After-life Tour Guide

Recently, I accepted the possibility that my dreams are a window to other dimensions, not just my brain working out the kinks for the previous day or recent past. I have allowed myself to look at my dreams as visits to other parallel worlds none of which I can either prove nor disprove.

Through this I have been able to begin experiencing lucid dreams, that is, dreams I can pick up from where I left off, usually from the same nights' dream. It's a fun journey and if your one who usually has positive, happy dreams, I highly recommend as an experiment for you.

While I'm continuing, I've been thinking about the afterlife and what it might be like. First I assume it could be very personalized, giving each dead person their own mystical take on the way they feel things ought to be.

In any case, when we die, I feel there has to be some sort of transition period; a time when we adjust to our new surroundings and become acquainted with the here-after. Make sense? Since we all have functionality of one kind or another...either jobs or things that occupy our time, it seems like an interesting spiritual aspect of functionality after we're no longer living in this physical realm.

One job I'd like to have would be the tour guide, showing freshly dead people their new home and the ins and outs of living in the new dimension...or at least in "a" new dimension, if millions upon millions of them co-exist anyway.

Maybe it would look something like this.

Hi my name is Charlie. Welcome to the after-life; a creation of your own unique design, desires and tastes. While the over-all look and architecture of your new home is what you'd like it to be. There are a few laws in place that are consistent with each personal utopia dimension AKA Heaven.

1. You may not time travel since time here does not exist.

2. You may visit with anyone you can think of, not only those who have already past but you may enter into living human's dream world as they sleep, approach mortality, or are unconscious.

3. Your travels are not limited to Earth and human beings minds; you may travel anywhere in the Multiverse.

4. Any appearances you make to living people may only be to help them learn, evolve and have better lives, whether they choose to follow your example, action or advice.

5. Travel comes to you as easy as a thought or a blink of an eye. You can go as slow as you want or blink through as fast as you can imagine or faster.

6. No matter what problems you had faced while you lived, you still have the opportunity to think and perhaps resolve old human issues without the crude matter that made up your mind and body. Now you are pure Spirit, free to enjoy all of Creation as your Spirit is meant to be.

7. What are you waiting for? Go.

Any of these things might be told to you from a former spouse, close friend or relative. What do you think your after-life will look like?

Post blogging blues

I am missing my blog community and just plain writing. The month of January I was sick with a chest cold....had it twice...and still I had lots of work, which is good.

I am delighted to have a new president and yet still amazed at how people are so accepting, even my Republican friends. I am also amazed at his use of the English language, his intellect and matter-of-fact way he has of handling anything. I know he's not perfect, but he is the complete opposite of what we had for eight years. The weird thing is, I got so used to watching Jon Stewart rip W, I'm afraid their comic material will be lacking for decent "slam content." There's always Steven Colbert Report, tho. Goody.

I've seen some cool new things on History and Science Channel...both coming up with new programs and continually updating their science data. I'm looking forward to a new show called "How The Earth Was Made." I've seen two versions of this before, but evidently they have enough material to have created a series. Cool.

Tonight I caught up with Smallville. (SPOILER ALERT) A classic comic villain "The Toyman" made his debut. Plus we got a lot of a shirtless, hunky Green Arrow in the hospital. And finally Lana has to leave again. All that eternal smooching and "I love yous" was starting to get to me again. Clark even bangs her at the beginning via sound effects through the wall. My "chick-flick loving" partner even said "ENOUGH ALREADY!" Agreed. Kristen is a fantastic actress, but sorry, I'm a superhero geek from the word "GO!" and I need me some super powers and costumed heroes...kissin' or not! Yeesh.

Meanwhile, at our company...that's the two of us.....we're creating a graphic Time Line showing overlapping Bible characters (some real, some fictional-since we're not literalists) along with world events and real people. It's very fun, for example, to see when the Polynesians first settled in Hawaii and other highlights of the 3rd Century. Can you say ka'mana'wanalaya?

Walk into the light.......

"They're not part of consciousness as we know it. They linger in a perpetual dream state... ...a nightmare from which they cannot awake. lnside this spectral light... ...is salvation. A window to the next plane. They must pass through this membrane... ...where friends are waiting to guide them to new destinies."

If you didn't get the quote, one of my favorite movies is Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist. I just saw it on AMC...or one of those channels. Looking back, the story holds up, even with the non-digital effects. My rule: never compare apples to oranges; in this case analog-to-digital. It'll screw you up every time. There are wonderful subtle truths about the spirit world presented in the film. Although it may be a bit heavy-handed at times, I was amazed at the humor and cleverness, which gave us an out to the spookiness when we needed it. Tangina will forever be one of my favorite mediums into "the other side."

And who doesn't love Zelda Rubinstein??

Cue theremin music here.

One last thought . . .

It would be short-sighted not to wish my fellow bloggers a happy new year too!

This is an interesting concept and so 21st Century.

I love it.

...more to come! G'nite!

I digress to resolve

first, I want to wish myself a happy new year! I don't think I've ever done that. It felt good. I'm going to say it again....Happy new Year, Me!

