A long strange trip — continuing

They say our lives never make sense as we look forward, but when we look back, we see the patterns. This strikes me particularly at the moment, as several activities converge.

For one thing, I have been preparing for the weekend workshop on Accessing Inner Guidance that I am going to co-train with Bob Holbrook at The Monroe Institute at the end of the month. (www.monroeinstitute.org for details. Click programs, program calendar, then the green box on April 22 – 24 that says Accessing Inner Guidance.) Naturally that means reviewing how I got to where I am, and that means remembering all the mistakes I made, all the idea I had that turned out to be wrong.

What I did wrong, and what wrong ideas I had, are probably the most important part of the course, because communication is so easy, and so natural, that if we didn’t have wrong ideas about it, there wouldn’t be a problem. I was just listening to Keven Turner’s interview on future-primitive, and I laughed when I heard him quote Michael Harner saying, “it’s so easy, it’s embarrassing.” In my experience, it’s equally embarrassing to review what I used to be, what I used to believe. But, that’s life. If we came here knowing, what would we have to learn?

So the course is one thing. Another is Coast to Coast AM, that I’ll be doing with George Noory in about 13 hours. I’ve talked with George a couple of times before – about The Cosmic Internet and about Afterlife Conversations with Hemingway – and he is always kind to his interviewees, and makes a real attempt to ask questions on behalf of his listeners. But still there’s always performance anxiety. That’s life too.

Then there is my to-do list. When you reach my age, it’s worth while to decide which things you can expect to finish and which must be abandoned. I have been working on my long-delayed novel that I call The Stone, but have had to put it aside to prepare for the course. After The Stone, assuming I can get it written, I’d like to write two follow-up novels to Babe in the Woods, the first showing George dealing with the disruptions in every part of his life after his Open Door journey, and the second showing him living his new life. That would make it a trilogy, and that’s far enough. Whether I can get these books published and whether, if I do, they will sell, is another problem, but not mine particularly. If I can get them written, I will be well content.

Beyond them, there is only Rita’s World Volume II, which comes out this fall, and perhaps a third volume, the material for which came in between February 11 and March 19.

After that, perhaps it will be time to hang up my spurs, or whatever the proper expression is. Except, as I said in the beginning, looking forward, we never know.