In writing the words I wrote last year, I purposely avoided putting things in Sethian terms. Why? Because I'm me, not Jane, and ANY enlightenment will be expressed in the most familiar terms to the experiencer. To use only Sethian terms would be no good in my case as I understand them in MY terms, not JUST Jane's. So I'm using Jane's and Seth's The Magical Approach to 're-describe' the experience for Sethian aficionados, of which I am definitely one. Have been for years, but that did not CHANGE what I've experienced with Diane, but made it MORE understandable in MY terms. I dealt not just with Seth's ideas, but Diane's and mine as well. So I'll 're-translate' by re-reading THE MAGICAL APPROACH and commenting from my experiential knowledge, expressed in my terms. I've always said there was more than two sides to a coin. Looking from different angles is a useful approach to understanding without terms, which is what we all do, naturally. Enjoy! "The mystery of Life is not an equation to solve, but a reality to experience." -Robert Heinlien
Well I didn't have to get far into the book... not even past Jane's forward!
Pg. XXI Jane states:
From my early years...I remember:
My earliest memory of seeing my mother and father while my father was finishing the brick wall in the yard...I told them of the memory years later and they said I was in Mom's womb at the time. I didn't see it from her perspective at the time. I was across the yard.
The "precognitive "dream I had at about the age of three of riding a bicycle. Later I experienced the moment and remembered having the dream.
The time I sat at the piano and played Liszt's Liebestraum, not being aware of anything but this outpouring of beautiful music. I wasn't even aware of playing it, until I stopped.
That each time a friend has died (mostly of AIDS), I've had dreams with them shortly afterwards, my Mother included.
Of riding down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley on my bike, and a car door opening and throwing me from the bike. I remember being aware of everything that happened, 360 degrees around me. Knowing that my body knew what to do to keep me from being crushed by the cars to my left. Ended up with just a strawberry on my knee, and quite embarrassed. Should have been more watchful, and avoided the door entirely, but hey, it worked out fine!
Here's a truly funny sexual story for your edification.
Session One, Pg. 6. "...an atmosphere that allows the answers to come even though they may be presented in a different way than that expected by the rational mind."
Well, the whole experience for sure, but to elucidate Seth's comment, I'm finally going to put up the part about my brother Ronnie and his connection to my friend Ronnie Michael. It will show you how seemingly irrelevant aspects tie things together, at least for me. I never dismiss the ability of tangential association to shed light on the whole. I wrote the following right after my experience last year:
When the incident in 1995 happened, I really felt nothing more would come of it, in other words, it was it's own purpose. I wrote a letter about my experience to Peter Paul and Mary, and sent a copy to Ronnie and Darrin.
Peter, Paul and Mary never responded, but that really didn't bother me, as I didn't find it a fault that they hadn't. After all, the letter WAS a thank you for what they had already done through their music and generosity towards Ronnie Michael. This is one fan that doesn't EXPECT much out of life, except the grace to play it my way.
My Brother Ronnie Obechina died when I was young, and that is connected.
You see, when my brother Ronnie Obechina died, I had a dream where he and I met, on a big bed.
When Ronnie Michael was in the hospice, he seemed SO resigned to exiting his life, that I was thrown for a loss...I didn't WANT to miss him so soon, and couldn't understand his acceptance, since he didn't seem all that sick.
Both Ronnies were connected during my experience. I saw that my brother Ronnie is connected somehow to Ronnie Michael...by the big bed. Ronnie Michael always sat on his big bed, rather than in the living room.
A big bed, just like in my dreams. That realization clicked in a way impossible to describe.
Then a few days later I ran into a stranger on the way to the store that I had never met, but I KNEW was connected to Ronnie Michael. He paused and asked me about fares for Muni and spoke of the weather. I was tempted to ask more of him, but was afraid of appearing foolish.
How'd I know? I just KNEW!
Seth mentions that reincarnation is the wrong way of looking at it, since all times are simultaneous. Do contradictions bother you? There is a human-logical contradiction in that sentence, cause we experience those 'expanding' moments sequentially. I got 'lost' once during the experience concerning timelines. For awhile, I felt that I was 150 years in the future: The people in the building across the parking lot were dead for 150 years. I don't know what this means, nor do I understand much of the impressions I got, like that we were surrounded by a multi-colored canopy.
I also had the 'impression' that two stars (literally) were giving birth to a third star, representing a new 'psychic' family.
Later I read that astronomers have seen the birth of a star, which of course took millions of years to reach us, but if time is simultaneous, what I felt makes sense, and is certainly a possibility. Whatever happened could have indeed "produced" a star back then.
