The Essential Ingredient

When I met Krys it was like hitting the jackpot, grabbing the brass ring and winning the lottery that the odds of finding love ever happening to me finally came true. What I felt was like what was described in the song Angel Eyes.

She told me she felt the same way as that song, but the essential ingredient to any relationship is the willingness of two people to share their lives together. Susan Sarandon had a great way of putting it as a witness.



That might establish a baseline definition but it doesn’t say anything about the degree of commitment to the relationship. Krys and I used to use an example from the Mummy to show how much Evie loved Rick.

Admittedly it’s an extreme situation that required a greater showing commitment than most do, but Krys and I did discuss it and we both agreed that Evie did act more honorably to show the depth of her bond to Rick that she put his life above hers. While Anck Su Namun only showed that she put her selfish interests first by abandoning Imotep.

From the reaction that Krys had to that scene I had written to try and show a little bit of what being soul mates would be like, I thought that I had beaten the odds of finding someone that shared my ideas and goals in life. When we got married I thought I had found someone that I could let my guards down and trust to share my most intimate thoughts and ideas with. That was the plan that we were partners to achieve things together that we couldn’t separately.

When I tried to explain the practices of Tantric Yoga, she said she agreed with the ideas and wanted to achieve the benefits from it. But I’m not sure she understood what was involved in it from the practice we had it seemed like she was too afraid of letting go some of the baggage that was holding her back and lost the willingness to try and develop the discipline needed to make progress.

The trouble was that it seemed like she was unable to let go of her previous conditioning. She had led a sheltered life and was afraid of a lot of things. Her family history had left her with a distrust of men and it made her always expect the worst from them. From her father abandoning her and all the divorces in her family, her experiences had left a very negative impression on her.

It’s easy to say she followed the example of Anck Su Namun instead of Evie that she didn’t follow through on her vows and couldn’t contribute equally to the relationship, that she lied about being married and she was the one that betrayed the trust we had and committed infidelity by leaving for another. All that’s true but only part of the story. It’s just the surface facts and leaves out the depth of meaning and motives.

Now I’m wondering how much of what we had was her ideas of what a relationship was supposed to be projected onto me and mine projected onto her. I know we both chose symbolic ways of expressing things like mythic fairytale roles, like Piper and Leo from the TV show Charmed. They had a very committed marriage that they proved they would sacrifice their lives for each other. But they had their problems in their relationship also and sought help to work them out because they were still committed to the relationship. Is all Krys and I had were symbols with nothing behind them, wasn’t there more to it than that?

The point being is that even with all the problems I held onto the Essential Ingredient of wanting to share our lives together and I figured that whatever problems we had could be worked out if we wanted to go on with our lives. But apparently that’s not what she wanted since she bailed as soon as she could without putting much effort into trying to work things out.




I showed my mom the “Soulmates in Peril” video that I had made for the last wedding anniversary that we were together. I got stuck telling her more of the technical parts of the video because I had trouble describing all the symbols in the story that I developed for Krys.

Those symbols did have a lot of meaning to both of us they certainly communicated some things. But what if they were not exactly the same things because of the different levels of development? I definitely meant the vow of always coming for her and (death) or even the distractions from the illusions of samsara working out karma would not delay me forever. What if Krys started to identify more with Belle in that video then my Imzadi because she didn’t think she could live up to the harder role symbolized by being my Imzadi and gave into her inner demons to fall back on the role of Belle? In that way then she would be serving the Red Demon of her Past Conditioning.

That would make more sense if she confused the roles and identified with the self-destructive urges to base her decisions on. I can understand being afraid to put the effort into trying for success because of the risk of failure, that just invities temptations from selfish impulses. After all I wrote in the video that “There was no mountain too high and no river too wide because I would go to any lengths to rescue my soulmate.” Then I said it and recorded it to put with the voice over on the video. I definitely meant that I would fulfill that promise so shouldn’t I live up to it? I did have a lot of trouble with accepting the responsibility of what that involves so the fear of failing at it was strong.



