Fear vs. Hope

I realized the day after I wrote about aliens that it was a post generated by and promoting fear.  At least that's how I feel about it, and that's not really what I intended to do.


Do the alien dreams I have genuinely worry at me?  Yes.  Do videos like the one I posted freak me out?  Yes.  Do I think there is a rational reason to be afraid, and that the phone call in that video is genuine?  At the risk of sounding like a lunatic, yes.


After all that, do I think our future is bleak and hopeless?  No.  A thousand times no.


I'm not always entirely sure where the hope lies.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how big and out of my hands it all seems, how little there appears to be that I can do.  This is true of life in general, and at times I've allowed myself to sit and stagnate.


That, I've learned, doesn't help.


I'm not always sure what action I can take to make myself feel better, and the idea of being in control of something I know precious little about other than how deeply troubled I feel about it is ludicrous, really.  I think the best I can do is try my hardest to make day to day decisions about life that I can live with, and be prepared to put up a fight against Darkness and Evil wherever I see them.  Hopefully then, if the shit hits the fan in a way that I've dreamt about, I'll be ready to do something about it instead of being frozen in fear.


And if it never happens, well, then I'll have lived a life that I hope I can look back on and say, yes, I did the best I could with what I had, and I strove to improve on that every day, and promote Light instead of Darkness, and Hope instead of Fear.

Alien Encounter

As far back as I can remember I have had strange dreams.  I say strange but what I really mean is other people find them strange, disturbing even, while I find them perfectly normal.  To wake up after having been run through with a spear held by Mel Gibson's William Wallace intrigues me.  I find it simple to go about my day after running from former friends by escaping through a secret door into a snow maze in a town suddenly filled with enemies at every bend...as long as it happened in a dream.

Every so often I'll have a dream that for no rational reason disturbs me.  Sometimes it'll be a dream about demons, but those don't always bother me upon waking.  A dream about Oliver Twist, or being an orphan, or being chased by a clown who wanted to drug me with cough syrup.  It's usually because of whatever the dream was telling me, and I know to pay attention to those ones, the ones that last with me all day.


There are only two categories of dreams that I always awaken from in a cold sweat.  Dreams about Ecthroi - and dreams about aliens.  I've only had Ecthroi dreams in the past few years.  I've had alien dreams almost as long as I can remember.  They've always left me deeply terrified, the kind of fear you'd get if someone really truly was out to harm you and there was nothing you could do about it.


The dreams all have similar points in common.  They always start innocuously, with me looking up at the night sky and enjoying, or at the least indifferent to, the stars.  Every time I notice that some of the stars are different colours than normal - faintly green or red.  And every time, once I notice that, I see that these stars are moving, and creating formations, and coming down out of the sky.  They are not stars at all.  They're ships, filled with aliens.


This is where the variations come in.  The aliens either kidnap me and send me to another world to work as a slave, a world that I have no chance of ever escaping, so that I will never get to come back home to my family where I belong.  Or they pretend to be friends of mankind but the moment that anyone expresses doubt (or even thinks doubtful thoughts) they begin their hostile takeover.  Or they don't bother with the facade and just begin killing and enslaving mankind.


I always have the urge to hide, every time.  You know that urge you got when you were a kid (and maybe still get now although you'll never admit it), that crazy sudden need to hide as fast as possible from what, you never really knew?  And there was a hint of exhilaration, like how a kitten must feel when they're going through their midnight crazies?  Well, it's like that but instead of excitement it's terror, sheer terror, and I know to my bones that if I don't hide, if I can't get away, that my life is going to be complete hell.  It'll probably be a really short life, but what's left of it will be hell on earth.


So when I see videos like this...well, it gets to me.  Because this is what I see - and I've seen it since before I knew about the internet.  When I didn't have a TV.  When there was no way that I know of that I could have gotten this information from anywhere but my own subconscious mind.  And I don't know how to reconcile that without freaking myself the hell out.


http://youtu.be/RjGYSGbAEUM

Yeah.  That phone call at the end?  FREAKS ME OUT.  Genuinely.  Because it sounds absolutely real and if it is, what does that mean?

What does that mean for all of us?

