This morning, I sat down to talk to John through writing. I wrote “Help me create something good,” the title of this entry. This sentence took on a new significance by the end… This entry rambles, but it’s good. I hope you enjoy it.

John’s been gently vying for attention the past week. I don’t consider every Beatles reference to be one of his signs; the Beatles are so entrenched in our culture you can see these signs everywhere if you wanted to.

I don’t credit John whenever I hear a Beatles song on the radio. We live in a town where the flower children came to retire; Beatles music is on regular rotation on our one and only local radio station. But when they play two Lennon songs in a row, my ears perk up. When that’s followed by a woman walking past me, talking loudly on her cell phone, and I catch “John says hello,” I chuckle.

Hello John.

John’s wearing Kurt’s big sunglasses with the white plastic frames, and a battered plaid shirt. Grins, and it’s like “Am I young enough for you kids now?” (poking at the “retired flower children” comment)

He asks me if there’s a place the children of Grunge will go to retire. I say, children of Grunge will never get to retire. That’s why we were so pissed in the 90s.

John shows me a wrinkled, tattooed, pierced 70 – yr old punk rocker, slinging hash in his retirement years. That’s flipping burgers and home fries, not the other kind of hash.

Yeah, I guess a lot of young people don’t really believe they’ll get “old”.

It’s a common joke, but not to worry, you (your generation) still (flips burgers) ironically. (When they get old.)

Well, that’s the important part I guess. To live your whole life with irony? (Shows me the contrast between this task as a teenager, and the result, having lived your whole life without ever changing your point of view, your way of seeing the world. )

John, did you change the way you saw the world during your (last) lifetime?

(Before I finish asking that question) Christ, yes!!! (Shows me him as a late teen) I was a pain I the arse, cocky, egotistical, short-tempered – it’s a wonder anyone put up with me, (it was defensive, and it worked). (I began to) change once I got married, (had my first child). (Shows me a quick summary of his life events, and who wouldn’t be transformed by such experiences?)

Look at yourself. (Everyone, look at yourself, how you’ve changed, how you haven’t.)

John, are you headed to a “Be the change you want to see in the world?” point?

Be the change you want to see in yourself.

My coworker was recently talking to me about her take on New Year’s Resolutions, which I think is a really great approach. She assesses herself, and picks one particular aspect of herself which she has observed and would like to change. It’s not about losing 10 pounds, it’s about a permanent change in character. One year she decided she wanted to stop bragging. (She’s a humble and generous person, and apparently this isn’t an accident.) Another year she decided to live with “grace”. What this meant to her was to be calm, be present, not petty, not argumentative. It is a more spiritual way of living for her. She says it actually took her two consecutive years before she felt she’d fully incorporated this resolution.

It got me thinking about my own character “flaws”, or foibles. Who do I want to grow into? What’s the next step for me?

I haven’t totally decided on what I’m going to focus upon yet. When I look back upon the unhappy teenager I was, I am grateful for the transformative power of the sheer will to change.

This all circles back to manifestation, doesn’t it John? Sweetie said yesterday you were talking to her about that. What did she tell me?

What, (you don’t listen to her? Teasing) I forget things!

Shows me them sitting in a white room, in white clothing, creating things from thin air with their thoughts.

Oh yeah. Damn, it’s so fucking fascinating. (I hear Biggie’s voice and his hand thumping the table We are all of creation.) I understand the lesson here, that’s been repeated so many times in so many forms, that we are all part of “God”, of everything, of each other.

It’s a difficult thing to describe from the point of view of a single, incarnated consciousness, speaking a language like English which has a limited vocabulary to describe these concepts. We in bodies are defined by our separation, our separateness.

A couple of weeks ago, during group meditation, I got really upset because I knew Leo was going to die. Sunshine, who is always present and talkative during meditation, was reminding me that Leo was still going to be there, she didn’t understand my sadness.