If it was part of the myth like in “Roswell” where Liz leaves and goes to a boarding school then Max has to track her down for Liz to save him. I still would like to show that kind of devotion since like the song says I said “Honestly, I won’t give up you” but it does depend on the Essential Ingredient for her to also say “I shall believe”

A wider perspective than the egocentric might help to transcend that identification. If that were true then according to those symbols we would still be at the part where my Imzadi was kidnapped by her darker self and I have to go an rescue her from the demons of her past.

I put a lot of symbolism about jumping in and out of different realities in that video, from the comic book to virtual reality to photo-realism and I was thinking that might represent waking up from the illusions of the veil of maya like Richard Bach used in his book “One” and that Krys moving back to GA. might be like the test of Richard thinking that Leslie had drowned. To show the same principle that Richard learned

“Your own world is just as much of a mirage as any other. Your oneness in love is reality and mirages cannot change reality. Do not forget, no matter what seems to be” so by those symbols I would have to go to GA and show Krys that I could rise above the illusions that separate us from that “oneness in love” just like Richard was able to finally move the throttle of the seaplane and rise above the waters of the pattern. It does makes sense that Krys had some things to learn about independence that she had to learn by herself since we had talked about that before, it is just hard to know when she has learned enough yet. I would rather not have to wait until another life to reunite.

It all depends on how the fight between Belle and my Imzadi turns out in Krys. Has she grown beyond the level of development that Belle represents? Does she even want the Essential Ingredient that level of development my Imzadi represents?




Since I am going to start on the Integral Life Practice and part of that practice is to try and shine the light on the shadow aspects of yourself that have been repressed by your subconscious. So maybe I should ask a therapist about the psychological side of those symbols and find out what they think a useful interpretation of them is. That is what psychotherapy is supposed to address symbols in dreams and free associations to bring out hidden meanings. It certainly would help to have an objective opinion about what they mean and hopefully they can help expose some of the dormant aspects of myself that are draining my energy.

A competent therapist could probably get a more objective insight on who was projecting parts of themselves onto to who and maybe bring some clarity to the subjective interpretations of events. At least help me understand the parts that I had avoided and face up to the parts I wanted to ignore. It will be interesting to find out what their opinion is when I show it to them.

Cat Scratch Fever

I suppose it's no use put this off any longer since it's not getting much less painful, so I might as well get it out there. I've had 4 cats in my lifetime and my family has had even more. They've each had different personalities and quirks to them so I thought I had gotten used to the way that cats behaved and able to have a relationship with them.

As they say "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. ...Jeff Valdez" and "If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. ...Alfred North Whitehead" pretty much sums it up.



I went about 15 years from the time that Christopher died in Cupertino to being able to have a cat again since most of the places I had lived were with roommates and in apartments that didn't allow pets. So after I got the trailer to live in it was possible to have a cat again, when Carol Hemmingway offered to give us one of her kittens, Krys wanted a cat to keep her company and I thought it was a good idea.

In my experience with cats I had thought that it would be best to wait for a while until the kitten had matured enough to handle going outside and learned where his home was since I didn't think there was enough room in a 29 ft. trailer for a cat. But Krys was afraid that something might happen to him if he went outside. Since she was making the rules for him, I let her take most of the responsiblity of feeding and cleaning out his cat box.He was a good cat mostly and faily affectionate. He did most of the cat stuff like getting into things he wasn't supposed to and puking up hairballs, which Krys didn't take in stride as well as I did. He did have a thing about the rain that seemed to freak him out which might've been the noise of it hitting the trailer that scared him



When Krys left the responsibility of taking care of Angel was left to me so I figured it was time to let him go outside. He disappeared for a month and I figured that he would come back when he got tired of being on his own and hungry enough, I did worry about the amount of heavy storms we were having at that time and if he could survive them. When he did come back it did occur to me that he had learned something about how hard it was on his own and at least someone had the sense enough to get some help with it.