Who knows? I certainly don't. I do know that during that time I kept asking the collective consciousness to consider who writes the story.
And of course, WE DO! And I wrote my "response" all by myself, but not the total story. I couldn't have come up with such a sequence of events if I'd tried. Anything I notice is noticing something I didn't expect, ergo I don't consciously set things up. I respond at the proper moment. I think my body consciousness has a lot more say than it did before, or I notice IT'S say more now. I'll flick my hand without purpose just as something clicks around the house.
Or Kenny and I break into a song at the same phrase. For more, See the "Concatenation" page.
You know, during the experience I asked that once a day, I'd get a reminder. Of course, all I have to do is look at the crystal that changed, but I still get many occurrences that show the inner workings of outer seemingly non-related events. For more events since that three month moment, see Dave's Raves.
That's it for today! Gotta take my afternoon nap or I'll feel like you know what later tonight.
And that brings up one final point for now...when I found out I was HIV positive my question was not: 'why me'. It was "Why the hell did I choose THIS course?", pardon my language! Grin!
I know why I chose it now! DOUBLE GRIN! Slinging Love your way!
Dave Starkovich 10/14/98 Pg.6, next paragraph: "What we will be discussing for several sessions, with your permission jointly -- and I hope, with your joint enthusiasm -- will be the magical approach to reality, and to your private lives specifically, in order to create that kind of atmosphere in which the answers become experienced (underlined). I've experienced SOME of them, and this section of my site will be devoted to sharing them with you, hoping it will encourage you. It's all I can do, you see. But frankly this makes it easy...Seth and Jane and Rob have given me a "perfect" vehicle, since I am not a writer by any means, I'm a rambler. And I can't JUST talk about Seth's ideas, I must talk about me. Sorry about that! Grin! Kenny doesn't really like me doing this, but then he does. He wants me to write about it, so I won't babble about it with him. When I finished what I wrote yesterday, Kenny got home from work and said I was just totally spaced out, cause I didn't want to deal with an issue that required decision making on my part. (I'm a Pisces!) I was just mentally bushed from writing and thinking so intensely, that I didn't WANT to make the decision. Oops, Kenny just called. I told him I'd call him back. That's what he DOESN'T like! Grin! He must have heard me writing about him. A real time example for our amusement! Thanks! Double Grin!
Pg. 7.: "Creativity itself has its own built-in discipline, the kind that, for example, in a dream can rummage through the days of the future to find precisely the data required to make a specific point." When my friend, Audie, lay dying, I had a dream that he was. The next day I made it a point to pay him a visit. I told him, "Don't worry, Audie, you'll be happy again." He died five minutes after I left. I dreamt with him a couple of nights later, and he was dancing and smiling up a storm of delight.
Pg. 19 "You change your focus point. You change what you consider significant." It's the little things where it shows...that call you get from a friend when you're thinking of them, that kind of thing. Sometimes I feel bombarded, but that is because things 'POP' out at me, as if in "Ah HA!". Pg. 9: "...the ruler's measurements have absolutely nothing to do with the measurements made by the heart, and they can never be used to express the incalculable measurements that are made automatically by the smallest cell." As I ask on my page where I discuss the
healing on my leg, how was my DNA for that spot on my leg changed? Doesn't matter. What matters to me is it DID, and most important, it's DONE! The future I leave up to the rest of creation. I've given my imput, of which these words are only a watery description.
Dave October 15, 1998 Session Two, Pg. 27-28
"A goodly number of those mistaken decisions, or "poor moves," often represent self-corrective actions, decisions taken on knowledge not consciously perceived, but this escapes your consciousness. In the same way, some private-life decisions or events may appear disadvantageous to the intellect for the same reasons, while instead they are self-corrective measures that you are not able to perceive because of your beliefs."
One of the HARDEST things towards the end of the experience was "getting back to normal". Kenny was scared of seeing me spontaneously make gestures, or dance to music, or just be distracted by what was going on inside me. He kept leaving me, after the first couple of "lapses" on my part EACH AND EVERY DAY. Boy was I MAD at him for doing so. I'd sit at home wondering if he was even going to show up at night, or if I'd be alone again tonight. He spent many days and nights at friends.
