A Trip to Iona — June 7, 2003

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Saturday, June 7

Another breakfast at the hotel, then a cab to the train station at Crewe, a train to the Manchester airport, and a flight to Aberdeen. Traveling is easier alone. Although one might think that another person would help find things, and avoid mistakes, and share the load, in practice, it isn’t so. I watch myself traveling very efficiently, very smoothly, except for moments of confusion that a moment sorts out without much difficulty. I watch myself glide smoothly from the train through the maze to the right place to check in for the flight, and even my movements are smooth and sure, usually. Far more so than if I were with someone, my attention half on the companion. This of course has nothing to do with the companion and everything to do with the way I operate.

I like the British ways so much more than commercial-American. At Dulles airport, every 15 minutes came a strident warning that “for security reasons” you mustn’t leave your baggage unattended; unattended baggage would be seized for inspection and might be damaged or destroyed. Here in Manchester, a pleasant voice merely asked passengers “to reduce the number of security alerts by keeping your luggage with you at all times.” No threats, no stridency. Same message underneath, but all the difference in the world how it was delivered. Continue reading A Trip to Iona — June 7, 2003

A Trip to Iona (1)

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

The first of several descriptions of a trip to Scotland and England that was in some ways a restless spiritual pilgrimage, more so than my trip to Glastonbury and other places last year.

Iona 

On Monday April 12, 2003, I realize that I want to go to Iona. I look for people to come with me, but no one can. I decide to go anyway, and within days I have the trip planned. I will fly to Glasgow, spend a day and a half with Robert Clarke in England, fly to Aberdeen to spend a couple of days with Michael Ross, then go to Iona for four days and five nights, then visit Ronald and Jill Russell for a couple of days. It seems a lot of moving around, but manageable.

On Friday, May 23rd, I write in my journal: “Dion Fortune read a passage referring to the Brotherhood, and her whole being responded. For ten days she could think of nothing else but her desire to serve. Then came a vision, and her whole life was changed. May I not strive for something like that on Iona? May I not earnestly pray to be of service? Have I anything else in life I desire? I have not.” 

The following Friday, the 30th, I pick up a few hundred English pounds from my bank, borrow a backpack, and that night I pack everything except for last-minute things. (What’s the weather going to be like? Should I bring a winter coat? Surely not, in June, even in Scotland! I settle for packing in layers. Besides my short coat, a sweater and sweatshirt, a warm woolen jacket-like thing, a flannel shirt and two dress shirts, a pair of blue jeans, a pair of good pants and – in an unwarranted burst of optimism – a pair of shorts.) I spend the weekend wondering if four days on Iona will bore me. For reading material, I choose, after some hesitation, The Lives of the Saints (Brendan, Cuthbert and Wilfred), and The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling. Both books are small, lightweight, and likely to match my mood. 

Wednesday morning, June 4, a Greyhound bus to Dulles airport. I begin snoozing as soon as the bus starts at 9 a.m., figuring it will be long hours before I get to sleep in a bed again.

And then I am at Dulles airport at 11:20 a.m., with my flight to Newark scheduled to leave at 5 p.m. (Greyhound only has one bus to Dulles from C’ville.) I have a piece of pizza and go up to the check-in desk. The woman there advises me to get onto their 1 p.m. to Newark, saying that they are experiencing weather delays all up and down the east coast, and it would be better for me to be in Newark waiting than in Dulles.  

Good thinking. As it is, the 1 p.m. doesn’t get off the runway until 2 p.m.. Then up out of the grey clouds into the bright blue sky, and 35 minutes later back down into the same grey overcast we’d left, one short hop closer to my scheduled 8:35 departure for Scotland. Continue reading A Trip to Iona (1)

A New Model Of Consciousness In Space And Time

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Last April I posted, in ten installments, some great stuff I had gotten from my friends upstairs in January, 2006 over the course of a few days. I recently pulled up the ten posts, removed headers and continuation lines, and concatenated it into one long file. (It’s easier to read one file, I think, than one after the other in the archives of several months ago.)

I will be glad to send the file in response to a request via email to muddytracks@earthlink.net.

Death and life and death of a great man

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

The Charlottesville newspaper’s obituary for George Gordon Ritchie Jr. M.D., 84, of Irvington, Virginia, who died Monday, October 29, 2007, among other things says this:

He was a physician, speaker and author and a graduate of the University of Richmond, Medical College of Virginia and served his residency in Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. During his residency, he won the William James Research Award for Research in Psychiatry and helped found the David C. Wilson Hospital in Charlottesville and was president of the Universal Youth Corporation for 20 years….

What this leaves unsaid is the greater part of his life.

In 1943, age 20, George died, was met by Jesus, and was given a guided tour of earth, heaven and hell. (I am saying this not tongue in cheek but straightforwardly, just as George very bravely did for more than 60 years.) Continue reading Death and life and death of a great man

Belief and doubt

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

A further excerpt from an altered-state session with the guys upstairs, Rita Warren asking the questions, on February 26, 2005:

R: …. Well, I ordinarily think of both Frank and myself as being very tolerant of ambiguity with others who are very dissatisfied with that state. However, one of the things that has arisen for Frank a few times is my asking a question through him and his finding no answer. That seems to bother him because the structure seems to collapse on itself – the possibility that it will collapse on itself. So in that case, it seems to me, he isn’t very tolerant of ambiguity. He really needs to have some very clear sign that you are there to answer questions.

F: Well, you’re actually perceiving the external sign of an internal civil war, because bear in mind, one of his predominant characteristics is to doubt, and this doesn’t lead him to doubt others any more than it does himself. You see? Continue reading Belief and doubt

Overcoming obstacles in talking to the other side

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

From an altered-state session with the guys upstairs, Rita Warren asking the questions, on February 26, 2005: 

R: All right, now the practical implications of what we’ve been talking about. When I’m asking questions of you through Frank, is there some stance he can take that will make it easier for him to feel like he’s not getting a blank from you and therefore is just speaking from his own limited perspective. Is there some way he can think about this that will enable him to make those distinctions.

F: Sure, and that’s happening now. It is a matter of changing –

 Let’s look at it this way. It is a form of changing self-definition to say – and we’re not describing these in the order that they occurred, or in the order that they necessarily need to occur, but just one after another: Continue reading Overcoming obstacles in talking to the other side

TGU and us — how it works

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Another excerpt from the TGU material posted here, this from one of the 2004 black box sessions, one of a series of questions submitted by others.

Rita: You’ve said that Frank is part of your mind; that’s one of the quotes from last week. What is this role that you play? Can that be specified? As opposed to the role Frank plays, which we understand to be an attempt to voice your ideas. Can you speak about what parts you play in your relationship with Frank.

Frank: Sure. We gave an image a long time ago to him in the black box. He was in 27, paddling a canoe on a river, just for fun, and found that he couldn’t keep his perspective at canoe level. It kept popping way up in the air, and looking down on the canoe and the canoer, and then going back to the canoe and back and forth. And that was just our way of showing just what you’re asking. The person in 3D experiences everything immediately and vitally. The person outside of 3D experiences everything in a non-time-space perspective. So you might look at it is, the part of yourself that’s outside of 3D holds the page and keeps perspective, remembers what the game is all about, and gives off helpful hints as well as receives feedback. The part of you that’s in 3D is there specifically to not remember the perspective, but to react immediately to the life. Now, what we’re saying “immediately” may mean to you 80, 100 years, but it’s “immediately” in terms of it’s confined to that life. Continue reading TGU and us — how it works