Floating in Wonder

This afternoon, while waiting for my physical therapy appointment, I became acutely aware of a state of being in which I am frequently present.

During these times, which are becoming more and more frequent, I am completely at peace, though I can see that others about me are distressed, sad, indulging in self-pity or worry, distracted, self-absorbed, seemingly oblivious to this beautiful world in which I am dwelling. I see their fear and pain, but it does not enter my field. I can feel compassion, which is at its highest sense, a connection of both common mortality and a wordless sense of immortality. During these times, for no apparent reason, a slight smile is on my lips, and my eyes are open, not just to take in the sights, but to apprehend a presence that seems all about me. For lack of a better word, let's call it God, though it is so pervasive and so subtle, I could just as well call it air or ether.

I am very easily entertained as sunshine and shadows and colors and shapes are all miraculous. I look at each person and immediately see deep inside him or her a common ground that we share, a spark of love and immortality, of star stuff, that the other human may only be vaguely aware of, burdened as so many have made themselves by the heaviness of this third-dimensional reality.

Sometimes when I am waiting for an appointment or during those rare times now that I have a leisurely cup of coffee at a coffeehouse, I look at each person in my view and send him or her a beam of love. My eyes become bright and I cover the person with love, then move on to the next. This is such a wonderful use of time, and I highly recommend it. It raises my vibration until I feel light, not quite weightless, but as if I might float up from my chair, as if the heaviness of the world is falling away.

Perhaps the best way to describe the state I am in is floating in wonder. I do not know how this has come about. I have felt it intermittently throughout my life, but it is more and more a part of my days. And for this I am very grateful--to God, to the air, or to the ether.

A Novel Idea

Concerns about healthcare reform prompted me to think of a premise for a novel: Healthcare for all eventually comes to mean limiting access to healthcare. At first, expensive cases such as my own are eliminated. Dialysis for anyone over 50, let's say, is no longer covered. Further limiting of access might prevent anyone over 60 receiving cancer treatments or heart bypass surgery. Slowly but surely, the weak, the sick, and the old would be phased out. But this is just the backdrop for the novel. The interesting question is: What kind of world would this create?

Through observing the world and its occupants, I am of the opinion that the weak, the sick, and the old serve a great purpose. They sometimes, but surely not always, provide the following lessons: Smile in the face of adversity. Be thankful for all that you have. Accept yourself as you are, with your supposed blemishes and shortcomings. Learn from the challenges that you face that others do not. Realize how precious each day, each second of life is. See the beauty that surrounds you in every moment. Apprehend the sense of the beyond that comes through suffering. These are a few of the deep lessons that illness and pain and the isolation and loneliness that they so often engender can bring to a person, if he or she is open. And sometimes, though most certainly not frequently, those who observe the weak, the sick, and the old are themselves aware of these lessons on a conscious level and so they allow true compassion to come forth.

In this novel, these learning and loving opportunities are no longer there. Consequently, those who are left, the supposedly strong, healthy, and young, undergo a moral degradation. They become more selfish, self-centered, petty, self-absorbed, then heartless, hurtful, and eventually self-destructive. All too late, those in charge, the ruling elite, the bureaucrats, the corporate masters, realize that through the elimination of those who were deemed unnecessary, they have destroyed something essential in society. Contrary to conventional eugenics, culling the herd of its so-called weaker members did not make the herd stronger.

Article in the New York Daily News

During my hospital stay in Brooklyn, I was interviewed by a reporter about my hip fracture and my appearance on an HBO documentary on organ donation and the organ shortage in the U.S. and Canada. The article has finally appeared in print. Please check it out:

Organ donor advocate Heidi Nye's shattered hip during HBO documentary exemplifies her cause

BY MIKE McLAUGHLIN
An organ donor advocate who traveled to Brooklyn to be interviewed for an HBO documentary fell and shattered her hip just before her debut - and now her injury could make its way into the movie.

The Unlucky Camisole

A year or so ago, I was occasionally seeing a man in his early 30s. We did a fair amount of kissing and finally made plans to take it to the next step. In the intervening days between making plans and the proposed execution of them, I went shopping and got a cute, black camisole, well, perhaps more like a slip, since it barely covers my upper thighs.