So one day, I'd "had enough!" so I followed him outside, pleading with him to stay. So I followed him (in my bathrobe...He left faster than I could dress that morning!) to the corner store and then into the hotel next door where he called 911. BOY WAS FOLLOWING HIM A MISTAKE, I realized! But it wasn't, really. When the police came and hauled me unceremoniously away to the psyche ward, tied me down on a table, though I was NOT being violent in the least, I began to RAGE, and I mean RAGE! I had NEVER felt so violated. And then I began to look at the people passing the window, and I began to "see" people "overlaid" with people there. I saw someone who brought to mind an old friend. Then another, then another. I knew THEN the reason I had chosen to challenge Kenny that morning. I was mad at Kenny for almost a month, even though I knew it was I who had forced him into a corner from which he had only one option, considering I wasn't listening to him. I think Seth's term was counterpart. But my real point here is that I followed him for what I thought were MY reasons, but which were actually CONTAINED within the LARGER reason: To illustrate counterparts AND to get me to realize that I couldn't go through life being as spontaneous as I had been the past few months, regardless how GOOD it felt! I had to "re-educate" myself on what would be appropriate and what would not be. That's what happens when the "rational" part of the mind is subdued, which it indeed was...which is why I had to get back to normal...so Kenny would LIKE me again. My experience described above about Ronnie was also to illustrate counterparts and multiple incarnations. And no, the experience didn't really enlarge my understanding of how that works, just that it does indeed. I’m sure the Collective consciousness understands more now. And mass events? If you look at history OR current events in the light of Seth and Jane's words, it TEEMS with examples of where people do one thing for their reasons and the "colliding" events produce something different. For example, lets take all the religious protestation that homosexuality is a less than desirable trait. Granted, religions don't say we're going to hell anymore, but the Pope has recently said (it's not JUST the religious conservatives you see), that homosexuality goes against 'god's' will. I suspect this is a recent development (past 400 years) because others have discovered same sex commitment ceremonies from the church in the middle ages. Me, I KNOW they're wrong. I've had my "judgment day" you see. Many gays have had transcendental experiences, they just aren't talking about them. The medical profession goes to great lengths to convince aids and cancer patients that go through this that they are sick. Then they isolate the parties so we can't compare notes. They went to great lengths years ago to convince us that being gay itself was a sickness. People still stupidly claim this. And the pope is freezing his church in the past interpretations: the church's "defining truths"; you know, Original sin, virgin births, women not worthy to serve as priests, only ONE true way, etc. etc. Though it may LOOK like a bad decision, I'm glad...it signals the downfall of those religions which believe in original sin, which is most if not all. I've yet to hear of a religion that didn't believe we were condemned. I delve into this region of thought on my Feature of the Week page. I giggled when I saw the title on a recent Stephen R. Donaldson novel: This Day All Gods Die Yeah, I giggle a LOT. You have to have a sense of humor to realize that we homosexuals have been condemned for so long, and yet I did what I did: I responded appropriately. MY REALITY CHANGED IN A BIG WAY!
And friends, it's not ALL going to happen in 'our' time, but rest assured we'll find the Seth Material 'NEXT' time! GRIN! "Make the music weave a spell, whirl away your worries; DOUBLE GRIN! Dave Starkovich, October 16, 1998 That's it for now, I feel I need a break from all this INTELLECTUALIZING! Grin! But before I take a break, I give you a name that was given to me by my fellow novices when I was in the Christian Brothers: I've communed, and seen miracles occur. I'm not really here to 'splain it to humanity. I'm here to preserve the FACT of magic in my heart, mind, and soul, and ignore society's dilemmas, they're not mine. Seth, Jane and Rob have already done the explaining. For that matter, JOHN explained it 2000 years ago when he told us, God is LOVE. I communed with the sun.
From my perspective it is the SUN that is the "christ personality" Seth mentions. I can't convince YOU of that, but I did get miracles. A month or so after my sharing, a friend came over...he made it a point to play us a song by ASWAD: "Come on and shine, shine, shine like a star.
Shine, Shine into the future; And he's "not on my side"; he STILL thinks I just went crazy, despite the miracles we've shown him.
Yeah, I know it doesn't seem rational...but we're not talking rational here. We're talking MAGICAL! Like twice today Kenny calling me EXACTLY when I was thinking of him! Double Grin! Dave Starkovich, October 19, 1998 Pg.33.
Dear Rob,
Got some 'feedback' for you...
On page 33 you say to Jane, "Have you ever noticed that everything on Earth remains the same except human activity? But Rob, do they really stay the same, or is it possible that their "creative activity" is unRECOGNIZED by us? Perhaps you derive great stability (as did 'St.' Francis!) because deep down you know they are us too. Seth said our world is a reflection of our true selves. Try that literally. We ARE the Earth, the environment, the entire life on the planet. That's HOW we're connected to each part. That's why "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" was preserved from years ago. It doesn't apply to just people. Seth said there can be NO divisions that aren't arbitrary. When I communed, (and I use that word specifically to goad the Catholic Church , who thinks THEY have a patent on miracles and communing with nature), with a whale. Then a whale shows up on the news beached with people surrounding him, stroking him as he dies. Just as my friends and I did when Lee lay dying. Each 'event' was connected in my understanding by EMOTIONAL RECOGNITION.
