My Dream

I always wanted to be a mystic. Somehow this dream got started in my teenage years as I read Dune and Carlos Castaneda. It continued on into college as I smoked dope and dreamed of finding a higher consciousness in Strawberry Fields. "Who are you" rang forever in my head. "I am woman" was often the answer; inless it was "I don't want to live like a refugee." Or there were other answers provided by Jefferson Starship or Tom Petty or ELO. Anything from Mick Jagger was a nightmare. Mainly I felt jealous of others who seemed to be making it. On the outside, I appeared to be making it. I was president of a student association, awarded outstanding senior at a large university, awarded scholarships, ran a marathon, graduated with honors and got a job. Yet, on the inside I was an emotional disaster. It would have ended there in a pool of alcohol except...


After my senior year and before my graduate year, I spent six weeks in Israel on an archaeological dig. I certainly had my fill of beer while I was there. But I also discovered religion and I came home wondering who God was.


That question about God consumed all of my life after that, and it still does. I searched standard Catholic Christianity. I searched John of the Cross. I searched new age channelers. I searched Harley Davidson. I searched illicit sex. I searched monastic life (4 years in a monastery). I searched money and power and things.


I now have a practice of silence and a study of A Course in Miracles. I have been sober for 23 years. I run ultra-marathons. I work in a crummy chemical plant as an environmental engineer and sole female in operations management among a bunch of red necks. I live in a dinky house in a dinky town. I marginalize myself in every possible way. My modus is to shamelessly follow Jesus; which means to lose your life through renunciation of the ego world, including religion.


My one unique thought I got in a dream: Love is the predominate mode of existance.

• ...inducing the mind to give up its miscreations is the only application of creative ability that is truly meaningful.