Tag Archives: Mindfulness

Non-Attachment… It’s Really All Okay

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Note: This piece was a submission for Tiny Buddha that was not selected but gonna give some airtime for here. Enjoy.

“Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.”  ~ Unknown

In my Life, expectations rooted in the expectations of others have led me to experience a lack of being, an incapability to be mindful, and unable to enjoy the presence of each moment.   I have had to hit my head against the wall repetitiously to learn this.

At the start of 2009, I sat amidst my Quarter Life Crisis, which was on life support as I was close to turning 30, and I was trying to just “Breathe and Smile,” as Thich Nhat Hahn put it.  I had been meditating off and on for years, part of the spiritual hokey pokey I played, before starting to realize that I truly was seeking to live mindfully and create a peaceful existence for myself.  As I went deep into meditation that night, I heard a voice within my being ask: “What do you want Jason?”

As I focused on the question and where it came from, I felt like it was asking me what was in my Heart, the area in my chest feeling like it was opening up.  One of my teachers expressed that “the body is the way the Spirit experiences the world” so I was learning to pay attention to sensations within my body.  In that instance, as my Heart opened, I saw the image of a woman and that startled me.

I had not really any idea what that meant or why.  Within a few months I found the answer, meeting the woman who was presented as a vision and with whom our lives seemed intertwined with synchronicity.  I thought for sure that we would be married.

Well, Life being the “expect the unexpected” that it is, happened and we broke up during a series of events that changed my life. Within a short period of time, I was laid off from work, laid off from that relationship, and experienced the Death of my Grandfather, the latter two experiences within a day of one another.

Having been brought to my knees by Life, I had a choice: to see myself as a victim or quit playing the hokey pokey, strive to go deep within to understand, to let go, and finally accept.  My pattern of fighting the occurrences of life stemmed back to childhood when I found out that my family was moving, an experience that was very difficult to understand at the time, impacted my development, and took years to process.  The trauma that I experienced from the sudden change at the young age and made me strive unable to accept the house of cards tumbling around me each and every time a change occurred.

I began to pray for dreams, interpret them, and observe/interpret the symbols of my life as they showed up in my experience.  If it worked for people in the past and other cultures, it had to work for me and I began to trust that Life knew more than me because each time I went through a change, in hindsight, I realized it was for the better, if only because of the growth that unfolded for me.  I wanted to stop resisting the change and enjoy the whole show.

I found ways to joke about Mindfulness so that I could enjoy it, telling people that it was Okay-Ness, because within each moment, the perspective can shift and we can find the beauty in the chaos, the chaos in the beauty, or both.  And whatever we focused on was in fact Okay because it was there to teach us.

In November of last year, my Grandmother passed away.  Within minutes of finding out about this, my car died on me while I was driving.  A friend informed me that perhaps it was my Grandma saying bye.

I believed it because for a time I drove her old car and it did the same thing to me, dying out while I was driving and left me on the side of the road, signs I took as it was time to leave a bad work situation that I was stubborn on exiting because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent.

As I look at Life’s Road, with its twists and turns, I am beginning to appreciate what presence brings in each moment because our fears really can facilitate our experiences.  With all my expectations, I rarely had the opportunity to appreciate the emotions I didn’t like that came with change because I was not ready for disappointment, anger, or sadness.  I have fought my emotions for so long and when I lost that last relationship shortly after my job and right before my Grandfather, I couldn’t fight the feeling because of how intense it was and how it consumed me.

It was a lifetime of not accepting change and the feelings that came with it and during that time, I felt it all fully because it helped me to really feel alive.  I have since been cultivating the garden of my observer and feel all of this without getting so overtaken by it that I forget I have peace in each moment, if only because I realize I am not my emotion, I am just feeling them.  Whatever I am feeling is really okay because it wouldn’t be experienced if it was not necessary.

The disappointment that came with my attachments, the suffering that I thought I was going through was merely my opposition to allowing whatever was present in my life.  The other day, my then girlfriend and I broke up.  I met her months before my Grandmother passed and there was chemistry that I chose to ignore until I was reminded of the frailty of life on the day my Grandmother passed away.

I gave love a chance again because I was present and it felt right to do so.  I opened, allowed myself back into love, and yet we broke up.

It was mutually created, it sucks, but it is beautiful because I can allow my feelings to exist.  I can accept that this is where I am.  As with previous changes, where I didn’t know what was yet to come, I still do not know.