I got the impression that the life Kenny and I REALLY enjoy is as clown fish. And modern society always underestimates what we are. So the 'entity' that holds all these 'expressions of physicality' in their being understands more than EACH expression of physicality. But when one of the 'individualities' desires to know more of its self, as opposed to building a better toy, that 'entity' helps along, like Seth did for you and Jane, like the 'Artful Dodger' and others whose names I didn't ask, did for me. But toys are important, as we develop at different rates. I DO like to play. Frankly, I prefer making music to making wordsense out of an experience that defies encapsulation, as it's still going on, but one must seize the moment of inspiration gladly. Like Peter Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger sing: "Take your place on, the great Mandala, as it moves through your brief moment of time." And "Why haven't we done better?" you ask. You and Jane, and all you others, ARE doing better. It IS happening, but in areas of research that are not 'metaphysical'. Humanity isn't through duping itself for an as yet unperceived purpose.
Here's a great article, though the field of medicine does approach it as a disease rather than a choice on the individual's part. It's titled: That's it for today, and I'm putting the book down for at least a week! Make that two weeks, maybe more. We're having a Halloween party, so got other things to do. Besides, the public arena is heating up, and I think I'll just ignore TV for awhile. What I'd enjoy seeing is the different churches arguing with one another as to who got it right! Wouldn't THAT be fun!
Thanks for being there for me Rob, Jane, Seth, and CREATION AD INFINITUM! (Latin for infinite creation = all that is.) Here's another good article! GO Amnesty! Amnesty says practice what you preach. From NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE Or:
And I've a broad range of terms to pull from.
I've spent many years reading different philosophies, and I had to include Diane's understanding as well as mine.
Reconciling what happened into meaningful associations, so-to-speak.
Translating.
"But I thought there would be things in each person's life that could be used as guideposts, to a magical kind of orientation."
(Such hubris have I...go figure! Seth said examine ALL areas of your life!)
During that "three month moment" part of what I did was a "life -review' that showed me some of those moments mentioned above. There were many more.
And the "at least for me" is an IMPORTANT point. You HAVE TO see it for yourself. It's organized by you, JUST FOR YOUR 'symbols'. No one else’s.
Read on and you'll understand why I say that!
I asked him, "Aren't you dead"? and he said "As dead as you!". Silly me, I believed him! Silly me, I STILL DO! Yes I rankle that the medical profession just thinks I went crazy for awhile. They don't SAY that, but that's what they believe. My primary care physician believes, and refuses to even consider ANY other interpretations, that it was a side effect of Biaxin, like that would produce miracles! What's ironic is that he thinks he's helping me by giving me an alternate explanation!
Or read one another's mind. The other day we were at the store and we were exchanging comments. I THOUGHT one comment at the end, and he answered the comment as if he'd heard it out loud.
He just continued to say, "Until you get back to normal, I can't stand to be around you."
Things look almost twice as swell, when they're slightly blurry!
As around and around we go, our spirits will hit the top!
And now that we're dancing, who cares if we ever stop!"
-From HELLO DOLLY!
Prophylaxis David.
Shining so bright like the star that you are.
Spreading your light wherever you are."
Session Three
This one's for you...I REALLY wish Kenny could meet you...he could've sure used some help on what to do when his honey 'went out there'. I sure couldn't get through to him by talking about what was happening, he kept saying, "Just shut up and Love me!" Grin!
Dave Starkovich, October 20, 1998
Lewis Dolinsky
I've been shopping on EBay, a web auction "place". I read their "credo" today. It's WONDERFUL, and a perfect 'translation' for todays world:
We believe people are basically good. Such radical thoughts... Kudos and Angel Kisses, People around us grinned, and we laughed all the way home about it. We're WHOLELY OURSELVES, not holy! Boop-boop-de-doop!
We believe everyone has something to contribute.
We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.
We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual.
We encourage you to treat others the way that you want to be treated.
And lest you think we're (Yes, Kenny is VERY important to all this!), holy, get over it!
Last night a person blasted their horn at us as we crossed the street. Kenny and I IMMEDIATELY turned and together, in perfect synch, loudly shouted "f... you! at the guy in the car.
Just a quick note today.
