east is taken up by the long island of Mull. Staffa is in sight to the north, and to the northwest and west the islands of Tiree and Coll. As I sit, I take a few pictures, and I talk to my tape recorder as thoughts come, and mainly I just exist there with the wind and the clouds, and the sea, and a few birds and many distant sheep. The shadows of the swiftly moving clouds wash over the land like little schools of fish going by. After a while a few tourists go by within sight, but none within talking distance. I have nothing to do, and half a bar of chocolate, and a container of water, and even a package of oatcakes. I could stay all day if I wanted to.
I spend some time writing and thinking. I write: “I’d like to be the one who helped restore the church but it just can’t be within Christianity as they understand it, or within the metaphysical churches as they understand it. There’s got to be a new way. And it may be that the new way won’t be called a church at all. It seems a shame, though, to have all these people in their belief systems cut off from people in other belief systems when at their roots, somewhere back in other lives, they may be united and fighting against each other [internally]. That’s not the only reason it’s a shame, of course.”
At about 10:30 I say, standing there, “Let my ministry begin here, in this place, in this time, and just show me what it’s to be – because I’m 56 years old!”
Richard Leviton had given me a mediation to do, to connect with sacred sites, and four years ago I had done it when my friend Charles Sides and I went to Machu Picchu. This time, instead of that, I go to the mental state that Monroe calls Focus 27. Coming down from 27, ready and willing to do soul retrievals, I search for anyone left over from battles between Norsemen and monks, but I don’t find anybody, so I suppose all is well.
“I’m tempted to say “I just don’t see any way to go forward,” but that’s silly. Instead I say, “here’s where I’m finding out how to go forward.” Whether I want to or not, right?”
I note how much the chocolate bar in my backpack calls to me. What a slave I am. Yet while I’m thinking about eating, I am well aware that the process of digestion will interrupt what I’m doing. “Whatever it is that I’m doing.”
About noon, I come down off the hill, go back to the Iona Community gift shop and buy some things for gifts. I stop in at the Spar store and buy a turkey and cranberry sandwich. (My favorite, and I thought I’d invented that sandwich combination!)
Back at the B&B, I play a Hemi-Sync relaxation CD. I bring nothing back but the thought that “a lot of what seem like daydreams come up during the long preparatory process, and I suspect that Bob Monroe knew it.” (The significance of that, though, escapes me as I transcribe this 10 days later.)
I begin reading The Cloud of Unknowing, a mystical classic, firmly in the center of Western tradition, written by an anonymous Christian in the 1100s. I feel very much at home with him. I know that my Gateway experiences must resemble his, and I know that love is the way. I understand what he says as he says it. Except – Except – How is it to be reconciled? Original sin? Well, the separation is real, perhaps the perversion of the soul is real. But how are we to reconcile the one central difference? It is true that Jesus is the question that cannot be talked away, though it can be – and is – endlessly talked around. Yet the author of this very clear book says straightway that its techniques should only be used by a committed Christian, lest they lead to mischief. How do we react to that?
The thing is, The Cloud of Unknowing is so clearly written out of experience. (As was my own book, for that matter.) There is no arguing with experience, only with the conclusions drawn from it, or the interpretation of it. If he has had these experiences, he speaks from knowledge. How then can we of another age, another understanding of life, reconcile his experience and ours? Truth must always tend to converge. If we cannot find how to reconcile his experience with ours, the fault must be with us; it cannot be with truth.