The fact that I feel strong enough to get out of bed, go to work, keep walking, give myself space to grieve, be angry, smile, laugh and feel peace as I go through each day is liberating.  It is challenging but considering that I am a stronger person this time around, I made it through something that was at the time what I would consider worse, so I will be okay.

I am going to be okay because I already am.  Even though I didn’t set out for this relationship to unfold as it did, the fact is it did.  I am not a victim.  I just had an experience and that is cool.

 

Circles of Life : Healing the Inner Child

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At 434 Tattoo, Tattoo Adam has often expressed to me the idea of circles and Life, and  I have heard oftentimes that it is important to close circles before entering into new endeavors.  When I watch how the patterns in Life unfold, I have many times seen repeats, though in new experiences with new people, the same lessons seem to apply.

I’m told that I am still young, at the cusp of 33, and I can look back and see how I was hardly present in my Life.  I was either wishing to be ahead or past something or had an opportunity to revisit another ‘past something,’ that had occurred.  When a Mentor expressed that I should expect the unexpected, the words did not quite register until a jarring change after jarring change occurred.

As each shake to my Life hit, I started to adopt a mantra of: ”This is where I am…”

It is usually when I can honestly say those words without shuddering, that I finally accept whatever has occurred, if only to feel aligned within, whether it makes sense outside of me or not.  To get to the place where I can say those words, I often have to check-in with the different characters of my Inner Family.  The one who seems to have taken the brunt of it all, my Inner Child, is usually the last who I remember to check-in with.  I am striving to be more attentive to that part of me because each jab of Life, which sparks the incessant non-sense of “I am not Loved” by Life, God, whoever, whatever really has to do with the wound to my Inner Child, who I have spent a Lifetime learning how to Love and who I will continue to do the same, if only to Love within more Fully.

I have long believed it possible to not have to run away or escape the “this is where I am…” that is going on in Life around me.  Just because I felt that way does not mean that I have necessarily applied it.  There may always be a part of me that wants to go for a run, a run away from my Life, but if I can be okay with that, perhaps then, I can move back to a sense of peace… permanently.

If we find Inner Peace, it allows us to find the Love in All of Life, even when chaos may be unfolding around us.  Storms have calms and there has to be a way that we can be there for if Nature does not judge itself, why should we?

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AUM Redux: Happiness

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“To live is suffer.  And to survive, well that’s to find the meaning in the suffering…” ~ DMX

The first spiritual mentor that I ever really consciously had would talk about how our feelings were a choice.  I don’t know if we choose all feelings but I do think we can choose our way to hold on to or to let go of feelings that don’t serve us.  Lately, I’ve been experiencing doldrums, the normal highs and lows, and I keep coming back to choosing happiness, which I didn’t practice.  I told people about it because I knew it worked but finally I decided to put it into play in my life, and it’s had quite an impact on me…

It’s not always immediate that my mood changes but it changes every time, every time and that amazes me, it humbles me, and resonates deeply with my Heart because…

I realize the reason why it changes.  I’m now consciously talking to God, the Spirit, and I know this to be so because of the feelings I’ve had in the Journey over the years, that I’m being heard and now I go there, much as the traditions teach, because it is there I can release, I can let go, and let Love into my life.

That there alone, the sense, to trust that Something out there greater than me is still there, regardless of if I can prove it or not, is so powerful.  And recently, it has led me to have giant flashbacks of different points in my life, times where I didn’t know, didn’t believe if I was heard or not but I didn’t know where else to turn, who else, what else to talk to.

I often see myself on the train, the first time I rode the train to New Orleans, where I would experience an energy of Rebirth and ask for the Spirit to enter my life, to accept that energetic passage that Jesus opened up to the Christ Consciousness.  I also see the train on my way to San Francisco, where I finally allowed healing through presence and mindfulness to enter my life.

Many times, I see moments of my childhood, doors I’ve long kept shut.

I don’t know what’s going to happen.  Still debating on calling this IDontKnow.com and there’s alot that isn’t perfect.  But I choose happiness.  And more importantly, I choose to find the meaning in the happiness…

 

A Time to Fly: The End of the World or To End in Peace

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As 2012 unravels, the big ball of string that is the End of the Mayan Calendar and the possible End of the World [or oooh, my favorite and the Zombie Apocalypse] will be interesting to watch.

But doesn’t it seem like we go through one of these scares or events every decade…

I was born in 1980, and from the ole Google Search, I learned that talk of Armageddon was going on back then.  I was too young to remember, shoot, I wasn’t even born when the predictions were made so I won’t expand much there but it fits with my every ten years hypothesis/thought experiment so I’m going to roll with it.