I was so excited about my camisole because I knew I could hide all the dialysis gauze, tubing, and tape beneath it. I would also figure out a way to squirrel away the insulin pump and its tubing. The camisole, I thought, would make me look sexy and like a woman without any encumbrances. Then if I just kept all my gear in place, hidden under my camisole, everything would go smoothly, and sex might be possible. That was my plan.

Well, the big day rolled around, and instead of finding some place to be alone together, this young guy instead wanted me to sit at a coffeehouse and watch him work on a script he was writing about his life as a strip club DJ. I saw him a few times after that, but just in passing. If he wasn't any more interested than that, I really wasn't interested either.




Last October, I spent a week in Tuscon with a man with whom I had had some wild dealings years ago. Sometime in 2005, he tracked me down through a magazine for which I was writing. I was very excited to hear from him again and really wanted to see him, to rekindle the flame. But he waited and waited and waited--nearly three years!--to show up at my doorstep. By that time, I wasn't nearly as excited as I had been three years earlier. But we stayed in contact, and so I went to visit him at his home. He treated me as if I were his sister. Though we shared his bed, nothing happened. So I gave the black camisole a try. It did nothing for him, and he suggested I better put something more on so I wouldn't get cold. Strike two.

Strike three occurred today. Someone I've been seeing off and on for a few years. Someone whose company I really enjoy and who really enjoys mine. We've had a few polite kisses, nothing more, but recently we've talked about how much we like each other and how we'd both like a lot more. We made plans for this afternoon "to see what happens." So, once again, I pulled out my black camisole and carefully selected my outfit.

Around 1:30, he canceled our rendezvous, saying he had gotten a call and needed to get to a job site to fix a problem.

I just got a thought: Why save this beautiful camisole for a man? I'll just wear it any damn time I please because it makes me feel sexy and it's so slinky and delicious on my skin. So what if no one else sees it, no one else touches it and feels it and smells my scent on it! It's a pleasure and a delight for me. In fact maybe I should get a red camisole and a fuschia pink one and another in dusty rose or soft peach. I could prance around my bedroom, wearing a camisole, and no one would be the wiser. That might be a helluva lot of fun. No doubt much more fun than with an uninterested man!

You Know Not the Day Nor the Hour

Mike Riek, the love of my life, if love is measured by sexual intensity, will be dead four years on May 8. Mike was a surfing legend and by far the most beautiful body I had ever come in contact with. He was strong and virile and took lots of physical risks. He had no known health problems.

We were together four years, 1996-2000, and during that time I developed coronary heart disease and congestive heart failure, partly because of the constricted blood flow due to Type I diabetes and partly because of the strain of the relationship.

Mike had a surfing buddy who had a wife who was on dialysis due to Type I diabetes. The health problems and potential health problems associated with diabetes frightened Mike, so he used diabetes as an excuse for breaking up with me.

The irony, of course, is that this perfect specimen of a man died four years ago while surfing, and I with all my health challenges am still alive and kicking.

As is written in Matthew 24:36-44:

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven....As were the days of Noah, so will be th coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

And Matthew 25:13:

"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

I know that a lot of people read this as an allusion to the rapture, the time when the good souls shall be taken on high and the evil doers are left to suffer on earth. Well, maybe, not I feel these passages have much more currency and meaning when they are considered in terms of death.

No one knows the day nor the hour of his own death or anyone else's. So often, those who seem to be the picture of health suddenly die, and those who bemoan their condition and gripe about how they're on death's door seem to hang on forever. This certainly was the case with Mike. And, damn it, I continue to hang on.

Peter Paternalistic

Here is the video that Robby Berman was filming when I broke my hip. The HBO crew was filming Robby filming. I was leaning against a gate across the street from the action.

This is truly a clever video. It's an analogy for the ridiculous prohibitions we have in this country, and every country except Iran, in regards to compensating organ donors. In the video a mother pleads with onlookers to save her child from a burning building. No one steps forward. She then offers $10,000, and someone says he'll do it. Then Robby prevents him from saving the child, saying that he can't accept any money, that it's better if the child die than to save his life and be compensated for it.

