Assisting Events to allow Life to imitate Art

I did have some more thoughts about how to get across the 4 quadrant presentation of the Naked Angel. I could do a movie about it and call it something along the lines of “Achieving Communion” and have it be sort of like a “My Fair Lady” story of an actress that gets hired to be the spoke person and narrator of the Naked Angel presentation and for demonstrating the practices in the video game. There are better odds for Life imitating Art in it because of the feedback of the movie being a docudrama with a lot of the script focusing on the journey of transformation the actress undergoes from the experience of demonstrating the practices for the video game.

There are a lot deeper issues since the theme of transformation in the story of “My Fair Lady” is an archetypal myth going back to the Greeks with Pygmalion and Galatea so it is firmly embedded in the collective unconscious that makes the odds very good that the the movie would appeal to a wide audience.

The movie could be shot on location at Esalen in Big Sur to lend more credibility and show some of the workshops used to learn the practices that illustrate how to follow the path.

I could have some scenes of going before the investors and venture capitalists and to get the money to produce the video game and the movie also. Then it would be a journey of the actress to learn the script and film the practices while following the path of development and growing in her awareness. That way she can use the motivation of money, fame and doing a job to get her into the practice and develop some other motivations for continuing when she grows through the stages.




Guru Yoga could be used to provide better motivations for evolving through the stages after the money and the fame then it could be by identifying with the role she is playing since it mirrors the experiences she experiences going through the practices she is demonstrating for the video game, then recognizing spirit in each other and coming to terms with what that entails.

One of the practices to show how to expand into more perspectives and how the true self is connected and anchored in I Amness is to show the Gamemaster’s Complex playing the Akashic Records as videos on the monitor screens. I could have the actress pick different points in her life to go back to and give the support and advice that she thought was most needed at that time to her younger self and have a future self come back to her to give the answers they thought she most needed.

I could do a composite of the actress playing the younger part then the older on the same shot so she could experience it from each side first as the younger getting what she needed then as the older giving the support needed and also watching the scene of both of them afterwards.

That way she could experience the process from the first, second and third person perspectives and see how they are all connected and how the self evolves through stages as everyone grows through experience.




Another of the examples to illustrate Integral Life Practice I could use is a representation of the story of how to gain wisdom. “After a long hard climb up the mountain, the spiritual seekers finally found themselves in front of the great teacher. Bowing deeply, they asked the question that had been burning inside them for so long ‘How do we become wise?’

There was a long pause until the teacher emerged from his meditation. Finally the reply came ‘Good choices’
‘But teacher how do we make good choices?’
‘From experience’ responded the wise one.
‘An how do we get experience?’
‘Bad choices’

I could have some scenes with the actress and some of the other seekers showing the different choices they made to overcome the obstacles in getting up the mountain and the different motivations they had for getting to the top.

Accelerating Developmental Growth through Video Games

One of the problems with Integral Theory is that it is hard to grasp without a lengthy explanation and the stuff that has been written about it is not easily absorbed. Ken Wilber has done somewhat better in talking about it and in video interviews at getting the essential points across but it still has a need for more concentrated attention than is widely attempted.




That’s why I figured that it could benefit a lot from a more graphical representation since animated examples and motion graphic diagrams would be more easily grasped and more quickly understood than the ways it has been presented so far.

There has been research done on how to design video games to help accelerate growth through developmental stages and I could make a video game that helps present the AQAL Map in a more entertaining way that people would be more inclined to pay attention to since it would also be fun.

Since parts of the theory require practice to understand from direct experience of the principles and concepts involved then a video game would be the most efficient way to motivate people to attempt those practices.

In addition to a video game that shows the Integral Life Practices in a way similar to The Wild Divine with biofeedback. I could also have a integral role playing video game that shows the journey of holons from the first basic manifestation through every stage to the highest and have players take on the a role to guide them through the stages that evolve in different ways depending on how they play the game.






I should have the goals of the RPG show how each state awakens to make the subject of one stage becomes the object of the next stage so that what starts out as identity of the body goes to identifying with the mind and then to the spirit until it reaches ever present witness and also goals the go through the stages of perspective from egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric and cosmocentric.

In one part of the game I could have some practices of meditation and how to illustrate the breathing techniques that focus on extending concentration by being mindful of your inhalations and exhalations then every time you get distracted by other thoughts, feelings or fantasies bring your attention back to your breathing. It could accelerate the learning curve on how to help stay focused by pointing out the benefits and the main concept to keep bringing your attention back to your breathing.


The video game should include puzzles to pass each fulcrum and sub-phases that require successful tests of how to identify, differentiate and integrate each fulcrum.





If the video game catches on among the gaming community with anything near the level of Warcraft then that could make a substantial difference in the amount of the population that are going through further develpmental stages and change the dominant mode of discourse of the society to the more inclusive stages.

Just having a change of administrations in the goverment from the traditional values of Bush to the more pluralistic values of Obama raises the dominant mode and the people that play the video game could use the momentum that the change in the Dominant Mode
which is already occuring to help accelerated the progress in their own transformation to make more headway in solving problems than in a generation.