One of my friends pointed out to me that Sunshine is a cat. You’d think this would be obvious, but sometimes when you talk to animals you forget that their incarnation experience can be so different from your own, that they don’t understand what you’re talking about. Sunshine has never incarnated as a human, although she’s had many, many lives as cats. As a cat, Sunshine has generally always been aware of her connection to the other side. She sees our spirit visitors, to her they’re as real as her people who feed her.

“Sunshine is a cat. She has not transcended death.”

I had no idea what my friend was talking about. He continued, “You have this opportunity to teach her about being a human. She doesn’t understand what you’re going through, you can explain it to her.”

It’s funny that I’d never thought of myself as a teacher *of* animals. To me, they’ve always been the teachers, telling and showing me about their experiences and perspective. It didn’t occur to me that there is something I could and perhaps should teach them.

We discussed the origin or grief, how it exists *because* we have this separation. Maybe grief is one of the lessons we incarnate to experience. Animals do grieve their losses, this is common knowledge, but as my cat has shown, not *all* animals actually grieve the death of their buddies. Some of them don’t have that concept.

And that was a surprise to me.

I’ve been sharing my experience of missing Leo with Sunshine. Her response has been so utterly sweet.

She has started replicating behaviours Leo used to do. She’s attempting to fill the void Leo has left in my life. When I ate Pringles chips, she came up and sat beside me to watch. Leo used to LOVE Pringles chips. She didn’t actually want to eat a chip, but she showed up to watch me eat them, something she didn’t do before.

This morning, she did this sudden leap up on to the couch behind my head – this is a classic Leo move too. I heard this little trill in my head, the sound Leo used to make when he performed this little move. Sunshine didn’t make this noise, but she was again performing a behavior I’ve missed and have been thinking about. This morning before I went to work, she jumped into the bathtub. This is something Leo used to do every morning, so I could turn on the tap and he could drink / play in the water. Sunshine was horrified when I turned on the water; I’d never seen her in the bathtub before today.

She’s such a sweet, beautiful girl.

John, what is the point of this entry, could you please help me wrap this up? I feel like I’m circling around something.

John shows me the planet orbiting the sun, saying “We’re all circling the same thing.”

To paraphrase, tell me if I have this right, you’re saying that “close up”, like in our lives, it looks like we’re all separate, all experiencing different things. Yet on a higher level we all have this, life on this planet, turns around this sun, in common. I know you can hear my inner 90’s cynical teenager gagging. Did I get your point?

Darling, you are too cynical some days. I guess I am. Did I miss your point. (Sort of, can you set that pain-in-the-arse teenager aside?) Okay. There. Go for it, I’m listening.

Repeats the image of the earth orbiting the sun. Shows me other solar systems with life on planets, shows me these beings who have lived in both places, cross-referencing their experiences.

Those beings who specialize in life on other planets, cannot experience (Earth incarnation) in the same way. These are the (floaty, pragmatic, detached) people, who are seldom (swept away by emotion, shows himself swept away in anger, shows me engulfed in depression as a teen.)

This is an experience to be cherished, believe it or not, this (life on earth) is a privilege. All the suffering, all the grief, loss and hardship. Those of us who experience it (the most, thoroughly) have been here the most. Those of us who (feel the pain of the suffering of the innocent on the planet, shows me the planet rotating, the heart connections around the world) have the capacity to (empathize, to generate this heart connection) BECAUSE of (shows me the suffering in a long line of past lives.)

It can take many lives to incorporate the capacity to understand suffering in this way. Those of us who have (been able to wrap our bodies and minds around the experience of suffering) have finally (shows me eons of time through the rotating and expansion of galaxies) earned / created the capacity to experience THIS (Shows me the heart connection, all around the world.) THIS (the great healing opportunity presenting itself on planet earth.) THIS is the point of it all, the opportunities for change in yourself, right in front of you. (Shows me the empty white room, with Sweetie creating things from her own thoughts.)

This is it, this is the whole point of suffering – to heal. To heal over time, over lifetimes, to heal (on a personal level) yourself, to ultimately contribute to the healing of an entire planet. THIS (shows me the earth) was created ON PURPOSE. For this purpose. Healing, love, peace is a creation that happens in the presence of suffering.

Thank you John. Thank you.