I've recently heard an idea that what we perceive as UFOs are not extraterrestrial in origin, but supernatural.  That resonates with me, and not in a good way.  If you think about it, almost all UFOs and aliens behave in ways that defy the laws of physics...but they follow all of our understood rules for the supernatural.  Plus, they've been lying to us on a regular basis about where they come from.  Anything that shows up and lies to us can't be trusted - I'd go further and say that they're probably our enemies.

What if aliens aren't from another world at all?  What if they're just another, modern disguise for demons?

I know some people who read this will write me off as a kook.  And some of you will think it's endearing, how I believe this is all true.  But I don't really care.

Because I'm the one having the dreams.

I'm Not Dead

Hi! I'm not dead.

Just in case you were wondering.

I've just been busy, and then forgot that I had a blog until I read the super-awesomeness that is www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com which you should all go read. And read the archives too.

I do feel like I'm putting some of the pieces of my life back together, which is good. In case I forgot to mention here, I felt like I'd lost direction and purpose and had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself.

I've finally stopped fighting the fact that I want to be a writer, and that's about all I want to do. Ever.

So I'm figuring out what to do with that, other than writing obviously, and we'll see where I go next.

But I won't wait so long in between posts next time.

The Darkness

I've been watching a lot of Dexter recently. He talks about the Darkness he has living inside him, that darkness he has to feed else it take over his life.

I can't relate. Not entirely.

Lately I've been struggling. Isn't that how all my posts go? Struggle should be a tag for my posts. Oh wait, it already is.

Last summer I was depressed. It felt like the world was one big dark hole and I was being sucked into it against my will and there was nothing I could do to stop the world around me from falling apart.

If we hadn't gotten Z. I don't know what would have happened. Z. made me get up in the morning. I had to do things because she needed me to.

I feel that dark vacuum sneaking up on me again and I'm panicking a bit. I think I'm aware enough to stop it - to reach out and socialize and keep myself from falling apart - but what if I'm deluding myself? What if there's nothing I can do to keep it from grabbing me again?

I can't stomach another summer like that.

S. and I can't survive another summer like that.

So I'm writing about it. It seems like a slightly futile effort but it's all I have right now.

I'm currently fighting the pull of the black hole, and today I'm winning.

Yesterday I lost. But today I'm winning.

Perhaps that all I can do, go one day at a time and hope that I win more often than I lose.

Life

Not much to say.

I've been in a strange head space since Wednesday. Not a bad one. Just a different one, and unexpected.

Z. is growling at a pit bull outside. The fur along her spine is all standing on end. It looks hilarious but I probably shouldn't be encouraging this.

We had hail today. My flowers survived. Huzzah for the balcony.

They cut down the trees in the neighbours' back yard. I am unhappy about this. The trunks lie bucked up in the alley, useless to everyone unless they let them dry out to be used for firewood. Another neighbour has a wood burning stove. Perhaps the loss won't be a complete one.

And other than that I have not much to say.

Smiling at Strangers

I've been in rehearsals because - tada! - I'm in a show coming up! Which is great. Which also means I've been taking the bus to the rehearsal hall because S. is working at Heritage Park again and he is using the car. Why am I not also at a typical job? That's another blog post.

This blog post is about smiling. Or strangers. Or random encounters with strangers. I'm not sure yet.

I was waiting for the bus and a man walked down the sidewalk with a huge smile on his face. That isn't necessarily strange, although it isn't often that you see someone smiling that broadly in public. Which is really sad when you think about it. But what made it odd was that he was actively seeking out eye contact with the people he met. And he was well dressed - not a homeless bum whom you could assume was hopped up on something, but a business man or some sort of professional. And most people looked away! And his smile didn't dim! I smiled back. I almost didn't. But then I did and it made me feel better.

So then I began to actively people watch. I don't think I was smiling but I was actively alert, watching, interested in the world around me. I usually car watch while I wait for the bus - you know, check out the various vehicles and wonder what it's like to drive that Jag or Beamer or Benz or beat up Oldsmobile. Now I switched my attention to the drivers. Most of whom were wearing sunglasses and either frowning or chatting on cell phones and frowning. People in the city are grumpy looking drivers. Or perhaps that's the 'I'm occupied' expression of humanity. I don't know. I continued once I got on the bus, looking down at the drivers around me.