End of Times talk and fear was rampant during the End of the Cold War, I was old enough to pick up on that, I may not have understood it but I could feel that the events had gravity too them.  I remember things like the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Protests of Tiananmen Square that same year, and then there was Desert Storm and I felt the fear, the frenzy that came from watching on television, images of the first bombs, the planes, the correspondents, this was my first conscious experience of war in this plane of existence so it stood out.  I also remember the collectible trading cards that came out during that time too.  Any way to make a buck eh?  And that seemed odd to me.

In the 90′s, I was basically emo minus the long hair, I played basketball, and I listened to rap music.  Or maybe I wasn’t emo and just a teenager…

At the time, I felt misunderstood, which after counseling/mentoring a number of teens since, I can see how I didn’t understand myself so how could I expect anyone else to relate? And I just needed something to relate to me.  And rap music did that for me. And things that made my Inner Child believe in magic but that’s another story.

The charged emotion of the beats, the sound of the voices, the feelings I felt that summed up a life I couldn’t understand in the body came out in the music, the experience.  I felt like I was relating and that’s illogical right?  Or is it?  Do not we all feel?.  They were the poets, the storytellers, the social commentators much as I find myself doing and growing into on my own path.  I think we’re all rappers, telling the stories of our lives, trying to understand the world by putting words to it. And I think that’s cool.  If you’re going to understand life, shouldn’t you strive to know about your own?

As the 90′s unfolded and were to become the millienia, it built up to Y2K, where everything was supposed to shut down, the aliens were supposed to return, and all of that.  Nobody knew what would happen.  But low and behold, we had the computer programmers working it out.  Pretty cool, huh?  They didn’t wield swords or wands but they wielded their skills and magic, saved the system from crashing and then the Geeks continued to roll out more cool things to help and connect us.  To maybe finally come together.

Psych!  Of course not, not for us, humanity, we had to find our next End of the World fix…

And when 9/11 happened, well, that really felt like it for many, especially to collective psyche of America.  I remember getting an early call, crowding into a dorm room on my floor and man, if it did not seem like this generation’s version of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.  It was shocking, unbelievable, and as the news, the reports surfaced maybe there was more that could have been done by different parties to prevent it, but regardless, the event really happened and it shook us all, all of humanity.

I’d watch as President Bush became the first President to have both the record high and low approval ratings, which is apparently becoming a trend as President Obama is experiencing the swings himself.  But well, that’s the President, it comes with the job right?  He [or she in the future] should be able to take it, run with the ball and make our lives better.  Forget that there are elements of Congress that can make or break policy but #i’mjustsayin’ and besides, we have to get back to the End of the World in 2012 [Pssh, focus JMAW]!.

Yeah, 2012!  Woo, it’s like a spiritual new age conspiracy theorist’s wet dream and man, I’ve been hearing about 2012 ever since, ever since.  You can’t help but see the books when you’re making your way through the New Age and Spiritual sections of bookstores and libraries attempting to find an answer to your spiritual crisis and learn about healing after all…  And with titles that have End of the World and End of this, that, and otherwise, how could you not browse one.  I know.  I know! I had a choice not to read them, but still Spirit, I’ve been bombarded by this propaganda forever ways sideways! and some of the people are so charismatic, their believe so sound, how could it not be worth a look?

Then I started getting the nudges, the slaps from the Universe to live in the Present, to do the spiritual work, to answering the calling.  The Spirit spoke.  I ignored and the Apocalypse, my version of it, happened a few times in many different ways, but the really big grand chaotic symphony hit me in 2010 [Every ten years, I tell you!!!].  So I prayed.  I meditated.  I had no answers but it’s the only thing that made me feel better. And I met others, who experienced their lives falling apart.  Who felt there was something else out there, there had to be.

And if there was, I was going to find it!

I went on a walkabout, a vision quest, a you-know-what-it-really-was?  I just finally answered a call.  A Call to Love.  And as I looked at the pieces of my life, the micro-system and see it reflected what was unfolding in the macro-system of this shared life around me, I saw it as an intricate system and my world would become what I focused on it. My fears certainly came true because of my energy.  So did what I loved but I was so gripped by fear.  Because Love, it was, too natural…

Too easy.  No, way too easy, that’s what I always saw anyway, that the Heart would not lie, that Love was the way, but I couldn’t have felt that, I couldn’t just say that.  No, it’s got to be this job, no, wait, it’s got to be that relationship.  Bah!

Trust your Intuition, combine it with the pieces you see from Past and Present and see how where you place your energy, Love or Fear, you get experiences that mirror.  Then step back and think how if everyone is experiencing the same thing, aren’t we co-creating this whole ride?

