First Poem (Age 8)

JUNGLE

Dimly aware of approaching shadows,
wandering on, on, on,
lost in the stillness of the shadows,
wanderer, beware!
Swinging branches,
trembling water,
hidden fears are there.

Wanderer, go back, go back
to the place from whence you come.
Many, many wanderers
lie already in the tomb.

If That's All There Is

The Peggy Lee song "Is That All There Is?" has been hanging around on the edges of my consciousness lately. I've noticed that messages often come to me through songs that will run through my head, and so I've learned to pay attention. In the song, Ms. Lee reminisces about various events in her life: her father rescuing her from a fire
and watching it burn down; her first visit to the circus; and falling in love. Each one left her wondering, is that all there is to this? - to a fire, a circus, to love? Yet the final message is upbeat and far from resigned. The chorus goes:

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

I've been wondering the same thing on and off lately. "Is that all there is?"
For years I'd been entranced by the speculations around the 12/21/2012 date (also referred to as the Singularity) by sources as disparate as Terence McKenna, Peter Russell, David Wilcock, and a being known as "Joy-Divine," channeled by one who calls himself "Zingdad," in his book The Ascension Papers. Peter Russell describes the Singularity: "This is the term that mathematicians give to a point when an equation breaks down and ceases to have any useful meaning. The rules change. Something completely different happens."


The Singularity, or Zero-point, or Novelty Theory on December 21, 2012, was not about the end of the world as portrayed in the disaster scenarios, but about the end of the world as we know it, and an evolutionary leap into - who knew what? Well, guess what I was doing on that date. Cleaning my apartment!


Joy-Divine, or J-D, speaking of the Singularity, said that it was the turning point as we head back to ultimate reunification of the whole system of reality, and that for a moment or longer, we would be at one with the heart of Oneness, wherein there are endless possibilities for experience. J-D predicted that we would choose to "stay in the game" here on the old familiar Earth, but that we would be playing in new and different ways.

Terence McKenna referred to this as "the denouement of human history", wherein "the universal process of compressing and expressing novelty is now going to become so intensified that it is going to flow over into another dimension." Interviewed by OMNI magazine in May 1993, he said:

"All evolution has pushed for this moment, and there is no going back. What lies ahead is a dimension of such freedom and transcendence, that once in place, the idea of returning to the womb will be preposterous. We will live in the imagination. We will quickly become unrecognizable to our former selves because we're now defined by our limitations: the laws of gravity; the need to eat, excrete, and make money. We have the will to expand infinitely into pleasure, caring, attention, and connectedness. If nothing more -- and it's a lot more -- it's permission to hope."

While I did not 'believe' per se, I did have hope. I enjoyed 'entertaining' the notion and the implications of such a quantum leap in our evolution. Along the way I was also learning about the creative abilities of consciousness - i.e., that reality is a self-created illusion, that it is literally our dream, and about becoming lucid within it, consciously dreaming, creating and living out our choices.

Recently I was telling my son about a dream I had that I thought was somewhat humorous. I was one of the speakers at a gathering of people with various addictions, and one piece of advice I gave was: "Don't buy booze." While I was laughing at the seeming reductionism of that dream pronouncement, my son was arguing with me that this was insensitive to the complexity of addictions - "Some people can't make that choice." I responded that we are always choosing, and we often choose by default - as for example, in the case of the problem drinker who wants to quit, but doesn't make the firm commitment to do so. "That's judgmental," said Ben, and I explained that no choices are wrong or bad in themselves, but if we want change, we have to make a definite choice and stick to it. Then I realized he thought I meant I was saying this to people I knew, which is not the case. I clarified that I was sharing a dream and some ideas. But at the same time, I realized that ultimately it does come down to such simple measures, and making fundamental choices. Moving in the direction of our preferences, whatever they may be.

In Robert Fritz' book The Path of Least Resistance, he speaks of formally choosing as a first step in the creative process. He even recommends stating our choices, i.e.: "I choose..." We become self-directed, putting trust in our own creative power. As another spiritual teacher put it: "What you say goes." Even if we don't believe we have that kind of power, isn't trust and faith in ourselves more productive than self-doubt? As we move out of our comfort zone and take creative risks, we make progress, and we may ultimately find we've created something even better than what we initially imagined.

The 'strange attractor" or "transcendental object at the end of time' as McKenna put it, which he pinpointed at Timewave Zero on Dec. 21, 2012, has the effect of increasing the interconnectedness of the universe (we become "one with the heart of Oneness"). As James Joyce wrote in Ulysses: "All human history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God." The Apotheosis: man becomes God.

To 'realize' something is to see (real eyes) the truth therein. We have always been one with the Oneness, one with God. Seeing this, and formally choosing it, makes it real in our experience - perhaps the most important 'fundamental choice' we'll ever make.

David Wilcock wrote in his most recent and exhaustive update titled December 21, 2012: Romance and Reality:

Earlier along, I was taken in by the "romance" of everything happening at the end of 2012.

However, it is very clear that we need to see some major changes in our own physical, everyday world here on Earth first.

I contend that we need to see some major changes in ourselves. As I said to my son in our discussion of my dream, if we want change, we have to make a definite choice and stick to it. We have to trust in ourselves, and be the change we want to see, instead of waiting for it to be visited on us. Our trust must be such that we give thanks for this in advance. This is the game-changer allowing for something completely different to come forth. We need to become new, and then we will see the new age prophesied in the mythologies of so many ancient cultures: a world of unity, love, and brotherhood. Of freedom and transcendence. Hey, maybe even a self-cleaning apartment!

"Is that all there is?" An online friend saw my first draft of this post, and shared that his professor in Civilizations had just referenced that very song, saying Peggy Lee had asked the primordial question that has been with us from the beginning. "What he is most wanting to convey," said my friend, "is all the things about us that have not changed and because of that, how looking at our collective past yields rich and meaningful information about our collective present." He went on: "He was saying the fact that tools for the living have been found buried with remains as old as 35,000 years indicates that even the earliest man was asking if the dead might be needing these tools wherever they might have gone. Therefore, man was asking a question about existence when they included tools with their dead." Yes, asking a question, and it seems, reaching a conclusion - or they wouldn't have provided the tools. Ancient man was also asking, and answering, in their prophecies about the end times and the transformation into a Golden Age. Perhaps in passing on this vision, they were providing us with an important tool.

This is indeed all there is, in the sense that all is available to us. We live in a Field of infinite possibilities, and our vision, choice and gratitude brings forth the potentials we desire.

We may not be there just yet, but it will happen as soon as we are ready. In the meantime, as Peggy Lee sang, if that's all there is, let's keep on dancing. And maybe that's enough. Maybe Terence McKenna was right when he said, replying to a question about the ultimate goal of human evolution: "Oh, a good party..."


Peggy Lee's kickass performance, "If That's All There Is":