I made eye contact with a woman who was driving a shiny grey-green car, don't remember what kind. She smiled at me, a real genuine smile! A smile that said, I see you people watching! I do that too! And I smiled back. Later I saw her join the cell phone chatting masses but for a moment she was a real person, with a real smile, someone I wouldn't trip if zombies were chasing me.

The next day I was waiting for the bus again. On my way down the street a somewhat disheveled gent asked me for a light. I don't smoke, so I don't carry a lighter. Which is what I said as I continued to walk. He kept going also. He ended up at the same bus stop. Asked me again for a light. Once again I said no. He asked someone else and then settled down at the bus stop and looked me up and down and asked if he could help me out. I never know what to do when random disheveled strangers start talking to me. I said I didn't need any help (as I said it I smiled to myself - you never know what kind of help you need until someone offers help flashed through my head) and then he asked me if I wanted to buy a bus transfer. I said I had a ticket, and as my mouth moved my heart sank as I realized I had left my book of tickets at home. And the bus was too close for me to run home, grab them, and get back in time. He offered them for a dollar. For fifty cents. I didn't have any money on me so I had to decline, even though I needed one. And then he got grumpy, asking me what kind of world was this where nobody had a light or carried any money.

I got a bit alarmed at this point. Not going to lie. I said, Sorry, I don't smoke and I don't carry cash, now will you please leave me alone.

He gave me a transfer anyway and then walked off and promptly vanished. I don't mean I saw him dematerialize, but I have no idea where he went so quickly.

I was very grateful for the transfer even though I felt like I was defrauding the system. And I mentally apologized multiple times for panicking and being rude.

I found the bus tickets in my backpack once I arrived at the rehearsal hall. I had them all along but didn't know it.

I hope he found his light.

Magnetic Attraction

When I was a little kid I discovered the concept of divining answers from a magnet on a string. I can't remember where I heard about it first; some book about divining for water and minerals, I think. I can't remember how I learned about it. I do remember that I immediately went out, made a magnet-string tool, and discovered that it worked. In my test run it told me one of our lambs was a girl. I already knew that but that's why it was a test. I thought it was wrong when it said bunny Patty was a boy and bunny Clover was a girl, but later that turned out to be true as well. (Patty became Patrick. It was a simple transition.)

I told my brothers about it. We were all able to do it, me and my youngest brother with a little more skill than my middle sibling. My youngest brother could make the magnet swing in different directions by thinking at it, even when someone else was holding the string.

My mom was squibby about the whole thing. "You don't know what you're opening yourself up to," she said. "Satan appears as an angel of light, you know."

I was puzzled at first. The whole concept of not recognizing darkness in disguise didn't make sense to me then. It makes a little more sense to me now but I still think that God gives us a pretty good feel for when we're being deceived and when we aren't. If we can't trust that instinct then we can't trust any of it, I think, since that's all we really have to go on.

That and evidence of behaviour I guess.

It does suck that we're so good at deceiving ourselves, but that's where self-awareness comes into things.

Dad seemed to think that divining gender was a simple electro-magnetic thing. Scientific. He had little to say about asking questions and getting yes/no answers. Probably because I didn't ask him about it.

I haven't used the magnet on a string for a long time. For a while when I lived in Rosebud I lost my ability to use it. Along with my ability to make clouds dissipate. I ran into a skeptic who had more power over me than I realized; more power over me still I think than I would like but now I'm aware of that and I keep my walls politely up to protect myself. Before I realized that though, my faith was tested and my connection to the other side was a struggle and nothing that couldn't be explained rationally worked for me. I lost the magnet. It slipped from my mind altogether.

A few weeks ago I am cleaning the office and I find my magnet from all those years ago. Still on the green braided yarn string I made to keep it safe. It falls out of a box into my hand like it had never left. I try to see what it would say about Z. but she keeps trying to bite it, so I put it on the dresser and forget about it again.