We had our pumpkin carving party last night. Neighbors and friends came over and carved away.
Tangent switch: Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe those coincidences that seem timed. What Kenny and I call cowinkydinks. During my 'episode', at one point I was tossing M&M's around, saying "Magic trick"!
At the time I really didn't know why I said it, or did it. I was just playing...thought they would disappear on their own like the bug, I guess. (Bug description on hallucinations page.)
What actually happened was that Kenny ended up picking them up.
So last night Dan, our neighbor throws an M&M at Kenny for something he said. I think back to the episode and say "magic trick" JUST as Shelly, another neighbor yells to Kenny, "Pick it up!".
Kenny and I both laughed, knowing we've gotten another independent confirmation of the experience and the connectivity of us and our friends...we've never told Shelly or Dan about the M&Ms.
Have you gotten around to reading the editorial I wrote last year at Halloween?
I was deep into the experience when I wrote it.
Happy Halloween!
Dave, October 29, 1998
P.S. If I'm not what you expect, realize, I'm not what I expected either!
Session four, pg 42
"The intellect could handle both approaches, operating with separate assumptions." ... "In so-called modern ages, however, the intellect has been stripped down, so-to-speak." ...
"The intellect does try to order experience, to make sense out of perception."
"When it is enriched by having in it's possession several world views, then it does an excellent job of merging those into meaningful patterns, of sorting it and sending it to the proper places, so-to-speak."
"The intellect is not to blame, it does the best it can.
My primary purpose in the experience I had, was to remember it. Just remember.
But I remember it in MY way.
At the beginning, I felt I was having a J.R.R. Tolkein/Stephen Sondheim/Stephen R. Donaldson/Isaac Asimov/ fantasy experience.
I never ONCE thought of the Bible, or angels talking to me in my head.
The first time I "heard" a thought in my head, it was someone telling me they were going to teach me to ignore. When I asked why?, (I'm the inquisitive type, you see,), they said, we are going to EDIT the past, and you get to set up a magical show.
They had me hooked!
WHO would CARE what they called themselves?
And how could I POSSIBLY think the voices were real and not imagined?
Trust.
Trust in myself and the overwhelmingly intense feeling of Love that flooded me, just like it had three years previously, plus the absolute knowing that I had free will in the matter; that MY desire would equal MY actions, and that I need NEVER say a word to anyone about it. I realized in that very moment that the previous experience was just a precursor to what was happening now. Then. Well, now, too, as when the miracles occurred, I knew I just HAD to tell. Jane suggested creating an unofficial diary of life, and I'm doing my part! Grin!
Tolkein, because after the first trip to the hospital where we had a little chat about things (later, maybe!), Kenny, Gary and I spoke mind-to-mind one day, as we walked around Delores Park.
As we're walking, Gary turns towards me and says in my head, Dave, today your mantra is THANK YOU! More on that later too, perhaps. Sondheim, because he's well-connected. Into the Woods, his latest musical, indeed! Donaldson, because of his Thomas Covenant series where in a man finds himself in a different world, and believe me, it wasn't the world I was USED to perceiving. Isaac Asimov’s foundation trilogy is a perfect example of getting across an idea in understandable (hmmm do I mean acceptable?) terms. There is indeed a "second" foundation. US in the dream state! Our DNA is very malleable and changeable FROM the dream state. From Framework two.
Science sees it the other way around, an accidental changing of DNA, based on survival rates.
But they don't want to learn. One Doctor called me about the healing on my leg. She wanted to know how long it took to heal. I told her one night I had a huge gash, next day nothing. She said, no, it doesn't work that way, it's accelerated healing. I told her I knew nothing about accelerated healing, but I saw what I saw.
She rushed me off the phone...I didn't fit HER definition of reality.
I wrote shortly after the experience, in the journal Kenny had given me, "Dear Darling,
My Intelligence met my Heart and my Intellect woke up!
I Love your dreams!
Wish On!
Love,
your dingle-darlin at his best,
Dave"
SEE it working in YOUR life! I did, you can too. Get it yet?
Dave Starkovich, November 3rd, voting day, 98. We each have a vote, both at the polling place and in our hearts, but so does the REST of creation, which is ALSO us.
Again from Peter Paul and Mary, "Take your place on the great Mandala, as it moves through your brief moment of time, win or lose now, you must choose now, and if you lose, you're only losing your lie."
P.S. Halloween party went great!
Sorry I've still not continued, I've been working on an arrangement for my cousin's quintet of my Dad's piece, Dreaming.
Comments on Session 5 are now on-line. I guarantee you a giggle or two! Grin!
DS, November 14, 1998
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