My Newest Book, “Millennial Springtime: Love In The Vast Lane”
March 31, 2015 by admin · Leave a Comment
At last, my fourth book is in its final months of preparation and I look forward to having it in hand before this Spring, 2015, is over. That would be very appropriate, since my book’s title is the title of this blog posting: “Millennial Springtime: Love In The Vast Lane.” Rather than merely a few months in our calendar year, this title refers to the first quarter of a thousand-year millennium, or a full 250 years. We are now so early in that vast time period, that we don’t even think in those terms yet. I’m hoping to examine the brand-new, long-term cycle which we’ve entered without even noticing it.
As I described in my last post, I experienced the very productive Tom Bird’s Writer’s Retreat in Sedona, Arizona, last week, where some very personal material about my Spiritual Awakening in the form of Hearing Voices all came spilling out. This as a How It Feels To Go Crazy But Know You’re Not! kind of a revelation. How can one qualify for a diagnosis of Schizophrenia in 1980…. and probably still today? Just confess that you hear Voices in your head! My Voices began in 1980 when my kids were in high school; and I didn’t want to let them down, so I managed to turn off the noisy brain chatter through the use of Sony Walkman tape players. All was quiet for fifteen years.
Then, they came back, speaking again in my head, in 1995, when I no longer had a family at home, and I stayed with them. I have learned a great deal through my happy conversations with the Upper Realm since then and have published the results in my second book: “In Secret Diffusion: The Upper Realm Answers Questions About Earth” and through an ongoing website/blogsite www.insecretdiffusion.com where I solicit cosmic questions from the public. Then, interview The Holy Spirit for the answers.
My new book is a collection of many of these blog posts, written over a four-year period. The material I wrote in the Arizona Writing Retreat rounds it out by explaining how and why My Voices began and the life story behind that. A lot of the material centers upon this Millennial Rollover period and why there were such public expectations about what it meant to mankind. Remember how concerned everyone was, back then, in the decades before the year 2000? Some religions claimed the end of the world and some scientists worried that the lights would go out because of the Y2k bug.
And then, nothing happened! Apparently, anyway.
So, nobody talks about it any more. At all! Like a highly-anticipated party that nobody attended, after all. Well, my new book does talk about it and I make some highly original statements and conduct some very pertinent interviews with The Holy Spirit on the subject of this New Millennium and what it means to mankind. And the new things that are possible because of it.
One of which is that many people, all over the world, are hearing Voices and are organizing themselves to compare notes. There is a Hearing Voices Network, which I just learned about and intend to join. More about that soon. As I explain in this new book, God is now freely trying to initiate this conversational exchange with humankind. It’s not easy to break through to us. We become afraid. We get lost in the negative band that circles this planet and think that we’re going crazy. We don’t realize that God will literally “answer” our prayers and we are not sure whether we should talk to Whoever that is, in there, calling us by name. So much confusion these days. The medical profession doesn’t help in this instance. I believe that this is a new minority emerging from the closet and I hope to help all I can. This book shall address these issues.
The Vast Lane awaits when your inner hearing channels open up!
So, please hold your breath and wait just a little longer and Millennial Springtime will be yours for the ordering!
An Explosive Writing Experience!
March 27, 2015 by admin · 1 Comment
Calling all authors….Present or Future! If you have a book in you, crying to get out, then you need to give Tom Bird’s Writing and Publishing Techniques a try! http://tombird.com/
It’s almost Other-Worldly, in that your Left Brain is told to take a hike, while your poor, neglected creative genius of a Right Brain is finally given freedom to have a field day, expressing what is really in your heart. And what you write under the luxurious conditions of a Writer’s Retreat will really surprise you! Guaranteed!
No, this is not chemically-induced! You can replicate these writing conditions at home, once you learn how. There’s deep breathing in the right position; there’s music with benevolent subliminal suggestion, and there is permission to let your flying fingers on keyboard or unlined paper, run free and easy without judgement or caution of your dictatorial Left Brain.
While you’re “In the Zone” you hardly know what this epistle is turning out to be. You can write for hours at a time. Later, you’ll read and outline what your Author Within decided to tell the world. It may not be, at all, what you expected. In fact, it’s better to go into this with no expectations, at all, as to what topic to write about.
This past weekend, March 19-22, I met with about forty brave souls, in person, and a batch of other writers, located all over the world, attending remotely, the Tom Bird Writer’s Retreat in Sedona, Arizona. Many of these remote attendees worked throughout their own nights, since they were on the opposite side of the globe. Now, that takes real desire to become a published author!
I had attended a sample presentation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this January. Since I’d then been poking along on writing my fourth book for a whole year, I was particularly intrigued by Tom’s claim that I could “Write a book in a weekend!” What? My three other books didn’t come out that quickly! Is this the “fast food” of the publishing industry?