This is exactly the situation with organ donation. So please watch it and send it along. Please spread the message that the law has to change. People are dying every day, waiting for organs. As it is now, living donors are not even given paid time off from work to undergo surgery and recover. This prevents many people from donating who cannot afford to take two weeks or more off from work unpaid.

Two Minutes of Sadness

While leaving physical therapy this morning, I was struck by two minutes of sadness. In general, I face the world wide-eyed and sunny. This isn't put on; it's not contrived or forced or faked. It's just that in the past few years, I have maintained a very positive attitude despite all that has come my way.

Once in a while, however, I am overcome with sadness. Maybe two or three times a year, I suddenly am overwhelmed and sometimes weep uncontrollably for a few minutes, then dry my eyes, feel refreshed and renewed, and resume my usual upbeat manner. These mood shifts don't seem to be prompted by any external circumstances. Rather, they come on as quickly and as unannounced as a cold breeze on a sweltering summer day.

These temporary dark clouds are perhaps an emotional purging of sorts. Every once in a while, the sadness that is somewhere deep inside me, of which I am not even aware, has to be vomited out.

This morning, the thought that pulsed through my consciousness for those two minutes was that I would never be loved, never have a lover again, never be fondled or kissed or spooned. I would live the rest of my days untouched. This thought did not spill over in tears, though tears were close.

Then I focused my attention on the leaves of a green plant and on the sunshine, and this darkness departed, surely to surface months and months from now, just as unexpectedly.

What the Doctors Don't Tell You

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment with my cardiologist. I asked him when the tingling, sensitivity, and pain in my chest from the triple-bypass surgery in November would go away. He said, "Maybe never."

Why hadn't anyone ever told me this prior to surgery? I feel it's a pretty significant omission to refrain from telling a woman that from now on, her breasts are going to hurt every time they're touched.

Granted, no man has touched my breasts for almost three years, so maybe it's a mute point. I like to think that some day I'll meet a man who would like to touch them and that I'd like him to touch them. (See previous posts about how many men I've met in the past decade who are afraid of, uninterested in, or incapable of anything approaching sex.)

Is it that doctors are not trained to think of their patients as sexual beings? Are they so narrowly focused on the surgical outcomes and the risk factors and the mortality rates that they don't consider the sexual, emotional, and social aspects of medical intervention?

Add to this sensitivity the incision pain from the hip surgery and the stagnant regions of my right leg that are so painful they cannot be touched, which are the aftermath of harvesting veins from this leg for the bypass surgery.

The photo shown here approximates the extent of my bypass scar and the smaller scars that were exit sites for tubes during surgery. From an online search, I see that some people's scars in time blend in with the background skin and are no longer red. I would like that to happen for me too.

Once again, I would just like to be free of all of this. I would like my body back, stripped of gauze, tubing, tape, a catheter, and an insulin pump. I would like the scars gone too. Because, damn it, I have such a nice body, especially for someone my age. I'm probably in the upper 10 percent of bodies of American women in their early 50s. And yet that fact is obscured by all this medical stuff and all these surgical scars. It's just a real shame.

Back to the Cane

The physical therapist told me yesterday that it's better to use the cane and walk straight than to walk unaided and hobble. She said the latter will mess up my back. So I'm back to using the cane. No shame in that.

Walking Unaided

For the past week or so, I have often walked about the apartment without the cane or the walker. My apartment is small enough that I am never more than a few inches away from a wall, a counter, or a piece of furniture on which to grab if need be.

Yesterday and especially today, however, I walked around outside without a cane, twice going to the end of the block and back. Sure, I'm limping, but at least I'm doing it.

I am so thankful for the progress I am making. My goal of walking normally for my UCLA transplant evaluation is certainly doable. I want to appear as strong, healthy, able-bodied, and vibrant as possible for that day of scrutiny.

Cayenne Pepper for the Feet

Poor circulation in my feet has been a challenge for at least a decade. It's why my Kaiser podiatrist granted approval for acupuncture. Of course, Dr. Mai treats a lot more than tingly, numb, sore feet, but for all the years I've been seeing him, he's always put needles in my feet to stimulate blood circulation. This helps, and I'm sure acupuncture has kept me from losing a toe or two.