Until this morning. It is stuck to my glasses case so I pick it up and began to play around with it like I used to. What gender of baby will my friends have next? A boy. Will I be an RVP within the next 5 years? Yes. Will I be an Area Manager in a year from now? No. By next GTC? Yes. Will S. and I get married? No, but when I ask if we'll be together for the rest of our lives it swings yes. Will I live past 60? Yes. Will Scott? No. Hmm. Will we have children? This confuses the magnet. First it says yes; on further questioning it says one boy and one girl; then two boys; then one boy; then no children at all. We will, however, have a theatre company together. That it seems pretty sure about.

A friend of ours read S.'s palm and said he'll live to be an old man and he'll have three daughters, with me. Who is right? I guess only time will tell.

I notice that sometimes when it swings yes it swings clockwise, and sometimes counter-clockwise. So I ask if those directions meant different things. Clockwise it swings. Does clockwise mean yes for certain? Clockwise. Does counter-clockwise mean a likely yes but not a certain one? It stays counter-clockwise. I test it by asking something I knew the answer to - clockwise it swings. Again I ask if I'll be an Area Manager by the next GTC. Counter-clockwise - likely but not certain.

Huh.

Spoiler alert - if you haven't read The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, skip this next paragraph.

I recently re-read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. In that series the main character, Lyra, uses a form of divination to determine the truth of things past, present and future. She learns that a substance called Dust is on the 'other side' as it were, answering the questions. The Dust also answers questions through the I Ching. Presumably it uses all forms of divination, but those were the only two mentioned in the books. The Dust is later revealed to be fallen angels. If I hadn't read the series it probably never would have occurred to me to ask who was answering my questions. It certainly had never occurred to me before.

Are you what Lyra refers to as Dust?

Definite yes.

Am I dealing with a spirit?

Certain yes.

Is that spirit neutral?

No.

Is that spirit good?

No.

Is that spirit evil?

Certain yes.

Hmm. Interesting.

Was my mother right about this?

Yes, she definitely was.

Was my father right about this?

Nope.

I continue to ask questions. Are you accurate? Mostly. Is your aim to harm me? No. Is your aim to hurt me? Yes. Can you hurt me? Yes. Can you harm me? No.

The distinction is important - hurt is temporary. You can recover from hurt. Hurt is a burn. Harm though. Harm is a bigger deal. Harm is something that takes a lot of time and potential therapy to recover from. Abuse is harm. And hurt. Anyway. The magnet clearly understands the difference.

Should I as a Christian stop messing around with this?

Definite yes.

I put the magnet back on the dresser and go upstairs.

I wonder how honest the spirit on the other side is but I'm not sure if I'll go ask.

I might just use that magnet to find stray needles from now on.

Patron Saint for a Year

This is a break away from Reverb10.

I got this from the blog of a woman I greatly respect and admire.

Her patron saint for the year is St. Florian. I'd never heard of him before.

Mine is St. Patrick. Yes, the St. Patrick, patron saint of engineers, Ireland and Nigeria. Against the fear of snakes and snake related incidents. And apparently also the patron saint of excluded people according to the brief blurb I read when I got him here.

I read that to include those who are isolated or alienated.

Interesting, no?

I thought so.

I'll be back with the rest of the Reverb10 posts but I wanted to share this first.

Now, when you are least suspecting it -

I know you probably thought I'd forgotten, or given up on, Reverb10.

Surprise! I was writing them, but forgetting to post them.

There is a subtle difference.

So here's the next one. It's practically a bullet point list, but I did write it early in the morning - or maybe late at night - I don't know. Don't judge me.

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

I want to try to make a sundress. I also want to try to build a business so I can work from home. I also want to try to finish a novel I started a year ago; and try to get another novel sent to a publisher.

All of the above are things I wanted to try in 2010. What happened when I tried all those things this year - the sundress got put on hold when I had no iron and I had a bent needle on my sewing machine; building a business proved harder than anticipated and I gave up and restarted and gave up and restarted and then felt like God was telling me to slow down and wait for my time - not yet, not yet; I got too involved in the novel and then sank into depression and had to leave it alone; and I lost my other novel in my office which was/is a disaster area and only recently found it again.

What happened to me with all of this is that I felt worthless and like I couldn’t finish anything.

I know that isn’t true though. So I’m going to try again and this time I’m going to succeed.