Accept that it’s okay to be wrong about Fear, that it’s not the only way, and let go of this fatalistic obsession of self-sabotage that doesn’t result in the gigantic end of the world but ends the things that impact us the most with our families, our communities, our jobs, our individual worlds that we walk.  I think the world can end two ways, with a Bang or with surrender to Life being, well, Life.  We’ve been banging at it for awhile, why not try the alternative?

Might lead to Peace.  Inner Peace.

 

 

A Time to Fly: Embrace the Love

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There’s some truly Dark levels of experience out there.  In no way do I doubt that.  But I address that we don’t need to linger in there or feel powerless because of it.  The Ego will trap and hold us down not because it wants to, but because the certainty of Fear and the addiction of beating ourselves up is comforting in that it is known, it is so familiar, it’s easier to allow Dark than it is to shine Light.

Love may be our birthright, but our world is set up in a way to refute it at every turn.  That’s why fighting to see the Light aspects of life and not to the let darkened lens forever dim our outlook is so important.

Life is uncertain but that does not meant that we have to hate it.

It does not mean that we must hate ourselves.

Our Souls are on a Journey and in going through the Journey, we learn more and more about who we really are.  I truly believe incorporating a spiritual view, in however it works for each of us, can help to transcend the damages live brings to the psyche.  In the beginning, that damage comes from our own willingness to love and the inability to understand the situations where we are abused.  This often roots deep in childhood and it takes lifetimes of the Soul to move beyond because after awhile, we end up accepting the abuse, the limiting beliefs that get engrained within us as our reality.  We continue to perpetuate ‘crimes’ against ourselves and the Ego’s hold becomes so strong, it finds more and more ways to tell the story of Victimhood.

I know young man, who was a client, who is convinced the world will lead to famine, despair, and war.  He nicknamed himself, Doomsday, he tells me over and over he comes from Dark, and the Light doesn’t know, and that I’ve forgotten.  He’s so locked into his story he can’t see anything but what he believes.  He’s a strong force and though he told me that I make him question some of his thoughts, his energy makes me question. And while I question, I cannot, I will not accept his accounts as reality, because his reality is not mine.  His issues are not mine.  I need not be swayed and doubt all the Love I see everywhere because someone else does not allow it.

Because that’s not Faith.

Faith is without question.  On one level are there some really atrocious things out there.  Yes.  But can we really agree on what is good and bad.  No.  Not at all because we all have vastly different views.  This young man tells me I have a “Universe is Perfect Theory.”  I don’t think in terms or perfection, I think in terms of balance and when I say things are okay, they work out, it’s because I don’t fight it so much these days.  I can only change how I feel, I cannot change another, nor can I change the events that are unfolding that are beyond my control.

We cannot prove or disprove that what happened is meant to be or supposed to.  It’s just what is.  If we spend our time and energy hating on God or a Creator or not seeing a need for Love by looking at all the negative then what the heck are we in life for it?  Even our science has shown us both sides, that we will destroy should we continue to do so and that the world is replenishing itself despite our advances to kill it.  The world, Nature, is naturally balancing, returning to a state of well-being, it’s healing despite what we do…

There’s a whole lot of hate out there.  The hippies were on to something but then their extreme didn’t add up.  I think my life has shown me different things so that I could see how important it is to be able to mediate for my own life, look at it from both sides and come to a firm place in what I belief.  Not because it’s better than anything else, but because when each of us can arrive to the middle, then we can be clear and see life as truly intricate, beyond words, and amazing as it is.

We will argue until we die and then those who come will argue even more.  We have evidence of that.  We need not curse it.  It’s all a part of the experience.  The propaganda of the the End of World has been thrown around since the dawn of time.  Sooner or later we could make that happen.  Or maybe we won’t.  For many, that already is present.  Or it happened already.

Whatever the End of the World is for each of us, it’s definitely an experience but like any great movie, you can’t predict the end or know the story until you’ve seen it all  And if sh!t hits the fan, then we have to pick up the pieces, we can’t spend our lives waiting for that, preparing for it.  I don’t care what anyone says about stocking up on canned goods, because if the end of the world as per these predictions happen, none of us will be prepared because the change that takes place will hurt us deeper than some canned goods will allow.  The hurt that will be realized is that we caused it collectively.  And that to me, that’s why I push even more to share with others that we can live healthier.

We may still be able to ‘save this world.’ I believe in that.

We may not be be able to ‘save the world’ from going on a path of destruction.  I am aware of that.

