From: Jasper
Date: 29 Jun 2000
Time:
23:55:34
Jean,
I have found that physics meets metaphysics on many avenues of exploration into the essential nature of things - if not all of them. It was a bit disheartening to find that everybody wasn't as excites as I was about the implications of the particle/wave experiments that were done with the split photon, and the discovery of a subatomic particle that can travel faster than light and carry a radio signal with it. It appears that the universe itself, as we are capable of knowing it, is dependent on human consciousness. It appears that all of us are connected to a pool of consciousness outside of our heads that extends to everything that exists, everything in the "unknowable" past that has ever existed, and everything in the "undetermined" future that will ever exist. You and Kari are more aware of that connection than most people. I've had my moments. I try hard to be a better "listener." But just as your story of the "astronaut" illustrated so well, it ain't always easy.
When I was stationed in Fort Campbell Kentucky I had an absurd dream that seem as real as anything I'd ever experienced. I was sitting back as though I were in a recliner feeling a bit ill, as though I was coming down with the flue. Only there was no recliner. I was sitting in space. Although I wasn't moving I had the definite sensation that I was I was moving north. I couldn't figure out where I was or how I got there and nearly freaked when I looked to my right and saw something I'd never seen before. It looked like a thick low-hanging fog, except that there were these unworldly wisps rising from the top like frozen daggers of jagged, white smoke.
The next day was our fist payday since we returned to the States. I'd spent most of my time overseas in the field so I couldn't monitor the allotments the Army was supposed to have been sending to my family. Every time I returned to base I found out that the allotments hadn't been sent. My wife and kids were forced to live on welfare and they were in dyer financial straits, so this payday was exceedingly important. I got two dollars. The paymaster, who hadn't been with us in Vietnam gave me a hard time. I tried to reason with him but he got nasty about it. The next thing I knew I was leaping for his throat. My friends saw the ugly situation that had been developing before I attacked the lieutenant and wrestled me to the ground.
When they got me under control somebody told me that "War Papa." the Top Sergeant, wanted to see me. I figured I was in deep doo-doo. To my astonishment he told me what a good soldier he thought I was (something he'd never told me before) and asked me what happened. I told him. A few hours later I was at the airport with a ticket to Detroit and a hundred dollars of War Papa's money in my pocket.
As soon as I got on the plain I started feeling a little under the weather - like I was coming down with the flu. I had a vague feeling of de ja vu but chalked it up to the many times in recent weeks that I'd boarded a plane. I took my seat next to the window, reclined it and tried to get comfortable. I dozed off. I awoke, not knowing where I was for a minute or how I got there. I looked out of the window on my right. I'll let you guess what I saw.
Remind me to tell you sometime about the girl in the rice paddy and the ghost stores on my grandfather's farm in South Carolina.
Looking forward to hearing similar stories. By the time we're through, maybe we'll have another book. --Jasper