What kind of valuable work could emerge from my poor brain at the speed of light? Don’t our tomes need to be mulled and researched and worried to death (ie: left-brained) in order to qualify for consideration in the world’s Opinion Market? In a word…. No! Throughout history, literary geniuses have flash-written their best works. Those poured out as fast as the pen could fly. Wouldn’t I like that to happen to me, too? In a word….. Yes!
And it did! Tom’s method is a combination of Brain Science and Divination, honed over three decades of helping authors get off the pot and into publication. He is a Seer and makes no bones about that. But, as a Professor of the Craft of Writing, he lets his students discover their own truths by giving them the right conditions and the correct small and personal questions to get the floodgates open. Then, he circulates among us as we scribble words coming through our fingertips. He must be studying our aura or our energy intensity fingerprint, but he seems to know a good deal about what is going on inside. He softly drops occasional comments pertinent to what we happen to be writing.
The book that wanted me to write it wasn’t the one I wished to see upon my plate. I had hoped to be surprised by a stunning piece of fiction, pouring its irresistible story upon the page. But, the matter flowing from my fingers would require me to tell a secret that I didn’t want to reveal. Tears flowed and I struggled.
My writing output slowed. Every fifteen minutes, an alarm goes off and we must count our word output. This Left Brain crumb, apparently, keeps it happy. In the January Santa Fe Workshop, my writing speed was very fast. Now, with my secret grabbing the mental doorjamb, my words were slow and agonized. Tom noticed this and gave encouragement: “This is the most important book you will ever write!”
I know it was, because it was about my Inner Voices; telling how They started and the life difficulties that
They caused. The secret had to do with Something that I’d been told by the first Big, Loud, Inner Voice I’d ever heard. I had never told anyone about it and never intended to. Now, it was pushing to get out! It did get out, with the help of a consultation with a Counsellor standing by.
But, you’ll have to read my resulting book to learn just what it was and why I wouldn’t talk about it!
By the way, we all went home with a completed manuscript… nowhere near ready to publish. There’s a great deal of work to do under the guidance of Tom and his staff. But, the skeleton is complete and each book is fresh and inspired. And for those of us accepted into his Publishing House, we will not be struggling alone.
I Have Run Six Marathons in Forty-Eight Days
March 25, 2015 by admin · Leave a Comment
Instead of the classical definition of a Marathon….sweaty bodies, running uphill for 26 miles….. let’s consider a type of hard slogging, unusual effort made by the less athletic members of society. This Hidden Marathon consists of dogmatic, muscular, pain and suffering which can last a few hours or a few weeks. It might be self-imposed and very beneficial; or more likely, it will be totally unexpected, and will benefit someone else. All you can do, in either case, is to hang on and continue with the very best that you can give it, until something comes to a conclusion. This kind of Marathon does resolve fairly quickly.
But, six Marathons in six weeks and a few days? That’s a stretch for even me, who is used to running at full tilt. Here’s the rundown:
1. On February 6th, I moved into my friends’ house in Santa Fe, to housesit three months for their large and beautiful house, three dogs, 1 Manx cat, and 93-year-old Granny Marian. All were in apparently fairly good health, though some needed meds and lots of attention. But, the first two weeks of any house/pet-sit present a steep learning curve, so I was too busy to notice that it was a Marathon. Tiring, but doable.
2. Marian had a fall and hurt her back; then another, a week later. It was a very busy week tending to her and walking the dogs along what I later learned was an expanded route along these lovely dirt roads. Once a dog knows your schedule, they won’t let you change it. Four walks a day suddenly became the norm! That was a six-day Marathon.
3. Marian called 911 for herself, though I didn’t think she needed emergency care. I guess she did, as she was in the hospital over the weekend and then, came home on Monday and died in her sleep Tuesday night. Another six-day hard run.
4. The house was full of family and law enforcement all day Wednesday when I discovered that she had passed away. Her son and daughter-in-law live half-an-hour away and they came quickly, as did other family members. Sheriffs and medical examiners investigated her unattended death. Her body was donated to science at the University of New Mexico, so there was no funeral or memorial service. Two days later, my friends returned from California to take care of all the official business, to give away furniture and possessions, and to initiate repairs and renovations prior to putting this house on the market, now that they are no longer necessary to her care. I loved having them here but it was a very busy time and counts as another Marathon.
5. Now this next one was fun and very valuable to me: the only Marathon that I had planned to run, long before I even knew that I’d be housesitting. It was the Tom Bird Writer’s Retreat in Sedona, Arizona, a virtual bootcamp of intensive writing and instruction for eight hours a day over a four-day weekend. Family members filled in at the house while I was away. My Marathon included two six-hour hard drives to and fro.