Circulation in my feet and in my legs in general has been further compromised due to the triple-bypass surgery, during which veins were extracted from my right leg, and hip surgery, which entailed three incisions in my left thigh and buttocks. Following heart surgery, my legs were drum-tight for more than a month, due to severe fluid retention. This was extremely uncomfortable. Now, following hip surgery, I have experienced intense, shooting pain and a burning sensation in my feet, especially at night. The pain is so severe that it awakens me. Twice I have taken vicodin for the pain in my feet, not for the incision pain or muscle pain in my leg.

I pleaded with my nephrologist, my GP, my cardiologist, the diabetic nurse, and the orthopedic physician's assistant to authorize a sequential compression device for me. This is the device that surgical patients are usually hooked up to post-op to prevent blood clots from forming. It's basically two cuffs that are placed around the patient's calves and which continuously contract and expand. They massage the calves and keep blood circulating. They are fantastic, and throughout my hospital stay, I had none of the intense pain that I have experienced since coming home.

Though a few of these healthcare providers attempted to get DME (durable medical equipment) to send out the sequentlal compression device, they were told it was not a covered item. This is the ridiculous nature of having people who are bean counters make medical decisions. I emailed my doctors, saying that, surely, the cost of this device is far less than the cost of amputations. Unfortunately, though they agreed with me, they could do nothing.

So, I have gone the alternative route. I read that cayenne pepper aids blood circulation. A few months ago, I had mixed spice-grade cayenne and red pepper flakes with hand lotion and massaged my feet with this mixture, then put cayenne in my socks, and went to sleep, my tootsies invigorated by these warm spices.

This worked well for a while, but this last post-op episode was especially intense. So I bought cayenne capsules at a health food store. These babies have 40,000 heat units per capsule. That's much, much more than I would be able to ingest through spice-grade cayenne.

At first, I took the cayenne on an empty stomach. That was a mistake. I became dizzy and nauseated. From then on, I've taken it with a meal and seen immediate results. No more stabbing pain. No more getting woken up by pain. No more burning in my feet. True, the tingling is still there, but it's been there for a long time. This is defintely a step in the right direction.

The Social-Lubricant Lie

Maybe seven, eight years ago, it struck me that there is a type of lie I had never before considered. I call it the social-lubricant lie. Let me explain.

I was standing in front of the faculty mailboxes in the journalism department, sorting through my mail. Two colleagues were doing the same. One commented negatively on a memo that we all had received. I don't remember what the memo was about, but let's just say it was something small, like a reminder to clean up your workspace after you had finished copying or assembling papers, something like that. Perhaps the other professor said something like, "Oh, gawd, another memo! He's always sending out these ridiculous memos!" As if hit by a bolt of lightening, I realized that if I fed this negativity, this grumbling, I would not be honest, since to me it was a reasonable thing to ask to clean up after ourselves. The social lubricant lie would have been to say something like, "Yeah, he's a real pain, that old memo-writer!" Instead I just smiled, said, "Oh, well," and walked away.

I began to give some real thought to social-lubricant lies. I began to see all the energy and words and drama wasted over them, how much of human interaction consists of these disingenuous statements.

They are not the same as so-called white lies, though perhaps white lies are a type of social-lubricant lies. White lies are more volitional; the person uttering them knows that they are not true and yet says them supposedly to protect someone's feelings. Most social-lubricant lies are on a much more automatic, unthinking level, as they are often just a parroting of what others are saying without any inner reflection as to how one actually feels about the subject.

Since that day standing in front of the mailboxes, I have been attentive to my own interactions with others, taking care not to engage in this pervasive type of lie. And this doesn't mean calling others out about their infractions. It just means conducting myself in such a way that I am not violating my own truth. This can be done in a cute way, as I did those seven, eight years ago in the journalism department, simply smiling and offering a noncommital "oh, well," thereby not offending anyone, but not feeding their criticism either.