With all the traditions of Holidays behind us, sort of. I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. It's nice to have the cycles begin again. It's like life's built-in re-boot.

I know a bit about what I want to do this year, that is what new or additional things i would like to accomplish. It goes along with what I wish to drop from previous years. I have the list in my mind and I was going to post it, but more importantly, I think I'll keep pondering and not formally commit myself. Therein lies the first problem I had last year. Commitment. What is it I'm afraid of when I think of committing or even thinking about the word "committing." It seems to create a feeling of a rule that I now must follow and if I don;t do the thing I said then I've failed because I didn't even try. And so what. I took on plenty of things last year I didn;t know I would take on. I ended 2008 in an upbeat mood because I didn't give a shit about the Holidays and therefore wound up with little to no feelings of depression afterward. Yay! This is fantastic because the holidays bring on a false sense of responsibility to to buy things and do things because we feel obligated to do them based on stupid traditions.

A friend of mine commented that he didn't feel the spirit of the holiday at any time; nor did he "feel like" buying anything just because. I congratualted him because that is the opposite side of our commercial spirit of Christmas that I've failed to explore in depth. That is, when you don;t feel like doing anything, i.e. buying gifts, sending cards, attending parties, then why do so? Why need some sort of approval or not. I missed a dinner with some good friends recently and analyzed why I had not made it a better priority. ADHD was one excuse. There were others, but I felt really bad because it didn't even register; I had no back up for memory loss and instead was called several times while I was doing somthing else. I went to the gym. I digress, but it still fits the point. So I resolved to give myself a higher sense of self-respect and made a personal promise to at least 1. be honest and 2. call when I';m going to be late or not even show up.

The fun would have happened but it was strange to be in limbo land at that point and not recognize by poor 'Emily Post' moment. Then again Emily Post was a much too formal apporach and was really for the snotty rich and not everyone else. THAT is unAmerican, or at least exclusive behavior. Oh well. She's dead and most people don't even know who she is anymore. Good. We need better standards anyway.

So as I conclude this post, may I resolve to myself to blog shorter, do the things I am thinking of doing this year and by all means raise my level of respect for myself and my friends.

I think I'll do the gym more too. It has a hot tub.

Anticipating the New Year

It's the last day of the year. It has been a strange yet somewhat productive day, but not at all like I planned yesterday. A friend was to come over and spend the day watching DVDs and celebrate a late Christmas. As it turns out he had errands to run and a few personal things to take care of, so we delayed getting together a little while. Meanwhile, another friend came over and waited to see him too and enjoy a visit.

The day wore on and we waited and waited. It got so late that I called and suggested we just plan another day when we could enjoy more time together.

Looking back over the day, it was a little frustrating; the day was spent 'in between.' Off subject, this is kind of funny. I'm an animator. I began my career doing cel painting and then moved up to assistant animation A.K.A. in-betweening. For those not familiar with animation terms, 'in-betweening' is drawing the pictures between the extreme poses in animation. An animator may draw extreme poses numbered 1 and 5; the in-betweener draws 2, 3, and 4. I thought about this in comparing that definition and what today was like in my life. It was definitely an in-between day and in need of a plan B to fill it in.

So I ask, am I 'in-between' life's extremes at the cusp of the new year? What are the things happening in this last few hours of 2008 and what extremes should I anticipate (if any) for 2009. I'm certain there will be surprises in store in the coming New Year as there were things that happened this year I did not expect. It's funny to be in that place where a plan has been made, I anticipate the outcome, assume a few things that will likely happen, then nothing happens. We all know what assuming does.

Even so, today, lessons were learned for the next time such a day may occur and a little bit of catch-up I needed was accomplished and I still had surprises waiting for me. I received a gift; a really cool Hot Wheels Limited Edition 1966 Batmobile. 1:18 scale fr children 14 and up. For a couple moments, I'm 14 all over again.

Good-bye 2008.....

And now, on to the new year!

UFO - Vapor trail

Last summer, while driving back from West Texas I had the opportunity to see the strangest vapor trail ever. Not that the vapor trails left by jets is usually a streak that dissipates over time. However this time, with two other passengers, I confirm that what we were looking at could not have been made by a jet. In fact, I have never been able to find anything of this nature on the web. The photo I've attached to this post is a retouch in PhotoShop.

The purpose is to illustrate the kind of vapor trail we saw in July 2008.

A funny thing, we passed by the exit for Stephenville, TX where the huge "Walmart-sized' UFO had been spotted and reported last January. We opted to keep going as we didn't have enough time for the detour, and since there was nothing to see anyway. Check out UFO Hunters on the Science Channel this Wednesday for a new episode. Please note the program can be rather hit or miss with it's content, but the guys seem sincere enough.

Please feel free to post any thoughts you might have. We have NO explanation about why (or IF) there could be a sudden turn from a jet or what other kind of aircraft could leave this kind of angular trail.

Enjoy the picture and happy UFO hunting.