6. This most recent Marathon started when I returned home at 10 p.m. Sunday after a long, hard drive back from Arizona. My daughter’s family, from Golden, Colorado, were due to spend two nights with me on their way to a Spring Break holiday in Tucson, Arizona. They pulled in at midnight and I had a joyful reunion with Jennifer and Kevin and my teenaged grandchildren, Riley and Molly. We visited till the wee hours and finally turned in very late. But, here’s the story of how that period became another Marathon, simply because of a dog’s torn dewclaw:
WHEN THE CURE BECAME THE CURSE!
The Astrologers have sure been right about 2015 being a time of great changes, endings and beginnings. This was wildly true to March’s Marathon tendencies this year. I heard another starting gun at midnight Sunday night. After my tiring drive home from an already exhausting Writer’s Conference, I discovered that Venti, the big Boxer/Sharpei mix dog, had injured her leg during my weekend away and was now licking it compulsively. The dewclaw is the little vestigial thumb that dogs have on their inside ankle and hers had ripped half off and was now protruding painfully. Imagine your own thumbnail torn half off, causing excruciating pain with its every flopping movement.
My family arriving at midnight were very sympathetic, but what could we do to help so late at night? The next morning, Venti was not doing well and continued to lick and nibble at the injured area, so I called her owner, Jo, who advised bandaging it so she wouldn’t harm it further. Daughter, Jennifer, wrapped the ankle with rubber gauze and adhesive tape; and thinking the matter solved, we all went off to Santa Fe for sightseeing and errands.
Though the Writer’s Conference had been exhausting, I looked forward to getting back to work on my newest book manuscript as I am now accepted into an exclusive training program. Tom Bird will use our group to perfect a future writing course worth thousands and we get to study free, though the material will be demanding. So, I planned to rest a bit and pick up my pen tomorrow morning when my loved ones continued their vacation.
But, with the Dewclaw Drumbeat swirling around my head, I haven’t even been online to find out if I’ve already missed an assignment. I hope and pray that we’ve all been given the opportunity to breathe for a moment after returning home. I guess I’m “hanging on by a toenail” until I can get back on my computer to find out.
However, upon returning home from a touristy afternoon, we discovered that Venti’s paw was worse. She could hardly put any weight on it and the fault lay in that bandage we’d applied. She had worried the injured toe out from under the gauze but her foot had swollen. The tape was too thick to cut through and we backed off with this gentle giant’s warning growl. I had been badly bitten on my last dogsitting assignment and didn’t want the same to happen to me or mine. So, Venti would have to make it through the night, though we called California and agreed upon a trip to the vet’s in the morning.
My little family delayed their departure to help me get this sixty-eight pound, vet-phobic, gunshy patient to the veterinary office. It took all five of us all morning to achieve that task. I truly could not have managed it on my own. The four of them have chronic, serious problems in getting out the door for any activity; so getting ready for a normal takeoff was exacerbated by our multi-pet indulgence and sympathy. By the time we got her into the car, Venti’s tranquilizers were wearing off and, by now, she was really hobbling on that strangulated foot.
The vet hardly paid attention to the dewclaw. It would heal itself! However, the bandage did require emergency attention. That rubbery gauze was now acting like a rubber band. Hopefully, she would regain full use of her foot. He sounded quite serious. There was one saving grace, in that her routine shots were due today just in their normal rotation, so he was glad I had brought her in. I would never attempted manhandling this nervous Nellie by myself, simply for shots.
Venti has Dewclaw PTSD, quite obviously. She had hurt that toe before, in a most spectacular way! A few years ago, George was bathing her in their fancy bathtub, when that nail got in the tub’s jacuzzi jet. Her struggles to free herself resulted in a sudden jet stream of water, shooting upwards towards the ceiling! Now, this is a very jumpy, old-lady pooch! She panics at a sudden sound, even under normal conditions. Any quick movement has her scurrying from the room in fear. Imagine being bathed in a glass-enclosed tub when the geyser grabs her toe and then shoots her with a stinging stream of water!
Well, it probably all came crashing down in memory when that same appendage erupted in such agony this weekend. And, you can’t run away from your own foot, now can you? All you can do is lick and lick and try to bite it off! Let’s hope that she gets to keep her foot after all that well-meaning human intervention.
Oh, and get this! In my haste to help her out of the car back at home, the driver’s door slammed shut, locking both my keys and the dog in the hot car. If there hadn’t been a spare car key in the house, I’d be engaged in Marathon # 7 by this time, trying to get the poor baby outathere!
I sure hope the Astrologists foresee a calm and boring April!