So just as an exercise, go about your next week attentive of the social-lubricant lies that are everywhere to be found. Very often they are linked to a complaint. So whenever anyone complains to you about something, hold back for a second and determine how you really feel about the subject. Is it worth complaining about? Is it really all that awful? If not, why not simply smile to the complainer and with your eyes bright and cheery, say, "oh, well"?

An Outside Chance

I spoke with a UCLA transplant coordinator this week who told me that there is a small chance that Janet and I may be compatible. That is, even though she is an A blood type and I am an O, she might still be able to donate one of her kidneys to me.

Remember that, in general, O is the universal donor, but O's can only accept from other O's. The coordinator said that some A's are of a rare subtype that allows them to donate to O's. She said this is fewer than 6 percent of all A's, but still there's a chance Janet and I may be compatible.

That would be great, as it would make things far less complex. Otherwise, we would have to do a kidney swap (someone else has an O donor, but is an A, as Janet is, and that person would receive Janet's kidney, and I would receive the O donor's kidney) or a donor chain, in which three or more unmatched pairs participate. Or I would have to look for another donor.

Another Perspective on Organ Donation

I saw Rick on Wednesday for lunch. I really like Rick because, well, he's a real guy, and I don't encounter too many real guys here in So Cal. Most of the men are metrosexual, a bit sissy, perhaps a bit too orderly or interested in decorating or into their clothes or junior-high-school-girlish about blood or dirt or moving some muscles.

Rick sure isn't metrosexual, and I really like that. He was a mechanic for Formula One race cars when he was young, then he became a licensed plumber. In the past few years, he got his general contractor's license and has taken all the coursework to get his real estate license. Basically, he knows how to fix most everything, and because he's a smart guy, he knows how to run his business, deal with all kinds of people, and manage his workers. He's funny and earthy and nicely built.

Rick and I met on match.com maybe three years ago. I feel I have been open to more than a friendship, touching him, rubbing his thighs, even giving him an hour-and-a-half, full-body massage, but he never made any moves. We've had a few kisses, but they've been very tame. There have been long gaps in which we didn't see each other, and during these times, he had relationships with other gals, and I had a few, a very few, one-time things with one or two men. But we were always excited to hear from each other.

I struggled a bit with how much to tell Rick about my health. Since we weren't intimate, I figured I didn't have to tell him anything. Then last November he called my cell phone when I was in the hospital. Figuring he could hear the hospital sounds, I told him I was recovering from triple-bypass surgery, brought on by insulin-dependent diabetes and that I wore an insulin pump. I figured that was plenty for him to assimilate without mentioning the dialysis too.

Rick was fine with my news, though I'm sure that, like most people, he didn't grasp what it all meant. How could he! Except for a few broken bones or sprains, he's been healthy and vigorous all his life.

But this Wednesday we met in person, for the first time since the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade and an after-parade party in December of 2008, just before I had the dialysis catheter surgically implanted in my abdomen.

So over gyros at the local Greek deli, I told Rick that I had been on dialysis since February of 2009. He seemed to take it well, though he didn't ask any questions and I didn't provide many details.

Rick did offer another perspective on organ donation that I had never considered. He said something like this: "Here you have all these crazy people who rape and murder and do all sorts of awful things. We put them on death row and we feed them and give them a place to live for years and years. They're of no use to society at all. If I were in charge, we'd take those bastards and give them a trial, sentence them to death, have a doctor examine them to see who could use their organs, and then bye-bye, fella, you're out of here. Next.

"When there's a sweetheart of a girl like you who's dying for a kidney, and we've got these bastards on death row taking up space, it's just not right."

Rick figured this would solve the organ-donation problem. But I don't know about that, Rick. Since 1976, we have executed 1,200 prisoners in this country. In 2009, the number was 52, and so far this year, it's 12. That's a small dent in the 100,000 people who are currently awaiting an organ. Of course, perhaps Rick would like to see a whole lot more people given the death penalty.

Poor Customer Service the Norm

The little story I am about to relate is not unique. Indeed, I suspect it is played out tens of thousands of times each day across the country. I offer it here because it is so common, and damn it, it shouldn't be!