After that he got used to going in and out but he didn't like the outside much anymore since the other cats in the trailer park were pretty mean and he lost a couple fights with them. Although it did seem to help during the summer when the trailer got too hot and he could lie in the shade underneath it to catch the cooler breeze. I figured it was the best of both worlds since he had the food, water, catbox and comfort of places to sit inside and the freedom to go outside to see what there also. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. Even though his demands for attention with the meowing, the head butting me in the face when he was hungry and puking up stuff he didn't like were annoying. I did have a strong sentimental attachement to him and I loved petting him and when he fell asleep next to me at night.



Angel woke me up as usual and it was around 9:30 in the morning when I fed him so he was fine then, but around 11:30 he was puking which wasn't unusual and I cleaned it up. Then I noticed he was meowing with a lot more painful note than his usual attention getting meow. I started to worry it was something serious when he started dragging his hind legs like he couldn't move them. I called my Dad to have him give me a ride to the vet and he suggested I call the vet to get an appointment. I wasn't sure if the vet would do anything without an appointment so I called them and the closest time they would see me was 2:30.

I tried to comfort Angel as much as I could but he dragged himself behind the bed and had a major bout of diarrhea. So I scooped him up from there and wrapped him in a towel to wait outside for my Dad to pick us up. We got to vet and we still had to wait a while. The doctor told me it was serious and he had a 50/50 chance of recovering. He gave me an estimate of how much he expected the treatment to cost and it was $661 which is a lot especially since Medicare doesn't cover wives much less pets. Since the odds were half that Angel could make it, I thought he deserved that chance so I left him there to be treated and the doctor said he would call in the morning to let me know how Angel was doing.

I had to go to Mural class so I wasn't there when the Vet office opened. So after class while I was waiting for the bus I called the doctor to see what was going on. The vet said that Angel had died during the night from some type of rat poison that he had probably gotten from eating something dead. I didn't see how he could've gotten that kind of thing from inside the trailer since I don't have stuff like that there, so he must've gotten it from outside. I felt pretty bad and started crying on the grass next to the hot dog stand. I miss having Angel around and it was hard to avoid the fact that it was probably my fault that he died.

I guess that I can add that to the list of failures to keep promises and fulfill the responsibilities I had taken on. Krys had the responsibility of taking care of Angel for around 4 years and then I had it for around 10 months and I blew it so it added to my guilt. I suppose I put off writing this blog about it in part because of the guilt of letting Krys know that I had failed to take care of Angel properly. I probably should've taken him immediately to the vet and not waited hours for an appointment, if I had recognized his paralysis of his legs as a symptom of poison, I might've been able to him the vet save him in time by getting there earlier. Maybe we waited to long and should've let Angel outside when he was young enough to learn better. None of the other outside cats had that trouble, maybe Angel was just to set in his ways to be able to take the risks and dangers of being outside. How much quality of life does a cat have when all he seemed to like doing was eating? I suppose the arguement that the trailer was too small for him doesn't hold much weight when he didn't spend more than hour outside on the average at a time. At least if I had kept him inside all the time he would still be alive and able to do what he acted like he preferred instead of what I thought he should have.

It probably was more a case of the grass being greener on the other side that he wanted to go out in the first place. Especially since after he had been outside for a month he certainly seemed to get over wanting it anymore. Was I right to give him that choice for the contrast? Was he any happier after he learned that being outside wasn't all it was cracked up to be? That's probably some attempts at rationalizing the decision since the fact is that he'd still be alive if I hadn't. I have had cats die on me before and some tragically way before their time by getting run over or getting their heads caught in a door. So Angel's death isn't all that uncommon in the fate of cats it's part of the risks of living. Maybe it is a lesson in impermance but that also seems like a cop-out to avoid being directly responsible. It's hard to take the wider view in the face of the details of what happened.

