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i won't die (part 2)

Image by Ilona Ilyés from Pixabay How many ways can I understand the experience of " I won't die "? I suggested one way: that having had that brief experience, I directly understood how the prospect of dying--the guarantee of dying--colors every moment of my life. That is primarily a psychological interpretation. As I went through the day, I realized there are several other ways to extract meaning from it or to interpret it. All of these are grounded in my worldview(s), my

Wyrd & Highly Strange

2 days ago3 min read

i won't die

When I was a teenager, I was lying on my bed one afternoon. I don't recall exactly how old I was or if I was doing anything, but my recollection is that I was relaxing. Suddenly, and with no warning, I knew with absolute certainty that I would not die in the next minute. I knew , viscerally. There was no antecedent. I wasn't thinking about death or mortality. I don't know that I was thinking about much of anything. Suddenly, I knew that every other minute was not like that. D

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Apr 91 min read

this is lovingkindness???

A few years ago, after having been out of the Buddhist stream for a long time, I decided to do a self-retreat, doing meditation on the Brahmaviharas. These four qualities--usually translated as lovingkindness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity--are valued in Buddhism, and the meditations are widely taught. Different teachers offer slightly different techniques, but the basic instructions are similar. First, the meditator brings to mind one of the qualities. Usually, they a

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Apr 42 min read

disillusionment

Do you think disillusionment is a universal experience? I suspect so, and I'm curious about it. Jeffrey Kripal, my favorite scholar of religion , tells his graduate students, " You have no business being a scholar of religion until you have lost at least two worlds ." When I first heard him say this, I felt it was true, and not only for academics. It made me reflect on my own personal journey. A few days ago, I enjoyed a podcast interview with Dr. Sravana Borkataky-Varma, w

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Mar 293 min read

in the mind's eye

" His Mind's Eye Tree ," Stratford-Upon-Avon (Photo: Philip Halling) "Picture in your mind's eye..." Surely most of us have heard this phrase, captured so evocatively in the sculpture above. But what on earth does that mean? Most of us have eyes that can see the world around us. Many of us have eyes that see within. Some call this capacity "the mind's eye." Some call it "subtle vision." People who refine their ability to see non-physically sometimes engage in remote viewing.

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Feb 223 min read

it's electric

(Photo: Georgia Power) Electrical phenomena are not that uncommon, but many people either don't notice or decide not to notice. Here are my personal experiences with them. Perhaps if more people read about them, they'll start to notice. Over a decade ago, I was in a difficult life pattern. Things weren't going too well for me, and I was working with a psychologist to try to loosen the stuck patterns. Some strange things happened during this period, but I was so focused on my

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Jan 142 min read

blue love

Islamic miniature depicting Muhammad's visit to Paradise from an 1808 Kashmiri manuscript of Bâzil's Hamla-i haydarî Blue has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. My security blanket as a child was a blue wool blanket trimmed with blue satin. I still have it. But, another blue image arose during a meditation recently: a blue flannelboard. Flannelboards were a thing when I was a child. Mine was blue felt with a black backing. I had sets of flannel-backed items

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Jan 93 min read

dreams and memories

Most of us have had some kind of precognitive dream, so we know that dreams can seem to foretell the future, but can they work in reverse? One evening, I watched a movie that had a scene featuring a bus. That night, I had a dream featuring a bus. Did I dream about the bus because I saw one in the movie? or did I see one in a movie because I would dream about a bus that night? These are the kinds of mind-bending questions that arise and show me how deeply embedded are my conce

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Dec 6, 20252 min read

how do you know it's me?

Federal high court hearing in Calabar, Nigeria (Photo: Oto-Obongo Clement/CrossRiverWatch) Who is writing this? Perhaps you know me personally. How do you know that the person whom you know as me is writing this? And if you don't know me personally but have read other entries here, you at least have a sense of my flavor. How do you know that the same person who wrote those other entries is writing this one? Or let's say you receive an email from someone who says they are me.

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Dec 6, 20253 min read

balanced time perspective

Clock constructed in 1390 at Wells Cathedral What is balanced time perspective? and why is it wyrd and highly strange? Well you may ask! Balanced time perspective is... the often nonconscious process whereby the continual flows of personal and social experiences are assigned to temporal categories, or time frames, that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to those events. ( Zimbardo and Boyd ) Some of us lean more into the past, some into the future, and some are firmly

Wyrd & Highly Strange

Oct 28, 20252 min read