I was grocery shopping this afternoon at the Vons at the Traffic Circle in Long Beach. I got some organic veggies and fruit, then saw that Ghiradelli chocolate was on sale. My son likes good chocolate, and his birthday is next week, so I figured this was a decent excuse. The bags of chocolate squares were $4.29 each or $3.49 each if you bought two or more. Plus I had two $1 coupons, which brought the price down to $2.49 per bag. S till pricey but doable.

When I looked at the receipt, I saw that I had been charged the $4.29 price. I politely told the clerk I was sure the price should've been $3.49. Instead of saying, "Oh, sure, ma'am, I'll have the bagger go to the shelves and check the price," she just frowned. The bagger reluctantly agreed to check the shelf with me in tow, though she rolled her eyes at the young clerk next to us as we passed him, telling him I was disputing the price. The other clerk also rolled his eyes.

Sure enough, I was right. The bagger didn't say, "Oh, I'm sorry. It looks like we made a mistake. We'll just have to go to the customer service desk to get you a refund." Instead, I asked her if she needed to take the price tag on the shelf to the desk. She peeled it off without comment. The so-called customer service person begrudgingly gave me $1.60 in change, without saying, "Sorry for the inconvenience" or "Thanks for bringing this to our attention." No apology from anyone. Just crossed eyes and frowns and a general feeling that I was really putting them out. Through all this, I was polite and said thank you several times.

What's more, the gal at the customer service desk told the bagger to put the price tag back on the shelf. She never indicated that someone was going to reprogram the cash registers or whatever it is they have to do to correct such an error.

I wondered, as I have often wondered, if these errors are calculated. Can you imagine 80 cents per bag multiplied by all the bags of Ghiradelli chocolates that Vons sells this week. And of course there may be hundreds of errors, which only compounds the money the chain would surreptiously cheat out of its customers.

Of course, the even bigger issue is this: Why are people so rude these days? Why do they take these kinds of interactions so personally? Don't they realize that if they were pleasant on the job, they would have a lot more fun on the job? Why is this rudeness so prevalent in our society? How did it come about? What can be done to reconnect people with their common humanity? What can be done to help them loosen up and have fun? Are we doomed to be a nation of overly sensitive, eager-to-be-offended children?

Getting my Skin Burned Off

For the last four days or so, I have noticed a discharge around my dialysis exit site.

Each morning I clean the site where the tubing enters my abdomen with antibacterial soap. Then I dry the area with a sterile gauze pad and douse it with hydrogen peroxide and antibacterial cream while wearing a surgical mask to prevent me from coughing or sneezing on the area. Then I dress it in sterile gauze and tape. The site is supposed to be completely free of pus, dirt, and blood. But my site wasn't.

It was also irritated and sore, so I went into the dialysis clinic to have it checked by a nurse. She said it was a tugging problem. The way I was taping down the foot-long tubing that is outside my body was causing the skin at the site to tear. She said she'd have to burn away the loose skin and blood around the exit site. Yikes!

So, while I held my shirt up to prevent my germ-infested clothing from contaminating the site, she burned away the affected area with silver nitrate. Though it burned and stung, I told her it was nothing compared to breaking my hip, so she should just do what she had to do and get it over with.

All day long, it's been stinging. But it looks a lot cleaner, which is the most important thing. Anything to prevent an infection of the tubing or, worse yet, of the peritoneum, the large sack within every person that holds the organs. I have not experienced this, and I don't want to. I understand that it is one of the most painful things around. So burning a little skin was OK with me.

Learning from Enlightened Beings and from Racists

Learning opportunities can be found everywhere you go. At least that's been my experience.

So often, people feel that they can only learn from those who are "above" them in one way or another. People who have more experience, more training, more degrees, more workshops and seminars and classes under their belts. True, such persons often have interesting tidbits to relate, but what I have found is that every encounter with another human being is a learning opportunity.

This past Saturday was a case in point. I attended a meeting of spiritual seekers, some of whom are familiar with every New Age writer and lecturer on the planet, it seems. One of the participants insisted that fear was clouding our conversation. No one else perceived this, but she was adamant.

Her judgment set off a battle of egos between her and two other women. Each time one of the women rebutted something said by one of the other two, I clearly saw this as an attempt to prove to the others and perhaps to herself that she was just as evolved as the other two. This went on for well over an hour until finally they agreed that they were all on the same level of no longer being human and being pure beings of light.