But whatever happens, it happens, so why question, what’s not yet arrived.  We cannot continue to fight life.  We don’t have to fight it.  If anything, fight for your smile, fight for your Heart to not be consumed by the Fear, the Hate, the Misery that the individual and our collective Ego is so addicted to because it is known.

We have the ability to have amazing lives regardless of our circumstance.  We need only listen, we need only let go.  We must allow.

This young man, he tells me he sees me in the future, mad about things and on some council as we rebuild.

If anything, I’m mad now.  I’m mad that we as a people forget so quickly.  That as much evidence as we have to create good things, we buy into the bullsh!t that the Fearmongers sell.  If we live our lives on the what-if’s then it’s a hollow life, an empty life, a life that will be lost all to quickly, and if we each look at our individual lives honestly, we can see how those losses piled up, not because the system is against us, but because of our own addiction to misery and being averse to the fact that Pain, that Dark, is just a part of life and it is necessary.

I might never change the world and that’s okay.

But I’m going to change myself as much as I can, I’m going to find a way to find the Love in every experience.  The young man tells me I need a reason.  I know my reason, it’s always been family.  It’s always been about healing.  I don’t need any other reason as there’s too much to process it’s just overwhelming.  But to simplify I can step back, remind myself, I’m on a Journey and to find the Love, because I promise, I guarantee, as the story unfolds, we can find it if we allow it.

So embrace what’s ours.  The only person that can do that for you is you so stop beating yourself up.  There’s no point to it.  Dark only has power if we believe it does.

 

Finding God in Pizza…

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Soooooooooooo…

The night after “I’m not an A$$**** McGee, the band kid with an attitude, rolled in, a young woman with some swagger came in with some friends and on the sly one of the friends was shooting a video.  It’s not the first time that I’ve been video’d or recorded during a reading but I figured, if there’s a chance that I’ll be on YouTube someday, I’m going to record it myself.

And well, it’s odd.  It’s like one big laugh at myself.  And I got to find some beauty in that.  I used to be intensely serious 24/7 and not so much these days.  There’s a dash of seriousness but I’m getting the playfulness of life down a little bit more each day.  There’s so much beyond our control.  We only have what we’ve been through and where we are currently to gauge what is to come, so even more so is being present, living Now, important.  The future, as much as maybe we can tune into it, is not yet written and life, each one of our lives is like a movie being watched for the first time.  There’s some awesomeness to that IMO.

With that, we’ve got Finding God in Pizza and whatever else F(ol)lows.  Much love to you all!

Invisible Thread

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Today I awoke and I was all about getting the Acai Bowl from Lanikai Juice.  I mean I was bout it bout it!  Well, messages from The Universe,  Grandma Universe, that is, and her Invisible Thread had a different idea…

I got downstairs to the street and heard: McDonald’s.  I was like what?  Really?  No…  I crossed the street, Acai on the the brain and I got there to see a huge line.  Again I heard: McDonald’s.  I was like okay, when I am Mindful and pay attention to the prompts, something always goes down, I better listen.  Usually not what I would have thought but the pleasant surprises of being in the moment are usually quite remarkable.

So I walked down the street, thinking I would just pass by.  Then I heard: Eggs.  I’m like great.  Now, I’ve had much experience listening to messages and following the Invisible Thread and I know it is important to pay attention.  So I tabled Jason’s agenda and went with Grandma Universe’s directives.

I walk in McDonald’s, probably the second time this whole year.  I don’t eat Fast Food much these days nor am I much of a meat eater for a few reasons.  I walked in and waited in line.  I got to the counter and noticed the clerk was wearing a star pendant in a heart.  She seemed rather unhappy so I decided to compliment her on the pendant.  The smile that she let out was stupendous.  She was beaming, like she could not stop.  I commented: see the star is sparkling just like you.

Now as much as I wasn’t that interested in McDonald’s, to see that woman smile, was well worth it.  I’ll follow the Invisible Thread for that any day.

DJ Red E. Now Exclusive!!!

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DJ Red E. Now Exclusive new track from It’ll Be Okay… very long title which is about as long as the book.  Support @ Kickstarter!!!

Relating to the Unknown

This is the best story I have.  Maybe not, but life shifting fo’sho and a big reason why I wrote this book.  When I turned 30, I made a list of 20 things that I learned in my 20′s and put it on my blog: www.TheSimpleVoice.Com (shameless plug for a blog I kept for many years).  Number (I don’t know off the top of my head, maybe you should visit the site…) on the list was about worry.  I estimated that I worried like 7.5 years or maybe it was 8 in my 20’s.  I’d look it up but I am not using the Internet and honestly, I don’t want to uber edit.  This book is never going to be perfect.  Books never are for writers.  For me, I change so much, I have so much to say, I just got to do it and be done with it.  And I’m okay with that.  I’m going treat this like it’s my first album then get back into the studio to record the next one.