March, 2015 – A Month Of Lost & Found!
March 18, 2015 by admin · Leave a Comment
Did any of you notice that this website was OFF THE AIR last week? I know that my fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Molly, sure did! My daughter emailed me to find out what happened.
Boy, is that a scary feeling to see the black screen with the green words: “This website has expired!” . I didn’t know if things go “Poof In The Night” if you suddenly don’t pay your annual fee of $10.88 to Domain Launchers on time every year, though I hoped and prayed and somehow suspected that they must preserve your precious life story on a shelf somewhere until you get right with God again. As you might suppose, since you are reading this on said precious website, they do give the owner thirty days to redeem themselves. Here’s the backstory:
In February, I was suddenly asked to housesit for my dear friends, George and Jo Burdeau, while they live temporarily three months in California for work. We became acquainted a year ago when all of us were expats in Montevideo, Uruguay. George is a Hollywood movie producer/director and he suggested that we try to interest a network in doing a reality television show on my traveling life, since I’m still backpacking and staying in hostels as I travel around the world alone at nearly eighty years old. “Around The World In 80 Years!” will be the theme of my next trip, which could well take three to five years.
So, I developed a plan for a pitch on my third, years-long, solo, around the world trek throughout the Equatorial Region beginning later this year. After visiting my family in Denver, I came to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and rented an apartment both to be more handy to my daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren; and to follow up on working out this TV plan with George and Jo. Little did I know that I’d soon be taking care of their house, three dogs, one cat and 93-year-old Marian, Jo’s mom. Things were busy from the get-go!
Then, Granny Marian, became ill; called 911 herself; went to the hospital and died two days after she returned from that hospitalization. Things got even busier! In the middle of all this, Domain Launcher began to send me emails that my heyboomers domain was about to expire. My only thought was: “Thank goodness I have Webmaster Chad to take care of this! I must be getting duplicate warnings.” I didn’t check with him, so confident was I.
The family gathered to take care of all the death details. George and Jo flew in from California for a ten-day stay to rearrange their life and prepare the house for sale…. as much as one can do so early on. Suddenly, here was the notice that my Hey Boomers website had EXPIRED! Yikes, what happened? Well, Chad had taken that one on after someone else had designed it and I guess I hadn’t shifted the responsibility to renew it to him. I can’t even remember! Now I couldn’t figure out the system to do it and even remember my password to that domain company. Help! I begged him to rescue me……which he obviously did…… and I am now more appreciative than ever to see these seven years of hard writing still alive and in existence for me to continue.
Because I’ll need it in our approach to the networks this summer as George and my other producer, Rock, present the sizzle tape we have shot. How ironic if the proof of all those former travels had disappeared from the internet! Whoosh! I have it back!
So, that’s two losses for March – Granny and Hey Boomers! Then I couldn’t find my new drivers license. High and low…. where had I left it? One needs a car in the U.S. (Grrrrrr! That’s not true overseas) and I must drive to my Tom Bird’s Intensive Writers Retreat tomorrow for a long weekend in Sedona, Arizona. Can’t rent a car or drive one without that license. Living out of suitcases does this to one…..I never know where anything is! At last, I found it, tucked safely away with my passport, I guess, so that no one would rip it off my body if I carried it in my belly bag, where it has lived for years. Okay, solved!
Then, a few days ago, as things settled down enough to think about taking pictures, I couldn’t find my camera! That’s always in my backpack! Where is it now? I tore everything apart several times but still no camera! Wait a minute! The family went through Marian’s things and divided them up. Do you suppose I had left my camera lying around in her room during that hectic time? Yep! After a few inquiries, I found it and all is well. Clem, her son, had chosen it while the women were dividing things like clothes and jewelry. He will bring it back when he comes to town this week. Whoosh! Okay, solved!
So, I’ve lost everything and gotten it back again…… all except Granny….. who probably doesn’t want to be rescued. I’m sure she’s much happier now that she can walk around better and doesn’t need that oxygen tank wherever she goes. As Shakespeare can tell you: “All’s well that ends well.” Now, let me share two blog posts written by my favorite around-the-world travel advisors:
http://wanderingtrader.com/travel-blog/best-travel-tips-traveling-the-world/
https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/suite
Though they are much younger than I am, they know lots of stuff that I don’t; so this will help you get your own start in taking on the world by yourself. Meantime, let’s all enjoy being online and be sure not to let your own websites expire for pennies.
Life Is Like A Doggie Bath!
March 2, 2015 by admin · Leave a Comment
Pluto had a serious case of runaway facial hair and a desperate need of a shampoo. But, a shave & a haircut does wonders for the Ego and the Eyesight. His sister, Venus, wants a makeover, too.