Wow, I was so tempted to challenge that, but really didn't want my ego to become embroiled in all this. The lesson they gave me: Sit back, breathe, relax, don't get involved in this battle of the egos, no matter how tempting that might be. Later, I thought how wonderful it would have been had one of these gals just stopped, smiled, and said something like, "We obviously aren't communicating well here. Something is amiss. How about if we just drop it, knowing that other topics will arise where we will be better able to understand each other. But for now, let's just be quiet and let other people speak. Why don't we just listen?"

The lesson from these gals is a big one, one that I require a reminder of now and then. How often during my life have I felt the need to justify my existence, to defend my position, to try to force others to see things my way! What a waste of energy! I am so thankful to these three that I could just sit there and let them duke it out without getting involved.

Besides, I feel that being a human being is a great gift. Sure, let's evolve our consciousness, but during this life, I'm a human, with all the wonderful feelings and emotions that entails. I was given a human body to enjoy the sensual wonders of this planet, and I was given human emotions to expand my heart to eventually embrace the world.

My idea is that speaking of "levels" is misguided. I have learned from racists and sexists just as surely as I have learned from supposedly evolved human beings. For that matter, I have learned a great deal more from rocks, trees, dogs, birds, babies, and beams of sunshine than I have from the majority of "spiritual" people I have met.






















And one of my most valuable lessons has come from a woman who openly admits she's a racist. From this gal I have learned that the best attitude you can adopt when someone slights you, betrays you, abandons you, hurts you, does you wrong, is to smile, shake your head, and say, "Aren't people interesting!" No attachment to their slights, no involvement in their drama, just shake it off and move forward.

Perhaps one of the biggest lessons is that there are no levels. People move in and out of understanding, in and out of insights, in and out of purity and the need for an emotional and spiritual tune-up. And the truth is that we can often learn so much more from behavior that we do not want to emulate than we can from those who are telling us how to be as evolved as they are!

Graduated to a Cane

Yesterday I graduated to using a cane. I no longer use the walker except when I first get up in the morning, as I am a bit unsteady.

I am improving every day. I am so grateful for this quick recovery. Soon I will leave the cane behind and be walking as I was before the accident.

How I Hate to Write that Check to the IRS

How I hate to write a check to the IRS. It's not that I want to keep it for myself. It's what that money buys that disgusts me, shames me.

If that check for $644 that I wrote this morning went to feed starving children or support starving artists or improve our national parks or clean our waterways or truly educate our country's future, then I'd happily send it off. But upwards of 70 percent of our tax dollars are in one way or another spent on killing, maiming, and causing horrible suffering.

First, figure how huge a portion of the budget goes to so-called defense (better known as killing). Add to that the debt incurred by defense spending and all the myriad costs associated with all our wars over the years (and that includes veterans' benefits and military pay and pensions). The chart shown here only accounts for these components of the total mix. Then think of the torturing done by the CIA and other spy organizations. And the government spooky business handled by any number of federal agencies, including the DOE (Department of Energy) and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency).

Of course, some of that $644 goes to things I would support, but most of it doesn't. Let's say, conservatively speaking, $400 of that goes to evil. That's $400 I would much rather donate to a charity than give to the IRS to allow the government to conduct its sinister business.

Every time I write a check to the IRS I feel dirty and ashamed, knowing I am one of a few hundred million conspirators, guilty of mass murder, torture, kidnapping, unjust imprisonment, untold suffering in so many lands throughout the world. I am guilty just as each one of you reading this is guilty.

Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today--April 1, 2000--I was visited by Archangel Michael and his countless minions. The day on which he imparted the message "The strength that you see within me is there inside of you."

At the time he imparted these words, I was not feeling very strong. But in the ensuing years, with all the challenges I have faced, I see that he was absolutely right. I have frequently been amazed at how well I handle adversity. And I am so very grateful to Archangel Michael for reminding me what inner resources I have at my command.

Today seems like any other day, bright and happy. But still a part of me wonders if something truly remarkable will occur. I'm open.