Worry too much, did I, as Delta, would say.  Delta’s a character I encountered at 24, shortly after being told I would have a higher calling…  That’s quite the story and talk about not knowing what was about to go down.  So now, I will tell you about Roy…

This is from my other book, A Call to Love, Chapter Uno:

“Excuse me.” A short, local Asian man said.  Before I could answer, he began to squeeze past me to the window seat aboard a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Hilo to Honolulu.  I was attempting to absorb the concept of Mindfulness as presented in Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Peace is Every Step, the big point of that book being to just breathe and smile, a concept that was simple felt so good yet was so hard to practice.

I looked up and was able to breathe, forgot to smile, but somehow found the presence of mind to move aside for him.  I took some satisfaction in that because it took me until the age of 11 to really be able to ride a bicycle.  I was not natural at very many things in my body growing up to say the least.

I felt a deep peace while focusing my attention on presence to my breathing, a peace that lasted so briefly, but filled me in a way I had never been filled before.  The smiling was kind of foreign to me.  I had spent much of my adolescence and early 20′s in depression and self-loathing so this smiling thing was something I had not practiced with regularity since childhood.  I used anger to protect my deeper feelings from various accumulated baggage in life.  Not that I had a bad life, I just didn’t understand this conflict that I had while trying to live in this world.   I can recall many times resenting having feelings, despising my humanity.  I hated feeling because I could always feel so much pain, in myself, in my family, in friends.  I did not understand it worth a lick and being sensitive wasn’t cool for a 20-something young man so I wore my many masks.  Factor in that I had no idea of what my purpose in life was and I felt lost and frustrated with my existence.

The flight from the Big Island of Hawaii to Oahu was an hour at most and it usually felt much quicker for me.  I was so programmed to getting to point B without enjoying the journey it took to flow from Point A.  This day was different, I closed my eyes to practicing my breathing and smiling.

I awoke to the Captain’s closing remarks.  “Please adjust your seat backs and tray tables.  We’ll be landing shortly.  On behalf of the crew, thank you for choosing to fly Hawaiian.”  I stretched and felt like the man next to me was watching me.  I looked at him and he told me, “That’s good you read books like that.”

“I’m training in Muay Thai and I really enjoy the philosophy behind it.” I replied excitedly as Muay Thai was something that I loved for the energy it gave me.  The practice made the ugly bruises and lumps all worth it.  I gazed past him and could see the city where I was born, Honolulu, through the window beside him.  I always enjoyed flying into Honolulu at night because the outcropping of buildings and lights between the valleys looked like a modern day technological lava flow.

The plane made its descent as usual.  There I sat.  Breathing and…

Shock, fear raced through me as the plane made a sharp turn upwards.  I could feel the concern growing in the passengers near me as panic spread throughout the aircraft.  All except for the man next to me, I felt his calm energy.

The plane leveled off and I made a weak joke about the experience, humor being one of the things I had learned to mask my true emotions.  The man smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry, it won’t be 40 or more years until you start to question if your work here on Earth is over.”

“What the…?” I started to say and stopped mid-sentence as I started to get a strange tingling all through out my body, a feeling that I have since learned means there is something greater at play.  “My name is Roy.  I read spirits.”  He said in the same fashion as someone who worked in an office would.

“Um, hi, I’m Jason, I read books as long as they aren’t for class…” I thought to myself.

“We haven’t much time.  I’m connecting to Maui and we’ll land shortly.”

I was taken out of my thoughts, back to the plane that was still in the air and wondering what had just happened.  So much for mindfulness, in a few short moments, I’d gone from breathing and smiling to “May day! May day!” to the noonoo noonoo Twilight Zone.  “Sorry for that folks.  This is your Captain, we were having a little trouble with the landing gear.  We’ve adjusted the problem and will be on the ground shortly.”

I had read and heard about psychic people but never paid it much mind.  Magic was only for the fantasy novels I grew up with and movies as far as I was concerned.

Roy interrupted my thoughts and started on “You have a very calm and peaceful spirit.”  I laughed and replied, “You know, it’s funny, I get like that only in times of emergencies at work.”  I was working as a Resident Advisor at the University of Hawaii and was bombing in school and relationships but great at conflict resolution, addressing suicide attempts, and breaking up fights.