Integral Video Games

I got the Wild Divine biofeedback games and they were certainly worth all the money since the graphics are very impressive, the puzzles that make the goal of the games are challenging and the biofeedback exercises were very helpful to be able to see the effects of bodily processes reflected visually. I thought it was a great way to practice a lot of the yoga breathing methods and get instant feedback on how well it was working. Being able to see the results on the screen was a way to recognize what the experience was correlated to on the screen.

Taking the bodily responses like skin conductivity levels and heart rate variability and learning to manipulate them is transcending those bodily functions as a subject so that you don’t identify with them and making them an object to be able to differentiate and integrate them. I did a Vlog about them to show how they worked



I had some trouble doing a video capture and since the game puts several elements from .mov, .swf and .mp3 files together it was easier to just point the video camera at the screen since I was using it for shots of myself also even if it didn't get very good resolution from it.



I liked what Deepak Chopra had to say and hopefully with the quality of these games he'll be able to reach that "critical mass" whith the wider appeal that video games have than just yoga or meditation does.



Ken Wilber shows how you can find evidence of different types of brain wave patterns that correlate to different types of meditation but they aren't the same as and can't be reduced to brain states

Integral Troubleshooting

I think I’ll do a blog about Integral Troubleshooting before the one about the Essential Ingredient. It’ll help lay the foundation for it better and give me more practice in communicating with the camera.

Maybe it would help to write out some of the ideas I want to talk about first so I can focus better in front of the camera. If even talented people like Marina or Christine have to have multiple takes for their videos then I shouldn’t beat myself up if I can’t get it all out without any preparation.

The first thing is trying to improve my communication skills because they are so poor at actually telling someone the ideas and points that I’m trying to get across. I figure if I practice getting over being subconscious in front of a camera that it might help with my self-image problem. If I get comfortable expressing myself to the camera then it’ll be easier to do in front of other people.



The next thing is that part about uneven development and that having a shadow that is a repressed part of your ego holding you back is going to hamper your chances of growth because you’re leaving parts of yourself behind since they are hidden from you.

From what I’ve been hearing from Ken Wilber most psychotherapy techniques involve talking to uncover the subjective stuff like in dreams and focus on them to make them objects in your awareness so you no longer identify solely with them. Talking about it to the camera should be at least a start and that way I would have them ready to be seen by a therapist to give me their interpretation of them if I decide that’s necessary. It might not be if I can troubleshoot the problems on my own once they are out in the open and that way I wouldn’t have to take the chance of messing up my disability while I’m still dependent on it.




Another thing I can talk about is what I was telling mom about the amount of stress I used to be able to handle is a whole lot more than I can now. I was thinking after I wrote about that in an email to her, the last time I was able to cope with a large amount of stress was when I was making that 12 hour round trip from Fremont to Berkeley and still able to keep that job at BRC while suffering from a diseased gall bladder before I had to have it taken out. Then after Creator died I seemed to have lost the ability to deal with stress and never got it back. I guess that means that I never fully recovered the blow to my ego and I’m probably still repressing parts that I need to uncover.

Excellent Adventures in Floating

From reading a lot of Ken Wilber's books I've been getting the idea that it's not enough just to read about these concepts, that you have to practice them. Because just reading about them only gives legitimacy to your beliefs and only is translative to supporting whatever stage your ego is in. But in order to gain authenticity and transform your ego to a more inclusive stage of development, you have to put them into practice.

"... in today's America, this is much more disturbing because this vast majority of horizontal spiritual adherents often claim to be representing the leading edge of spiritual transformation, the 'new paradigm' that will change the world, the 'great transformation' of which they are the vanguard. But more often than not, they are not deeply transformative at all; they are merely agressively translative. They don not offer effective means to utterly dismantle the self, but merely new ways for the self to think think differently. Not ways to transform but merely new ways to translate. In fact, what most of them offer is not a practice or series of practices like yoga. What most of them offer is a simple the suggestion to 'read my book on the new paradigm.' This is deeply disturbed and deeply disturbing...

...Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any realization of depth carries a terrible burden: Thiose who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision in no uncertain terms: that is the bargain. You were allowed to see the truth under the agreement that you would commincate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the Bodhisattva Vow)..."

When I first read about Isolation Tanks that were developed by John C. Lily about 15 years ago, I thought it was a good idea. Since I haven't been feeling up to doing any projects and just watching a lot of TV and DVD's I figured it would be a good idea to try it.

In newer tanks, epsom salt is added to the water in the tank to raise the density of the water above the density of the human body, so that the subject floats with his or her face above the water. However, since the ears are submerged when the subject is in a relaxed position, hearing is greatly reduced, particularly when ear-plugs are also used. When the arms float to the side, skin sensation is greatly reduced because the air and water are the same temperature as the skin, and the feeling of a body boundary fades. The sense of smell is also greatly reduced, especially if the water has not been treated with chlorine.

I had heard of the theraputic benefits of them and I hoped it might help with breaking out the the blocks of creativity and lack of being able to focus on doing anything lately

A therapeutic session in a flotation tank typically lasts an hour. For the first forty minutes, it is reportedly possible to experience itching in various parts of the body (a phenomenon also reported to be common during the early stages of meditation). The last twenty minutes often end with a transition from beta or alpha brainwaves to theta, which typically occurs briefly before sleep and again at waking. In a float tank, the theta state can last for several minutes without the subject losing consciousness. Many use the extended theta state as a tool for enhanced creativity and problem-solving or for superlearning.

They have been gaining in popularity in recent yearsand I found this news story about them on YouTube.



So I looked them up on the search engine to find if any were close by. There was a web page called FloatFinder.com that showed a few in the Bay Area with the closet one called The Float Center in Oakland. They were kind of expensive $70 an hour and they had a package deal of an hour of floating and a massage for $140. Then it was $62 for a round trip Greyhound bus ticket with the 7 day advance purchase.

I saved up some money from my birthday and got the ticket. It said on the web page that if you want to get a massage that you have to get an appointment ahead of time so I got one of those debit cards that you can preload with cash and use like a credit card to be able to pay for it online. The trouble was that I only put the exact amount on that card and apparently there were some transaction fees so it was declined and I only had enough to get the hour of floating not the massage.

Since I had been looking for a chance to make another vlog, I decided to take some footage with my camcorder to document the trip.



The best thing I can say about it is that at least it was something different to try and it's another video to add to the amount that I have to use as response on YouTube. It definitely shows how much more practice I need at it and that I'm a long way from being competent at it. It does point out the importance of storyboards and a plan to make something worthwhile.

It started out pretty good, the first leg of the trip to Sacramento went by fairly fast while I watched "Back to the Future" on my portable DVD player. When I got to the Sacramento bus station it was almost a 3 hour wait until the bus to Oakland so I tried to charge the DVD player so it would last the trip. I did some more footage for the video while I was waiting.

While it was charging, I went to get a coke from the vending machine and when I came back it was gone. It was a shame to lose it but it was my fault for letting it out of my sight. I knew better than to trust anyone that was around in such a public place. But it was no use beating myself up about it and crying over spilt milk. So I let it go and fell back on reading my books, listening to my MP3 player and playing the games on my cell phone.

When I got to Oakland, I tried to get a taxi to take me to the Float Center, I asked one of the clerks that sold the bus tickets to call me one, but apparently she only called one of her friends that wanted make some money since the guy who showed up drove a car that didn't look much like a taxi. I had printed out the directions from Google Maps so he didn't have much trouble finding the place. He wanted to charge me $20 for only a 3.5 mile trip though. I had figured it would be a lot less for that short a ride. I spend most of my money on the debit card so I only had $12 left and I talked him into just taking that.