That way when the technological singularity is achieved then the horse race of whether or not an ethnocentric or a more worldcentric society will use it will be won by the more worldcentric because more of the population will be at higher stages of development from playing the game so that the dominant mode of discourse of the society will be able to handle the technological advances for the benefit of all instead of just the profit of the few.

In order to reduce the average time of five years for transformation from one developmental stage to the next, it could help to combine the video game with other techniques like float tanks. It could help foster more intense form of deeper concentration and remove the distraction of the internal dialogue to make it easier to transcend the subject of one stage to make it the object of the next.





If I make some money on that treasure hunt DVD then I could invest it into hiring an actress to do some work in narrating and demonstrating the practices for the video game. Also to help in illustrating some examples of the concepts and principles in applying the AQAL Map

It would be very useful in having an actress in showing the methods necessary for an Integral Life Practice in order to have a demonstration as part of a business plan to show to investors since having a pretty face is always an advantage when attempting to sell something and that would go a long way to get the funds required to produce the video game.

It could also have a transformative effect on the actress that I hired to help produce the video game by her going through the practices in order to demonstrate them and illustrating the examples of the principles behind them it could train her into raising her center of gravity to more inclusive developmental stages. Since we both would be sharing the experiences by working on the demonstrations and illustrations that were contained in the video game then we both would have a foundation of understanding the concepts produced in the transformation to the higher stages of development and could produce a bond through the shared experiences for us to grow closer from it.

Since that bond was built at a higher stage of development if it included the Essential Ingredient then it would be stronger since it had a more solid foundation because it included more perspectives and more options in dealing with more states. That would give it a lot better odds of lasting longer.

Hopefully a marketing idea for a more popular DVD

When I went down to the beach my mom was watching episodes of the “Lost” TV series on DVD and the designs they had on the menus of the DVD were very inspiring. They had landscapes of the island and jungle with 3D text in different 2 point perspectives opposite to each other so that it looked like the text was nestled in to fit the image.

It looked very cool and I was thinking that I could use that as a concept to make a DVD menu for my portfolio.

Maybe a better DVD menu for my portfolio would be to do one of that idea I had about the contest for “The Writer’s Nightmare” that had a treasure hunt in it. It probably would be a lot better seller than the DVD I have there so it might be more popular on Create Space. It would be a way to get a practice with original marketable material in a different kind of DVD setup.

That way I could have a more professional DVD menu design to show in my portfolio but also a marketing idea that has more of a motivation for people to be interested in buying the DVD since they are more likely to go for the challenge and profit of a treasure hunt.

In keeping with one of the themes to story in “Nightmare” I could have the treasure hunt revolve around gathering parts to build the GyroTwister and have clues relating to where to find the parts that could be hidden on web pages, maps to locations even products on Café Press and Zazzle.

I could have the clues on the DVD be easier to lead to some of the parts and then have them get harder to lead to clues more complex in more places to be able to put the parts together and solve the riddle. Some of the clues on the DVD could be in that extreme typography with animated text made from Adobe After Affects like in those videos on You Tube and some could be screen caps of the word clouds from the Wordle web page.

Since it is a journey to find the parts and solve the puzzles maybe I should put it in a framework of growth through the stages also or at least a heroes struggle against impossible obstacles to make it challenging. Tying in the theme of the Gamemaster from the story would be a good way to give clues that relate to archetypes and the Akashic records so that the puzzles relate to overcoming selfish pleasure motivation and alpha pack dominance games.

I could have some clues relate to gyroscopes and roller coasters maybe even have one hidden at Great America and the Santa Cruz beach. Hiding keys to locks at different locations would help to making it more challenging and that way I could have clues in merchandise that can be unlocked to match the merchandise that was designed to be bought.

Since the theme is a hunt to gather items and a journey to reach a goal, I could also make it like the Fool’s journey through the Tarot with each item being a stage of consciousness along the way. I could use designs I did for The Naked Angel Tarot cards as symbols and clues for the different stages and put them on merchandise to find as part of the contest.

I could use the chakra system as a model for gathering items related to each chakra like jewels and lotus flowers and have practices that use motivations that go from egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric to cosmocentric in order to solve the puzzles.

For the clues on the DVD I could have them lead to web pages on my blog, Café Press, Zazzle, CreateSpace, Amazon, Lulu and Spreadshirt to merchandise that have clues to significant locations with items can be hidden.

The clues on the merchandise could be pictures of gyroscopes with coordinates from the Universe Cube on them hidden in the designs so that they point to stories in the plot summary that way I can have them relate to other clues in different places and follow the theme of building the gyrotwister and gathering parts of the Universe Cube.

I could do some storyboards to get the ideas for the clues and designs for the DVD together so it would be easier to collect so all it one place to keep track of it. I could use a flowchart with Smart Draw to keep track of all the clues and tie that to storyboards in Illustrator to give more details.

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.