“It’s because you care.” He continued.  “Jesus cared too, he cared so much in fact that he gave us the greatest commandment, the commandment to love above all else, and would later give his life for what he believed.”

I nodded my head in agreement.  At that time, I had just changed my major to Horticultural Business, I had like 5 majors, but I always gravitated towards Religion classes and I could get down with Jesus though I’d walked away from Catholicism shortly before graduating from high school.  For some reason, it didn’t totally fit me and I vibed with elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam.  It just all seemed like it was saying the same thing to me…

“You have the chance to be great… or mediocre.  The choice is yours really.”  Roy seemed to finish right as the plane landed.  My brain was about to explode from this experience yet my heart finally felt okay like I had been reminded about some long forgotten truth…

The plane rolled to the terminal and I asked Roy a few more questions that I cannot recall.  I found the coincidence that he sat next to me quite interesting.

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.  Every thing happens for a reason my young friend.”  Roy replied.

We gathered our things and walked off the plane, the crowded terminal abuzz with people coming and going.  I felt like I was in the Matrix.  What a shocking experience!

We shook hands and before leaving he looked at me again and said, “In your life, you will have two guides to mentor you, a Hawaiian man and a Hawaiian woman, like modern day Kahuna.  They will help you start along your spiritual path.” He paused, allowing the words to sink in.

“Breathe, Jason, just breathe.” An inner voice guided me.

“The Spirit of the Hawaiian Islands, Akua, has a higher calling for you.”  He smiled and like that he was gone.  I don’t recall if I watched him leave or if I could even believe what had just transpired.  After all, things like that don’t just happen, do they?

I left and headed back to the University of Hawaii, to get back to work and life.  I practiced my breathing and smiling, began to high-five trees to remind me to enjoy life around me, and left the meeting with Roy at that.

Kind of a trip of a flashback, huh?  Dude I bet if you looked back you’d find conversations of similar tones, maybe minus the words spiritual calling but you catch my drift: random stranger coming in at random time to say random thing which has a profound impact of the most random type.  The messages are all around us really.

Roy said a great many things to me, obviously.  The bit about being great or mediocre really stuck out.  Stuck with me every day since.  Doesn’t haunt me but I do want to be great at being me.  I would be happy to hear if just one person feels that way because of reading this.  I would be happy to get laughed at too.  I would be happy even if this doesn’t make it off my computer because life’s a pretty passing thing anyway, I wouldn’t hold on to it, and I have learned that’s the secret to life, the only thing that really matters about the Unknown:

It’s a Divine Comedy.  Don’t hold on or hold back.  Live. Love. Laugh.  And gosh have fun and play!  Cause when it’s done, it’s done.

Last Letters: The Out-takes

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Following up the serious tone of this essay on Death and this Last Letter to my Children, I had to inject humor into the book(It’ll Be Okay… Healing Amidst Living, Loving, and Dying, yada, etc. blah blah blah). I’d like to think there was humor all throughout most of it but eh, I can think all I want you know?

If you read here, then you’ll see that I was creating something along the way/there being a point to it all. And little did I know the CDC would issue a Zombie Apocalypse Protocol and the Preachers would preach about the End of Times so I suppose it was fitting I wrote these Last Letters.   See, really am Psychic!  (But so are you!)

Check back for more Letters and some Op-Eds that I wrote to the NY Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Chicago Sun Tribune.  I’ll have some Op-Ed out-takes as well I’m sure.

Anyhow, here’s some of my Last Letters that didn’t make the cut, hence The Out-takes:

Letters To Some Famous People:

President Barack Obama:

To my fellow Keiki o ka Aina, I lived in the same building as you.  It tripped me out.  It inspired me in many ways.  I say keep going and doing what you gotta do.  I don’t think McCain would have done a much better job.  I believe all of you in that post are doing the best you can.  Even Bush.  We’re lucky we are free to play armchair President.  Even those of us people who aren’t American.  What a life, eh?  I wrote this book for many reasons but in part because I agree with you:  “I believe that we can be better.”

Lil Wayne:

You’re brilliant.  I hope this book drives up sales although you’re pretty huge so my free advertisements might not be helping much.  But I can hope to help.  I admire your creativity and flow.  Keep it going Weezy Wee!  If I’m still alive and you read this, please let me write a rhyme for you.  Shoots!