The lady the ran the Float Center was very nice, she explained all the rules and procedures like showering before and after to keep the tank from getting fungus growing in it and getting the salt off your skin. I'm not sure if I had too hot of a shower since when I got in the tank it was a tiny bit cold and it was supposed to be the exact temperature as your body.

I liked the feeling of floating with no gravity pressing on your muscles and it relieved the strain I'd been having from the mattress I've had to sleep on. I did my deep breathing to shut my internal dialogue and it gave me a big pain in my neck. So I did the OM mantra to let the vibrations dissolve the pain in my neck. It did help since the pain eased but apparently the stress was still there and I couldn't let go even with nothing to distract me.

After I got out of the shower and dressed the gal that ran the place made me some green tea and we talked for a while about floating and the art gallery she had at the place. I showed her the designs I did for The Writer's Nightmare DVD ans she seemed to like them.

I told her about the problem I had about not being able to afford the taxi back since I spent the rest of my cash. While I was in the tank I had the idea of using the money left of the debit card and transfering it to her through my PayPal account and then she could let me have the cash. But it wasn't necessary since when I brought the subject up she just said she would give me a ride back to the Greyhound Bus station. It was a bit harder to get back to the bus than it was to get there since she went a different way and we got lost a couple times but we found it after a while. I thought it was nice of her to go out of her way to help me.

I had over 3 hours to wait for the bus to Sacramento and it was a lot harder to pass the time without the DVD player but more because the seats in the bus station were very uncomforable, I kept having to sit on the floor and then stand up to stand the strain. I guess they had some trouble with the schedule between Reno, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Portland because all the northbound buses with delayed and full even at 3am. I had to wait 4 hours for the bus to Oroville to leave and even then it was an hour late.

I finally got back home around 10am so it was it was around a 22 hour trip. I'm leaning toward it not being worth all the money, the float itself was pretty good, but it certainly didn't have as many benefits as I had hope and any it did have were erased by having to take the bus there and back. I'm glad I had the experience so I know what it was like after all this time but it wasn't worth losing my DVD player and all the hassles of the bus travel. Maybe it would've been better if I had the massage also, if I ever go again I might try it that way.

I took a nap for a couple hours after I got back and woke up at 2pm because I had to go to Chico for a MRI that the neurologist had set up. When he set up the test, they arranged for a taxi to take me to Chico which I thought would help because the B-Line buses take at least 4 hours to get there and back.

The taxi was supposed to be there at 2:30, when it was late I called the office where I was supposed to have the test and they said the taxi was on the way. Since they were the ones arranging it, they were the ones responsible if I was late or not. When they were an hour late I got a call from the taxi company saying they were on the wrong side of the trailer park looking for me. I finally got to the office and it's good thing I never tried to take a taxi from Chico in an emergency because the meter read $55.

I didn't have to wait that long before they took me to where they had the MRI machine. I thought it was a bit odd that it was in a trailer on the other side of the parking lot from the office, but maybe they have to keep it that far away because of the intense magnetic fields it generates and it could mess up other stuff around it.

I put in some earplugs that the guy running the tests gave me a lay on the table. The things he put on each side of my head were uncomfortable, but the pad he put under my knees helped. They slid me into the machine and the enclosed space didn't bother me at all, it was just the very loud noices of all kinds that were fairly annoying. Even the earplugs only helped somewhat. I did a lot of deep breathing and it went on for almost 30 mins for the whole thing until they slid me out.

The receptionist called for the taxi to take me back, but apparently they had brand new dispatchers at the company they used and they didn't know what they were doing so they had more problems bring me back as they did getting me there. One taxi showed up but the driver said he was the wrong guy so I had to wait for another one. The next one showed up about 10 mins later and the receptionist siad the driver had to go inside to get some paperwork and I told the driver that but she didn't listen, it wasn't my problem since I wasn't handling that part, I figured the place that did the tests was going to bill Medicare for it. I told her how to get to my place so we didn't have any more trouble on the way.