Grace Park:

I have had a crush on you ever since you were Boomer in Battlestar Galactica.  I told myself I would talk to you and not treat you like a celebrity if I ever ran into you at Whole Foods in Kahala.  I had this whole idea how I would break the ice by discussing how great a job you did playing Boomer.  It was a challenging role they gave you, not to mention some of the things your character had to go through.  I thought you did a great job.  So anyway, the day came, I saw you, and I chickened out.  Oh well…

Kate Plus Eight:

Your husband wasn’t too cool in the end but you stomped on the poor guy.  That video of you yelling at your kids to drink the water was kind of rough too.  I feel a lot of compassion for you.  Life is just crazy and I can’t imagine what your soul wanted in this incarnation.  It’d be interesting to read your cards.  I wish the best to your kids and hope that they get all the support they need as being in the spotlight from that early on has been rough on other kids.

BJ Penn:

Run for Governor of Hawaii.  I guaranteed you’d win and the politicians would respect you because in real life you would beat their asses.  They have to enact a law where the Governor could apply a Rear Naked Choke (RNC) to a bad bill or something.  IDK.  It’d be entertaining.  Or you could RNC some of the Hawaii Reps or Sens.  There’s a bunch that deserve it I imagine.  Just ask their constituents.

Tito Ortiz:

You talk a lot of shit but you’re about your business and I was always pulling for you to make a comeback.  Call me old school, I first started Muay Thai around the time you fought Shamrock and that sold me on MMA as the most awesome sport ever.  Good luck guy!

Will Smith:

You were like my TV big brother.  I felt like I learned a lot of life lessons from you and it was cool to see you move into movies.  Thanks for being that big brother that I could pop into the DVD player when I got older and needed some advice.

Charlie Sheen:

See someone to help with your awakening.  I argued that you were waking up and it scared away an opportunity for me to get interviewed for some of my work that I did in the area of mystical experiences (you owe me).  I clearly feel like you’re having some very clear mystical experiences but don’t know how to deal with it.  But eh, don’t listen if you don’t want to.  You seem to have it under control.  And you have a machete so you’re good to go.

Zach Galifanakis:

You crack me up.  Your video to that one song where you are on the tractor which was a Kanye track (I think) was pretty awesome.  I hope you keep doing your two ferns thing for years to come because laughter is such a great part of life. Note: my friend Bryce wants to be in movies.  He could play your brother in something.  Plus according to him, his beard is more awesome.

President George W. Bush:

You’re like the Uncle I’d want to drink a beer with.  And I don’t really drink much, if at all these days.  And if I do it’s wine.  I like beer, just doesn’t agree with me.  I get what we call in Hawaii the Asian glow and turn all red.  Anyway, thanks for your sense of humor man.  You seemed to take stuff really in stride.  Hope retirement is better than the Presidency was.  I tried to write a piece for some website about how you had some similarities to Leonidas around the time The 300 came out.  It didn’t do too well.  I think that’s the reason people didn’t vote for it which is funny because as much shit as people talk you got re-elected.  Anyway, good luck to you, Sir, I think you did the best you could.

Oprah:

Doesn’t look like I made it on your show.  It’s your last year anyway.  Oh well.  Keep on doing what you’re doing.  I will be honest, I used to think a lot of people were brainwashed by you but I put down the Haterade because you do some great things for the world so if it means drinking the O Network Kool Aid in order to do great things in the world, sign me up.  Congrats to you and all you accomplished.  I hope more women can be as empowered and amazing as you are!

The Jersey Shore:

I have only seen a handful of episodes of your show because if you read this, you know I haven’t had much cable.  What to say to you all?  Well, I imagine you, like the rest of us are trying to make the most out of your lives and trying to put the pieces together.  I hope some day you don’t feel like you have to sell yourselves or act out unless that’s really in your hearts.  I kind of doubt it but the douchebaggery is possible for any and all of us so cool.  Take care of your ladies and no more getting beat downs.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

You’re pretty awesome.  I heard the coolest story of how some guy named Israel met you at the White House and he wasn’t the official greeter because Condoleeza was.  He was slightly scared he’d get in trouble but you were so nice he didn’t want to peace out right away.  It cracked me up because he said you introduced yourself and he followed it up with Israel because that was his name.  It just painted a funny picture in my mind, the Dalai Lama and Israel.  Anyway, thanks for being such a down being and so open.  You rock!

Jack Black:

One of my best friends reminds me of you.  His name is Tai and he plays music.  I wrote the perfect movie for you.  It wouldn’t have won you an Oscar or anything but it would have been cool and probably would have made us some scrilla.  Tai and I tried your all food groups McDonald’s sandwich back in the day.  Wasn’t too great… Whatever though, keep (bleeping) it gently!